mains in control of air transportation. In other words, for example, if we only had two accidents in the entire year, if we can enact a law that will eliminate one or both, that is what we should do.

We should take action now, so that the lives of no more innocent people will be sacrificed. The issue is safety, and the men that have carried the banner of American air transportation to the highest point in the entire world are asking that this bill be passed, and it should be remembered that these are the same men that are going down with their ships every time an accident occurs.

This bill to promote the safety of scheduled air transportation should be enacted with top speed, because the situation is critical.

We have had enough air-safety investigations. The final reports of most of these investigations have misfired on the main issue, and that is, to take air safety out of politics. The proposed McCarranCrosser bill is the first real thing that has been done to increase air safety. What we need now is action.

The pilots again went on record this year at their convention in Chicago to the effect that air safety should be transferred to the Interstate Commerce Commission. The convention 2 years ago did the same thing. The pilots made the same recommendation before the Copeland Committee a year ago. A few years ago the operators were very much against Interstate Commerce Commission control. Pilots were the first to advocate Interstate Commerce Commission control. The operators want stability and franchise rights, but they are not willing that the pilots should have protection as to fair remuneration and working conditions, which is evidenced by their attempts to nulnify and to delete from proposed legislation, S. 2, the protection that Congress has seen fit to extend to them. Properly protected wages and working conditions have a grave bearing on air safety.

The 85-hour rule has been created to protect and to insure air safety.

The chief Federal flight surgeon, Dr. Whitehead, in the Medical Journal of the Aero Medical Association, wrote an article on the subject of holding the pilot's working hours down to 85 in any 1 month. That is uniform. Before the 85-hour rule was established in the present air-mail law, the pilots were flying 70 or 80 or 90 hours 1 month and 110 or 120 the next month. The 85 rule makes it uniform, and it gives a man an opportunity to figure his job ahead and he can adapt himself to his run and to living conditions, and get the proper rest. It has been a very great help to air safety.

Senator SCHWARTZ. You would like to see that provision retained, would you not?

Mr. BEHNCKE. Exactly.

Before closing, I would like to state that a great many of our country's best pilots have given their lives to the development of a great industry. Here is the list. Sixty-seven in approximately 5 years. Due to the present unsatisfactory set-up of air regulations under the Bureau of Air Commerce, together with their unsatisfactory air investigation procedure, many of these brave men have had the convenient words "pilot error" written unfairly across their final records. It is not only unfair to them, but to their families and children that they leave behind.

With your permission I would like to put this list in the record.

Senator TRUMAN. That may be done.

(The list of pilots referred to and submitted by the witness is here printed in full as follows:)

"To fly west, my friend, is a flight we all must take for a final check."

IN CONSTANT MEMORIAM

Mr. BEHNCKE. The living pilots are asking that this bill which has been introduced by Senator McCarran be passed; and if the dead could speak, gentlemen, they would, I am sure, concur.

We feel very strongly about this bill, because we have had so many of our boys killed, and it has been a constant thing, month after month, and it does not seem to get any better. On the contrary, it seems to be getting worse during the past several months.

I am in a position where I can see all that has happened, and I must take care of the pilots' affairs after they are killed. It is just a terrible thing to have to stand by day after day and month after month and see all these things happening. It is all so unnecessary. I am sure that on the passage of this bill safety will be increased to a point that will surprise all of us. I think the time has come when we should take action to prevent these many terrible air accidents. Senator SCHWARTZ. I would like to have your complete statement go into the record, because you have had to condense it.

You made some reference to frequent changes, due to politics and other harmful influences. Has it been your experience that the Government has been outbid for the services of valuable career men and they have gone out into private industry?

Mr. BEHNCKE. Yes. I think that is the situation. They come from the industry and stay there temporarily and then go back to the industry.

Senator SCHWARTZ. There ought to be some remedy for that if we can find one.

Mr. BEHNCKE. That is right. I think it should not be made so that an incompetent man stays there, but as long as he does his job he should remain and we should have the benefit of his experience.

Senator SCHWARTZ. The thought that I have in mind is that the public should be protected against losing valuable men, either because of voluntary retirement or because of being outbid right along. Mr. BEHNCKE. That is right.

Senator SCHWARTZ. And one of the ways to bring about the desired result is to increase the salaries of the career men.

Mr. BEHNCKE. That is right.

Senator SCHWARTZ. And another way would be that when a man voluntarily resigns he should be ineligible for private employment for a period of time in the same line of business.

Mr. BEHNCKE. That is right.

Senator TRUMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Behncke.

Senator SCHWARTZ. I would like to state that it has been my personal observation and experience that in governmental bureaus I have found two classes of career men going out of the service. One is the man who is peculiarly valuable and intelligent in his line of activity, and the other is the man who becomes too pestiferous, in the eyes of private industry, in looking after the interests of the Government, and so he is hired out. I think there should be some protection against both those situations.

Senator TRUMAN. The subcommittee will take a recess until 2 o'clock this afternoon, and we will try to get through by hearing Colonel Gorrell.

(Whereupon, at 12 noon, the subcommittee took a recess until 2 p. m. of the same day.)

AFTER RECESS

The subcommittee resumed its session on the expiration of the recess at 2 p. m.

Senator TRUMAN. Senator McCarran, we are ready to hear you.

STATEMENT OF HON. PAT MCCARRAN, SENATOR FROM NEVADAResumed

Senator MCCARRAN. Mr. Chairman, I desire at this time to take up some of the statements made by Mr. Crowley, the Solicitor of the Post Office Department, and I shall refer to them by the page numbers of the record as it has been produced so far.

Mr. Crowley, at page 110 of the printed hearings, stated as follows, referring to payments to mail contractors:

In 1936 that rate was increased from $8,800,000 to $12,034,000. That increase is due, partially, to additional schedules that the Department has put on, where the service required it, and a considerable amount of it was due to an increase of the pay rates.

At page 117 of the record, he reiterates, as follows:

The

The Interstate Commerce Commission has increased the pay rates. amounts are stated in there, and the cost has jumped from $8,800,000 in 1933 to $12,000,000 in 1936.

The Post Office Department has a deficit right now, unless it has been covered by the last deficiency appropriation, of approximately $935,000—almost a million dollars.

Mr. Chairman, if the last-mentioned amount is to be taken as typical, the Post Office's own figures show that less than 25 percent of the current fiscal year's air-mail estimated deficit of $984,000 was caused by increased rates. On January 13, 1937, Charles P. Graddick, superintendent, Division of Air Mail Service, testified to the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives that the deficit in question was composed of the following elements: Additional amount necessary to maintain the service in effect at the beginning of the fiscal year, which was not curtailed due to the expressed intention of Congress, $250,000.

Rate increase prescribed by Interstate Commerce Commission for route AM-33, operated by Inter-Island Airways, $12,400.

Rate increase prescribed by Interstate Commerce Commission for routes AM-33 and AM-16, operated by Northwest Airlines, $221,600. Increases resulting from excess poundage, $375,000.

Higher performance of service, $100,000.

Mileage readjustments, $25,000.

Those items made a total of $984,000.

Mr. Crowley said, at page 118 of the printed hearings:

This bill would freeze the present air service. It would create a monopoly with the present contractors. No little fellow with a new idea, with plenty of capital, could go out and establish a line from, say, Wyoming to California. He would have to get a certificate of convenience and necessity before he could do it. The law right now does not prohibit an independent citizen from establishing an air line-an air transport line at all. If you prohibit that sort of thing, then air transport lines would not be established except by air-mail carriers. Of course, the cost to the Government would be prohibitive.

This statement could not be made on the basis of an unprejudiced reading of the bill.

It is true that there is nothing in existing legislation to prohibit an individual citizen from establishing an air line. But it is likewise true that in the proposed bill there is nothing to prevent "a little fellow with a new idea, with plenty of capital" from establishing an air line. Any interest may establish a new line at any time that it makes the showing required by public convenience and necessity. If it has plenty of capital, and if it can show to the expert transportation body that the public interest will be served by a new line, then it is entitled to a certificate. The certificating procedure does nothing except to prevent someone with inadequate facilities, or without responsibility, from entering the public service, and to prevent the inauguration of service when it would be unjustified. The principle of convenience and necessity is indispensable if we are to have adequate transportation. It is not the principle of monopoly. It is the principle of order, economy, safety, and adequacy of service.

The witness likewise states that no lines would be established except by air-mail carriers, which would make the cost to the Government prohibitive. This is no more likely to occur under the proposed bill than under existing law. If an independent air line can institute service under existing law without mail, it would still be able to institute service without mail under the proposed bill. Mr. Crowley, at page 118 of the printed hearings, said this;

There has been no thought given in this bill to consultation with the State Department, which deals with the foreign countries involved. Neither does it provide for consultation with the Department of Commerce, as has been pointed out by Mr. Mulligan, of the Department of Commerce.

We have an Interdepartmental Committee on International Civil Aviation, which has very cautiously and carefully gone into aviation problems affecting this country throughout the world. It has made studies of routes in Europe and Australia, of additional services to South America, and to other places. Just speaking privately, I personally think that this committee's knowledge is too valuable not to be utilized by Congress when it begins to formulate a policy for the handling of foreign air-transport lines.

If the substitute S. 2 were adopted, it would be the first piece of legislation recognizing the existence of and the continuity of the very interdepartmental committee which the witness commends. By section 305 (c) of the substitute, provision is made for giving notice of all applications for foreign transportation to the representatives of the Department of State, Treasury, Post Office, and Commerce, who comprise the interdepartmental committee. It is likewise provided that such notice will be given to any successor to this committee if the President designates one. Thus formal recognition of this committee is made, although it exists today purely informally, without the sanction even of an executive order. In this way the weight and importance of its advice is recognized by Congress, Quite obviously its recommendations will carry far with the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Mr. Crowley, at page 118 of the printed hearings, stated:

The present law prohibits the elimination of competition by merger of parallel routes under competitive ownership. The proposed law would allow such consolidation. The present law prohibits holding companies, banking groups, and manufacturers from securing control of an air-mail contract. The proposed bill would permit that. This proposed bill breaks down those restric tions.