We wouldn't have to do this if we were at war as a matter of fact, because the power to commandeer inheres in the Executive when he is exercising his duties as Commander in Chief.

He may commandeer, but he must have, as a groundwork, those constitutional grounds: that the public danger is immediate, imminent, and impending, and the emergency in the public service is extreme and imperative and such as will not admit of delay or resort to any other source of supply.

Now, that has been held that way-not in exactly that language, for I have edited it--but it has been held that, in time of war, he may take a ship, he may take other things, where the groundwork is found.

Now, we are at work as a Congress, exercising really a war power in a time of peace, and our answer must be, if we are charged with doing an extraordinary thing, as a Congress, that we visualize this time as a time of emergency, imminent peril to our security, and for that reason, as a matter of self-preservation, we exercise this power.

Senator CHANDLER. The declaration of a national emergency by the President takes us out of the peaceful class temporarily, and we are in a little different position.

Senator AUSTIN. A little different position than we were before the declaration.

Senator CHANDLER. And when we speculate that the President has placed us in this position because of an emergency that was apparent to him, we have got to deal with it—not as before, in peaceful times, but as in a national emergency and impending danger.

Senator AUSTIN. I agree with that, for these reasons, as I have expressed, that we are attempting to exercise some extraordinary powers not exercisable under the Constitution in time of peace.

I much prefer this last draft, because there are set forth, in very clear and good language, these three points, which are the tripod to support the authority. That is why I like this last one best of the three.

Senator DOWNEY. May I intervene with a question?

Senator REYNOLDS. Certainly.

Senator DOWNEY. Do I understand, from your comments so far, that you would favor, under this law, giving our Government the power to seize newspapers and radios, if, in its judgment, that was necessary for self-defense?

Senator AUSTIN. We are not called upon to pass upon that. This doesn't cover that.

Senator DOWNEY. I don't quite understand. Didn't you comment that you did favor Senator Chandler's-

Senator AUSTIN (interposing): Yes.

Senator DOWNEY. Well, suppose the President of the United States should say, "As a matter of self-defense we believe it is necessary to control and mold public opinion, and therefore we think it is necessary that the Government operate the newspapers and radios, and we hereby take them over."

Senator AUSTIN. I wouldn't do that.

Senator DowNEY. You wouldn't favor that?

Senator AUSTIN. I wouldn't favor that.

Senator DOWNEY. Don't you think this bill clearly permits that?

Senator AUSTIN. I don't think it does.

Senator DOWNEY. Then let's put in a provision that this bill does not give the Government the right to commandeer newspapers and radios and other vehicles of propaganda.

There was another great American justice who said that "power tends to corrupt all men; and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely."

Now, we are here, for a limited period, giving absolute power, and I have heard Senators on the floor of the Senate, in a moment of high emotionalism, absolutely declare that we should meet dictatorial methods abroad with dictatorial methods here, and one of the ways that could be done was to control radios and newspapers.

Senator CHANDLER. If they said to take anything in the country that is necessary for national defense, I am in accord with that statement.

Senator DOWNEY. Including newspapers and radios?

Senator CHANDLER. Anything in the world, for that matter, that is necessary for national defense. I would say the Government should be able to take anything that it considers necessary for the defense of the country. If we are going to make any exceptions to that, then I say that is silly, that is foolish, and I am not going to be for that. Senator LEE. That is right. Whenever you take flesh and blood, how can you go any further than that?

Senator CHANDLER. You can't go any further than that and you have answered your own question, Senator Austin, by saying, “if you believe it is in the interests of the defense of the United States," to take some property.

It gets attractive to some of the fellows to defend the newspapers and the radios; it is not attractive to me. I don't think his premise is right.

I don't think it is going to be necessary to take a newspaper or radio to defend the United States, but, if it is, I say: Take it.

If the Government has the right to take my life, it should certainly have the right to take anything else it needs in the interests of national defense. The United States isn't defending anything else you have got that is worth as much anyway.

His premise is wrong. He puts you in a position where you have to answer the question. I will answer it for you.

Senator AUSTIN. Senators, may I suggest this to you: We are exercising the power today. Now, we have to examine our own conduct, and it is not a question of whether it would be good judgment to take all newspapers and all means for communication, if necessary for national defense, it is a question of whether we think it is necessary or not at this time.

We are exercising this power. If it is necessary to put a limitation in here, affecting the present situation, or in conformity with the present situation, that would exclude from it the taking of the last cow and the taking of the newspapers, I am for it.

That is one reason, I think, I expressed the thought, when I suggested that I wanted to offer later a modification of the authority, so that you couldn't destroy civil industry in this country, don't you see?

If the time came when we were confronted with the need of taking means for communication, for our national defense, in time of peace, we wouldn't hesitate, as a Congress, to do it.

Senator DOWNEY. Yes; but, Senator Austin—

Senator SCHWARTZ (interposing). If we, in the meantime, are not permitted to build up a sufficient Army and force of defenders, and there is a declaration of war, we won't have time, after a declaration of war, to do all these things.

Senator CHANDLER. Under the guise of protection against an imaginary threat against a radio or a newspaper, you propose to limit the President so he can't take a German-controlled patent, which might save the lives of our boys. Do you mean to tell me there is any sense in that?

I don't believe the President is going to take a newspaper or a radio, but, whenever you make your premise, if you make the statement, "if he needs it to defend the United States of America," I will say, "Yes; take it."

Senator BRIDGES. Why do you have any objection, then, to having Senator Downey exclude certain things?

Senator CHANDLER. I am not going to suppose that the President of the United States, elected three times by the people, is going to take silly things like that.

Senator GURNEY. He is not always going to be the President.

Senator CHANDLER. He will be President while this emergency lasts. Senator THOMAS of Idaho. We hope he will.

Senator DOWNEY. If I may intervene with one comment: It is my opinion, of course-Senator Chandler will probably differ with methat 80 percent of the United States Senate will never consent to a bill, passed at this time, which will give our Government the power to commandeer newspapers or radios.

Senator LEE. Certainly not; nobody wants it.

Senator DOWNEY. I say they won't pass this bill. I want to point this out, that we can't assume, in any eventuality, that our Government is not going to abuse power; history of thousands of years demonstrates the only way you can protect free government is to guard against the abuse of power by future governments, regardless of the guise under which that power was originally demanded.

We are passing on principles, not on the character of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Senator CHANDLER. There are plenty of people who haven't got any country any more either, because they were too late and too narrow, and limited their authority, and didn't see it. If we do that, we won't have a country either.

Judge PATTERSON. I deem it of fully equal importance to equip our Army now as if we were in actual war. It may be the means of preventing war, to do it now, and I would hope that no crippling amendments, limiting us now, as distinguished from what may be the case in actual war, would be introduced into the bill-measures such as limiting it, say, that a plant must not be slowed down.

We can't get any machine tools under that now, gentlemen. You would be met at every place by the statement: "This hurts my plant,' or, "It stops my plant," if you like. I say that, if they are necessary to the national defense, if they are necessary to equip our soldiers in the field, these other things, desirable enough in themselves, have to take a subordinate place.

Mr. Cor. On that particular point, the exercise of priorities powers, under the Vinson bill, is taking away the source of materials from

many of these plants, and it isn't on the question of requisitioning the equipment that they have that they are being hurt or in danger of being hurt; it is on the exercise of priorities powers, removing material from their use.

Judge PATTERSON. That is more drastic power than anything in this bill. There will be a real hardship in the application of the priorities system, for future production.

Senator DOWNEY. May I intervene with one comment? I want to say, in the first place: I totally disagree with the Secretary, in relation to the danger that this Nation is in. I don't believe that, with the population we now have, and our preparation and materials, that we stand in the slightest danger of conquest from Hitler.

Now, Judge Patterson has a different idea of that than I do.

Judge PATTERSON. I am responsible for military defense; that is why I have that point of view.

Senator DOWNEY. I have seen what Senator Austin is endeavoring to provide against operate in the State of California, to the destruction of lives and wealth and well-being of tens of thousands of people.

If we continue to do what the Army and Navy want us to do, and convert this Nation into an armed camp, with a production of $3,000,000,000 monthly of arms and material, at the end of this emergency we may well expect collapse and revolution.

Now, let me give you one express example: There is one factory in Los Angeles, employing 350 mechanics. It has been manufacturing machinery for the petroleum industry.

We no longer need priorities for petroleum, and, on November 1, that entire factory, with all of its machinery, may be closed down and all of its workers discharged, probably a foreclosure of a mortgage. I can't tell you the hundreds of tragedies that may follow that.

I have endeavored to help secure defense contracts for that particular factory without any encouragement from anybody here in Washington. Apparently, Washington doesn't want his machinery, doesn't want him, for war purposes, and that is only one of scores of cases that have come to my attention. There are literally scores of factories in Los Angeles that, as Mr. Coy says, are facing shut-down because of priorities.

This bill won't add to that, but what I do say is that I believe Senator Austin is preeminently right. This is a question of balance.

To what extent should we destroy civil industry, and free rights, in building up against a conqueror who, right now, is fighting for his very existence, and possibly failing, over in Europe-a country half our population 4,000 miles away?

It is a question of balance, and I agree with Senator Austin, and I do hope some limitation will be put in this measure that will, to the fullest extent, maintain the stability in industry in the United States, because I know when this war boom is over the economic and social difficulties facing us will be titanic.

I know what is going to happen in Los Angeles. We are going to divert 50 percent of our men and material to war industries and, when those war industries stop, if Hitler would collapse-a month, a year, or maybe 6 months from now-conditions in Los Angeles would almost precipitate a revolution.

Senator SCHWARTZ. If we are not prepared and the Japs come over there, when they get through with Los Angeles there won't be any business there at all.

Senator CHANDLER. I get out there sometimes and find them perfectly oblivious to any danger at all.

Senator DOWNEY. I have talked to military men and they say Japan couldn't send an expeditionary force of 50,000.

Senator CHANDLER. They wouldn't have to. They could park an aircraft carrier out there, and you haven't got an antiaircraft gun on the entire coast. I have been all the way up and down it. You haven't got any defense.

Senator DOWNEY. Mr. Chairman, if I may only make one more com

ment:

This is the kind of hysteria and vehemence that I want to guard against.

Senator CHANDLER. I am not predicting a revolution in this country, and you are.

People like my friend Downey, without knowing it, have been more responsible for the destruction of more countries than anybody else. I am not going to be responsible for the destruction of my country if I can help it, and I am not going to speculate on preparing adequately for its defense, and I am not going to limit the President of the United States and the Secretary of War, and others who are trying to get the country in a position to defend itself.

He says that a year ago we were hopeless and helpless, and that is right, and everybody knows it.

I am not going to be willing to speculate. Then you are going to argue here for a long time on whether we shall keep the Army we have keep the men in the Army-or whether we shall let them go back home. That is silly, too. You are spending billions of dollars for that, and I am not going to be a party to one comment.

Senator DOWNEY. I want to say to the Senator that, before I ever entered the United States Senate, I was on record for a professional Army, a decent army of a million men, and for a two-ocean Navy, and for a dominating air force.

I am still for all of those things. I was for all of those things when most of these gentlemen who are indulging in criticism about me were not concerned about them.

I was advocating, 3 and 4 years ago, 50,000 airplanes, a million professional soldiers, and a two-ocean navy, and I still stand for those things, and, consequently, having seen what was going to happen in this country, I am not going to be driven into a hysteria, where I am going to help destroy 50 percent of the industries in the Untied States in trying to meet a man who may never even come over here.

Senator CHANDLER. That is such a far fetched statement to be uttered as an argument against giving the President the simple power to get the necessary equipment to defend the United States-to make a statement that it is going to destroy 50 percent of the industry in the country is ridiculous.

Senator LEE. Can't we come to some agreement here on who is to speak? Let's take it in turns.