QUINQUENNIAL CENSUS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1941 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The Committee met at 10 a. m., the Hon. Guy L. Moser (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Members of the committee, I want to direct your attention to the fact that at the conclusion of the hearings yesterday morning, I was approached and asked to call Mr. May of the Office of Production Management first, instead of Mr. Capt. Mr. Capt said that it did not matter to him. If it is agreeable to the members of the committee, I will make the change. STATEMENT OF STACY MAY, CHIEF, BUREAU OF RESEARCH The CHAIRMAN. Proceed with your story, Mr. May. Gentlemen, I represent the Bureau of Research and Statistics, Office of Production Management, and it is the job of that Bureau to attempt to collect and have ready for the operating divisions on the production side the information they need in order to be able to do their job. I have no direct interest in the Department of Commerce as such, or in its position, but I do have a tough job on my hands in attempting to get this requested information together in order that production can go forward. I have been a Government employee for 15 months, but I am new to the Government and had not been employed by it before the defense program. I came with the firm resolve not to build up more of a new organization than we needed but to attempt to use the resources of the old-line organizations wherever possible instead of building duplicative machinery, because that seemed to me sensible and economical. We are faced at the present time, and increasingly so, with the task of getting together more and more information about the operation of industry, and that becomes more and more acute as materials get scarcer and there are not enough to go around. That is, you have your preference rating controls in the picture, It is also true that we need a vast amount of information as to where the facilities are that can be used to produce the munitions of war for which you gentlemen had appropriated funds and which it is our task to attempt to produce as quickly as possible. From the beginning, when we tried to get the kind of information we needed, in spite of the fact that there was the greatest of good will to cooperate, we found great difficulty in getting the detailed information that was needed for defense purposes from such agencies as the Census, and consequently we were faced with the question-shall we go out and try to get this information all over again, when it is right here and has been collected and people have been bothered once for it, or is there a way we can get it from the Census? Our problem is a little bit different, often, from the problem of a number of other regulatory bodies or agencies. Some of our problems are regulatory, such as the distribution of materials, but one of the chief things we want, and want continuously and are now being asked for more demandingly than ever by Mr. Odlum, who has come in with a very firm resolve to spread contracts as widely as possible-we have to do it now, gentlemen, because the day of building new facilities is over, because the machinetool industry is mortgaged for two years in terms of all the production it can possibly turn out-Mr. Odlum wants to know where we can find concerns who have the facilities that can be used for this gun, or that component of a plane, or for this tank or component of a tank. The Census has a complete list of 186 industrial establishments in the country, and while we can get over-all figures about those establishments, we cannot get from them an identification of the establishments and a sufficient break-down to allow us to do the job we want. We found ourselves confronted also, with a big machine-tabulating job, in connection with the distribution of raw materials, in connection with keeping track of our preference ratings even, that are being issued by the men in the service, who certify that this amount of material, steel, iron, copper, is needed for defense production-there are 50,000 of those coming in, and keeping track of those, finding out what preference ratings have been granted, trying to keep track and see whether there is any relationship between the takings under preference ratings and actual production, trying to discover whether they are buying too far ahead for contracts on which production is not to come into existence for a year or two. There are now something over 600 people in the Bureau of the Census that, on a reimbursable basis, we are paying out of defense funds to have the job done over in the Bureau of the Census. They are doing some of these tabulation jobs for us. But I think the whole story is being handicapped, because we cannot have full access to the information that already is in the Census, most of which is wanted to help us get contracts to people, rather than to regulate them in any way. Faced with that, my job was this, my problem was this: Should we try at the present time, when it is terribly hard to recruit personnel who are skilled in statistical work-should we try to recruit a big new force, somewhat comparable in size to the Bureau of the Census and should we take defense funds and have them spent for building up this huge mechanical operation in our own establishment? Should we try to buy or rent from International Business Machines new complement of machines which are extremely difficult to get, and probably may be entirely impracticable to get at this time? I know it would be extremely difficult and it would take a long time to try to assemble sufficient. Next, should we have business concerns, who already are being asked in terms of the ordinary censuses a great many questions that we want to ask-should we have them asked those questions twice? You see, if we get permission to have the Census give us that information, why couldn't we simply take over that information? The point is, we need it currently. We have to know what the use patterns are, if we are going to go over from priorities to allocations, as we are in field after field. We will have to know who is going to be cut off; who are the people who use copper, and in what quantities, and if there isn't enough to go around and certain cuts have to be made, who is going to be hit by it. There is a tremendous fund of information there that has to be gathered currently and it isn't enough to know what they took last year, or what inventories they had a year ago, or 2 years ago. We have to know what the situation is now if the job is ever going to be done on a sensible basis. With these considerations in mind, we went to the Census and said, "All things considered, we think you have the staff and you have the equipment that can do a great many of these large-scale operations that we are dependent on. Is there any way in which we can get you to do them and to give it to us at a time and in the form that we need it?" And, so far, there have been just the two hitches that I suggested. First, the Census has specific information broken down by specific plants that it believes it cannot give us. I do not know anything about the merits of that particular argument, but I do know we have been unable to get it from the Bureau of the Census, and in quite good faith they tell us they are not at liberty to give us that information in a certain form. They are perfectly willing to undertake the special jobs we want done on a reimbursable basis, which we do by taking defense funds and assigning them to this particular task, which is all right, but, if the Census could do it on its own funds, it seems to me it would effect a real saving for the Government. The third hitch, and it is a very real one, is that in gathering this information that we absolutely need in the name of the O. P. M., Census, when it is making a special investigation, instead of operating under its regular census activities, according to my understanding, is forced to have the returns made upon a voluntary basis rather than on a compulsory basis, and I think that when you are asking a man about his inventories and attempting to get a complete picture of whether they are hoarding, and as to whether a concern really needs a particular quota of metal at the particular time, whether the stocks are high enough, and all that sort of thing, then I think your returns have to come through on a compulsory basis rather than a voluntary basis for that kind of control during wartime. That is our whole case for coming to the Census and asking them whether they can do this work: we feel it will save money, it will save duplication of establishment, and I think in the long run it will save business people from being asked at different intervals almost the same questions, overlapping questions, but where the time element is such that we have to get that information currently. The issues that arise beyond those things are beyond my control or beyond the focal point of my particular interest. Mr. LELAND FORD. I agree with what you say. I do not believe there is anybody at this table who wants to do anything that would hamper the defense program. We want to go ahead with the program if we can. What you say is true, and you have made a precise statement. My hitch, and we have our hitches as well as you do, is that I have a letter from some of the independent oil people who are scared 63971-41-3 to death of Commissar Ickes coming in and getting information whereby he will seek to cut off the production of oil wells. They are trying out there to stop the production of those wells. For instance, a man has a well with a capacity of a thousand barrels, and they have not permitted him to produce over 250 barrels a day, and then they come East and say there is a shortage of oil. Very frankly, one of the things those people have been up against right along is giving that information out, which may be used in a punitive way to get even with somebody, politically, or otherwise. And I think they are sound in withholding that information. I will read a portion of this letter. Unquestionably, Mr. Ickes will try to use illegal and unauthorized priorities control to club the independent oil man to attain his own long-sought objective. That objective they claim is to put the oil people out of business and take over as Commissar of oil production under Ickes, although I believe oil is one of the most necessary things in the defense program. That is only a sample. What assurance have we that these figures, or these facts, will not go beyond the O. P. M. and defense program uses? I agree with you that perhaps they are necessary, but I think that is a fair question; what assurance have we, let us put it, that the use of these figures will not be abused? That is one of my hitches. You have yours, and we have ours, and the Census Bureau has them. That is an important thing to the Census Bureau, to keep the people knowing that the figures, when given, will not be abused. I think that is why the Census Bureau has been successful. Mr. RANKIN. That has nothing to do with this bill, I will say to the gentleman from California. Mr. LELAND FORD. Oh, yes; it has. Mr. RANKIN. I do not think it has a thing in the world to do with it. Mr. LELAND FORD. What assurance have we? They can come in and get these figures-you know, and I know that a lot of our people will come in, and they could put the stamp of national defense on any product they want to, and it is pretty hard to determine the thing. If I had assurance, and knew in my own heart that there would be no misuse of these figures, there is no question in my mind that I would be for this. Mr. RANKIN. Let me ask you Mr. LELAND FORD. Let me finish. Is there any way that we can iron that out? I may be asking an impossible question. Mr. MAY. I cannot answer the question, sir, because it seems to me that unless you can trust your arms of Government who are concerned with defense to use their powers solely for the promotion of defense activities and defense needs, that there is no answer to your question, and that the only answer to it is to get rid of personnel that you cannot trust. Mr. LELAND FORD. I will say this; there isn't a man in the Government today that I would have more trust in than Jesse Jones and other heads of our defense program, particularly in the Army and Navy. Mr. KRAMER. I agree with you, if you stop with Jesse Jones. Mr. RANKIN. If you are going to put it on that basis, we would never have any census at all. Those figures are used. I use a great |