PROBLEMS OF THE DOMESTIC TEXTILE INDUSTRY

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1958

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE,

Providence, R. I.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a. m., the Honorable John O. Pastore, chairman, presiding.

Senator PASTORE. The hearing will please come to order.

The hearing this morning is the first in a series of field hearings which this special subcommittee is initiating pursuant to Senate Resolution 287 of the 85th Congress. The full text of the resolution has been submitted in the record during the course of our initial hearings which were conducted in Washington on July 8 to July 10.

Under the terms of that resolution, this committee is authorized to conduct a full and complete study of all factors affecting commerce and production in the textile industry in the United States, including but not limited to (a) the extent, nature, and causes of the decline in interstate and foreign commerce in textile-mill products; (b) the decline in employment in the textile industry; (c) the effects of policies and programs of the Federal Government on the industry; and (d) the impact of commercial policies of other nations on the industry.

I believe that it is fitting that we commence our field hearings here in Rhode Island where the textile industry was born and where it has constituted an important segment of our economy for generations. Unfortunately the prosperity which has been enjoyed by industry in general since the close of World War II has been singularly lacking in the textile industry as a whole, although some segments of it-the newer synthetic branches in particular-have increased their production materially. Over the past 10 years, while our national population and income has substantially increased, production in the textile industry has remained relatively constant while there has been a sharp decline in employment.

Through historic and economic circumstances we in New England have long depended upon the textile industry as a major employer of thousands of our skilled labor force. Consequently we are especially conscious of this sharp employment decline and are rightfully concerned about it. However, I must emphasize that other regions of our Nation where the textile industry is located have been likewise seriously affected by this employment decline. It was for all these reasons that the Senate resolution under which we are operating is all-inclusive and calls for an investigation of the textile industry on a national level.

Staff members assigned to these hearings: Dr. William H. Miernyk, Harold I. Baynton, and William L. Kohler.

It is our purpose to develop a sound record of the causes of the lag in textile prosperity and the consequent problems which accompany it and to arrive at some definite conclusions as to what the Federal Government may do to assist the industry in solving them.

I am particularly happy that we have had such a widespread demonstration of interest in the work of the committee which is evidenced by the large number of witnesses who have asked to appear and testify today. On behalf of myself and the other members of this subcommittee, and particularly Senator Thurmond, I want to welcome and thank those of you who have appeared here today to give us your help and your suggestions.

I might add that we intend to continue these field hearings next week in Hartford, Conn., and in Concord, N. H., and the following week in South Carolina and North Carolina.

To those of you who are interested in this matter on an overall basis, this will advise you that your testimony here today will not be your final day in court, as it were, and some suggestions may be more extensively covered in these subsequent hearings.

Because of our lengthy list of witnesses, I am going to ask for your cooperation and your patience. The committee is prepared to sit all day and into the evening if necessary to make certain that every one of you will have a full opportunity to give us the benefit of your expert views. It is not my intention to cut anyone short; but, if some of you so desire, you may summarize your prepared statements in your oral testimony and file your full statement for the record.

I might add, parenthetically, that we have no specifically committed agenda. We want to be as accommodating to you as we can possibly be.

If there is anyone who has a pressing engagement that compels him to leave at any certain time, I wish you would let our staff know about it, because, after all, for the large part I think most of you are so much interested in this subject that you will be here during all the time that we are here. It may not make much difference when you testify, but I do assure you this-and I think Senator Thurmond joins me in this expression-we are going to stay here until the last man has testified to his last word.

Our first witness this morning is our distinguished Congressman from the Second District of the State of Rhode Island, the Honorable John E. Fogarty, who will now testify.

You may proceed in any way you like.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN E. FOGARTY, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, SECOND DISTRICT, RHODE ISLAND

Mr. FOGARTY. Mr. Chairman, my name is John E. Fogarty. I represent the Second Congressional District of the State of Rhode Island.

May I compliment you, Mr. Chairman, for taking time out of a busy schedule, especially at this time of the year, to conduct these hearings in Rhode Island and New England and the eastern section of our country on behalf of an industry which can certainly be called a sick industry at this time.

I also would like to compliment Senator Thurmond for coming all the way from South Carolina into our midst to help us solve a problem that is similar to his in his area, and also the staff of your committee.

I am not appearing here today as an expert on the textile industry. I am here as a citizen as well as an elected representative of Rhode Island, who is keenly and perhaps painfully aware of the fact that the welfare of this industry is vital to the economic well-being of the State of Rhode Island.

This is not a new conviction on my part. I have held this view for many years and have tried to do something about it. Indeed, it has shocked and angered me to find a tendency in some quarters here in Rhode Island to take the position that because the textile industry has suffered a severe and continuing contraction that we would be better off without any textile plants at all.

The notion has been fostered that once textiles are gotten rid of, some new industry will immediately spring up to provide jobs and prosperity.

Surely by now this illusion should have been dispelled. Like any other rational person, I want to see as wide a diversification of industry as possible in my State, but we in Rhode Island must work harder and more effectively together to attract so-called growth industries. That is, industries for whose product the demand is on the upgrade, but experience of the past 20 years in Rhode Island, and, yes, in almost all New England textile manufacturing centers, is that when the basic textile plants close up, or textile employment diminishes, it takes years before any significant alternative employment is established in these areas. The impact of the textile decline in the United States has nowhere been felt more critically than here in our New England area and in Rhode Island. This, of course, is due to Rhode Island's heavy dependence on textile manufacturing for jobs.

In 1947, 44 percent of our manufacturing employment was in textiles. Since that time, through 1956, our textile employment has decreased by 41 percent. There has been further loss since 1956, and vet textile manufacturing is still Rhode Island's largest employer with approximately 31 percent of the manufacturing total.

Rhode Island's stake in the future of the textile industry remains vital.

From my point as an elected public official, as well as from the standpoint of a concerned private individual, the human distress caused by the contraction or migration of an industry by technological changes or other causes, is the paramount consideration here.

Moreover, I believe that less attention has been devoted to this purely human phase of the textile industry problem than to the complex economic causes of the overall decline.

Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, I respectfully but earnestly and insistently urge that this subcommittee attempt to find out what such a drastic curtailment in employment really has meant to the men and women formerly employed, and their families affected by the decline in textiles.

We can make guesses as to what such an economic catastrophe does to people, but I submit we should really learn and analyze what the effect has been on these flesh and blood individuals.

As I understand the instructions which the Senate gave this subcommittee for the scope and purpose of the investigation, you are to endeavor both to identify and clarify the reasons why the textile industry has declined and to offer proposals for their correction.

It is my conviction that if the American public, the taxpayers as a whole could be shown through careful and expert firsthand studies how families are hurt and how our human resources are wasted and often ruined by these ups and downs in business and industry, it would become much less difficult to mobilize the necessary legislative actions to alleviate and correct these conditions.

We in Rhode Island, we in New England, have had this textile problem on our doorstep for at least two decades now. It is painfully evident that all the effort expended by the industry itself, by labor and by government, State or Federal, hasn't been enough. Your subcommittee will need to arouse, as it will, the widest public interest in this question if it is to win congressional support for whatever recommendations your studies determine must be made.

Therefore, I would like to stress and restress my point that the human phase of this textile problem should be given special and particular attention, because in the long run our legislative decisions must be shaped by our consideration for the human beings who make up our local and national community.

I take it for granted that this subcommittee, under the able guidance of our junior Senator from Rhode Island, Senator John Pastore, and his associates, will do a thorough job on the technical and economic aspects of the textile problem.

In passing, let me suggest that this subcommittee may find it necessary to continue its work over a period of at least a couple of years if it is to do a complete job of research, and then to frame the legislation that will be necessary.

I have not been able to study and absorb the entire testimony offered at the initial hearings in Washington this past July. It is clear to me, however, that in those sections, this subcommittee was able to accumulate a most impressive body of expert testimony.

I strongly recommend that all responsible citizens of Rhode Island and New England and everywhere else for that matter obtain the printed copies of these hearings and attempt to familiarize themselves with as much of this data as possible.

I have tried to keep track of the textile situation through the various reports made by the New England Governors' Textile Commission. This Commission has been doing excellent work, almost without staff. I believe that additional governmental resources should be made available to this group which is representative of the three major interests involved, the public, the manufacturers, and the workers. I suggest that a similar tripartite body should be set up in all States where textiles are produced. This would include the Middle Atlantic and Southeastern areas of our country. Possibly even those States which produce the raw cotton and wool which is later processed in the factories should adopt such a setup.

I am sure this subcommittee will give this and many other such suggestions full consideration. What I want to urge upon my fellow New Englanders is that we cease quibbling about the textile problem, that we stop wringing our hands and start some concrete ac

tivities aimed first at saving whatever industry is left, and gradually rebuilding for the future in those areas where we ascertain that the industry has departed for good that we set about securing alternative types of enterprise, but to achieve any appreciable redevelopment of former textile areas and when I say "textiles" in this connection, it would apply, I am sure, to distressed coal and rail areas, or any other hurt by plant migration or industry shrinkage.

We will, in my considered judgment, require Federal legislation along the lines of the distressed area redevelopment bill passed by the Congress this year but which was vetoed a couple of weeks ago by the President of the United States.

Textiles is not the only industry in the United States which has problems, but it is certain that textiles is the biggest and most widespread industrial problem of its kind now before us as a nation.

The Congress will necessarily have to play a major role in bringing about recovery in textiles. The administrative agencies, which up to now have consistently and persistently tried to brush off and ignore the textile problem must face up to the facts and gear themselves to do a real job of providing all kinds of technical assistance and whatever else is needed.

In the long run, however, the manufacturers have to carry the major share of this load. The employees, through unions of their own choosing, must be given every opportunity of sharing the task. The lack of genuine collective bargaining in wide areas of the textile industry, happily this is not true of our own section, is one of the factors that will make recovery more difficult.

Finally, the public as a whole must play a part. We who do not ourselves work in the textiles must insist that this large-scale economic and social problem be dealt with on a national level so that whole regions shall not be handicapped by the failings of one large and essential industry. It is up to us, members of the public at large, to be prepared to help out wherever we can to get this enormous job of rehabilitation and recovery underway.

The needs of the community as a whole, the national interest, requires that this textile problem be solved as rapidly as possible.

In conclusion, let me say that I believe that the Small Business Administration could do much more than it is now doing to help the small textile manufacturer both in financing and in reserve set aside in order to preserve a continuity of competitive enterprise in this industry. There has been too much concentration of economic power in large industrial enterprises in this field to the disadvantage of our national economic health, tax considerations may have made this possible, and I am sure that your committee will hear more about these problems as your hearings progress today.

In my view, every consideration ought to be given to help those small business organizations that are so important to our regional and national prosperity.

Senator PASTORE. Thank you very much, Congressman Fogarty. Senator Thurmond?

Senator THURMOND. I have no questions, but I wish to congratulate you on your statement.

Senator PASTORE. Dr. Miernyk?

Dr. MIERNYK. No questions.