I may say that I understand that it was patterned largely after the Interstate Commerce Commission's system of accounts for rail carriers, with the necessary substitutions of nomenclature and terms to adapt it to the aircraft business. I have just two more items. As to the first one, I should like to call your attention to the fact that section 10 of the Air Mail Act as amended gives to the Post Office Department the right of access to all of the books, records, accounts, and papers of the Interstate Commerce Commission, relating in any manner to air mail and air-mail contracts. In only one instance has the Post Office Department exercised that right, and at that time we understood that our facilities and our aid were entirely satisfactory. Senator MCCARRAN. What case was that, if you recall? Mr. HALEY. That was the Northwest Air Lines case, as I recall, and I believe it occurred last summer or, at any rate, last year. Senator MCCARRAN. Has Mr. Crowley ever visited you at your office? Mr. HALEY. I was about to take that up in what little I still had to say about cooperation. Senator MCCARRAN. All right. Mr. HALEY. I do not care to say much about the cooperation, Mr. Chairman, but the Interstate Commerce Commission has had occasion many times in the past to work with and cooperate with other Departments of the Government. I might mention a few: The United States Railroad Administration, the Shipping Board Bureau of the Department of Commerce, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, whose chairman testified before you on Thursday. So far as I have ever known, there has never been any thought on the part of the other departments of the Government that we were not cooperative. If we were not, we did not hear about it. It so happens, also, that in connection with the work we have been doing under the Air Mail Act we have had occasion to cooperate with other Departments of the Government, and I will read this very short paragraph which is found at the end of the Commission's report to Congress, dated July 7, 1936, which is published as House Document No. 141, the paragraph referred to being on page 15: We are indebted to the Bureau of Air Commerce of the Department of Commerce, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the Post Office Department, and the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce for their cooperation in furnishing data required in our investigations. When we first began this work, Mr. Chairman, and I was appointed Director of the Bureau of Air Mail, one of the first steps that was taken was the arrangement by Commissioner Miller-now Chairman Miller-and myself of an appointment to meet with officials of the Post Office Department, in order to discuss the best method of carrying out this act, which contained joint responsibility. Judge Crowley was not in attendance at that meeting; I do not know why. As I recall, the meeting was presided over by Mr. Branch, Second Assistant Postmaster General; and there were present, in addition to Mr. Miller and myself, Mr. Stephen A. Cisler, General Superintendent of Railway and Air Mail Service; Mr. Charles P. Graddick, Superintendent of the Division of Air Mail Service; and, I believe, Mr. Donaldson, who was Mr. Branch's assistant. It was a considerable time after that before I met Judge Crowley. I had not met him then, and it was a considerable time after that before I met him. However, when we in the Bureau began to take up our proceedings, or to prepare for them, I arranged by telephone with Judge Crowley that he should see two of my legal assistants for the purpose of again working out the details of presenting these very formal cases. At that time Mr. Crowley asked my representatives if they could recommend to him a bright young man who was familiar with the Commission's procedure. He had not been familiar with it, and he desired some assistance. My people arranged to find in the Commission, on the legal staff, a man who was willing to undertake the temporary assignment. A man was assigned, and he worked in the Post Office Department, in the Solicitor's office, for some months, aiding in the preparation and presentation of those cases. I do not wish to burden you with details, but I will mention just one more illustration, which I think is a good one, of cooperation between the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Post Office Department. When we began this work we realized that the air lines were none too prosperous; that they were already burdened with a considerable amount of regulatory requirements of the Post Office Department, the Department of Commerce, and other departments of the Government. In the ordinary course of our procedure we would have prescribed a form for reporting the monthly and annual results of operations of these carriers to us, because at that time we had joint responsibility with the Post Office Department in the matter of the keeping of the books, records, and accounts. That later was changed by an amendment to the act, in August 1935, in such a way that the control over the system of accounts, and everything that went with it, reverted to the Post Office Department. Rather than impress upon these air lines the burden of making a new set of reports to another Government department, I worked out with Mr. Branch an arrangement whereby when he sent out the forms for those carriers to report to him he would send additional blank forms, and I requested the air lines merely to fill them out in duplicate and to send the duplicates to us. That is the way in which we have been receiving the information, month by month, since that time. I think that arrangement was entirely satisfactory to the Post Office Department, and I am sure it was satisfactory to the air lines, because it saved them a considerable amount of work. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that that is all I have to say. Senator TRUMAN. Thank you, Mr. Haley. The subcommittee will adjourn, now, until 10:30 o'clock Monday morning, at which time we shall hear from Colonel Gorrell, Mr. Behncke, and Mayor LaGuardia, of New York. (Thereupon, at 12:50 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned until 10:30 a. m., Monday, Apr. 12, 1937.) REGULATION OF TRANSPORTATION OF PASSENGERS AND PROPERTY BY AIRCRAFT MONDAY, APRIL 12, 1937 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE COMMERCE, Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment on Saturday, April 10, 1937, at 10:30 a. m., in room 412, Senate Office Building, Senator Harry S. Truman presiding. Present: Senators Truman (chairman of the subcommittee), Schwartz, and Davis. Present also: Senator McCarran, of Nevada. Senator TRUMAN (chairman of the subcommittee). The subcommittee will please come to order. We will hear the statement of Mr. LaGuardia. STATEMENT OF HON. F. H. LAGUARDIA, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK Senator TRUMAN. Mr. Mayor, if you will give the committee reporter your name and address, please. Mr. LAGUARDIA. My name is F. H. LaGuardia, a resident of the city of New York. My address is City Hall, New York City. Senator TRUMAN. You have a statement, Mr. Mayor, on the proposal to transfer certain aviation activities to the Interstate Commerce Commission? Mr. LAGUARDIA. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the privilege of appearing here this morning on behalf of Senate 1760, the McCarran bill to promote the safety of scheduled air transportation. My interest in the bill is simply my interest in seeing the development of aviation. Perhaps I might add that more people of my city use air transportation than perhaps in any other part of the country. Senator TRUMAN. That is natural. Mr. LAGUARDIA. I want to make very clear that anything which is said today in reference to air transportation will probably seem silly 50 years from now; the art is developing so rapidly. We have a situation which requires immediate and intelligent consideration. The business end of commercial aviation is growing more rapidly than the scientific improvement in airplane design and motors. In other words, it is somewhat different from the growth and development of railroads and of steamships. When the railroad came into being people were not accustomed to fast traveling, and the design grew with the development and per 387 132711-37-pt. 2- -16 fection of steam locomotives. Notwithstanding that, as you are all familiar, there were several serious accidents in the early days, the very early days of railroading; and as we look back to some of the precautions at that time they do seem rather ridiculous. The same is true with reference to the steamship. As steam developed little was known as to the resistance of the boiler, and there were frequent explosions in locomotives as well as in steamships. For a long time the lines running on the Hudson River were required to put their passengers in a barge and tow the passengers after some explosion occurred. That continued several years after the boiler had been perfected. Some years ago, when we were discussing air mail at the other side of the Capitol, we looked up the history of the first railway mail contract. It was very interesting. You will find it in the records. I think it was Mr. Ramseyer, of Iowa, who first found it, and we all referred to it after that. A caution was sent to the contractor for carrying the mail between Baltimore and Washington that unless the mail was delivered on schedule time, and unless they were more careful in the protection of the mail, the Government would have to rescind the contract and go back to the former adopted and accepted method of sending it by coach. The same is true of the automobile. I think it was about 30 or 35 years ago I should have looked up the date-there was an automobile race at Staten Island, and a few of the automobiles overturned. I think one or two drivers were killed, and as a result there was legislation at Albany, following that race, to prohibit automobile racing and to restrict the use of automobiles. In the first Bennett race that took place in Spain and France there were several casualties, and there was agitation then to put the automobile out of business. Now we come to aviation, gentlemen. We thought we learned a great deal about aviation during the World War; and there was considerable development which sprang out of the necessity of the occasion. Aviation was in its infancy then, and came suddenly upor But there was one thing we did, I think, during the war, which perhaps has been forgotten. With all of the war conditions and the need of equipment, and although we were engaged in a destructive business, I think we took very good care of the equipment insofar as the personnel and the facilities afforded. us. After the war there was a sort of lull in this country in aviation. Then we started to experiment with air mail, and we used a remodeled DeHaviland Four. That was a mistake, a costly mistake. But we learned a great deal about air routes over the country. And then, almost suddenly, the passenger business started. The first planes seemed rather primitive, as you look at them now. They were pretty good planes, those first passenger planes; but they did not have the speed. And perhaps that accounts for a great deal. As you increase your speed in the air over a certain point, the other factors increase at a greater ratio than your speed. In other words, if you increase, say, from 125 miles an hour to 150 miles an hour, the percentage of increase is not applicable to the percentage of increase that you get in your factors of safety. The percentage of increase in your factors of safety is greater than the increased percentage of speed. We have done fairly well with our motor development and with airplane design. The fault lies in the use or abuse of the equipment. As I said, the business is growing. And let me say, incidentally, that maintenance and operation costs in aviation are very high. There is no question about that. It is a costly operation. Whether for the Army, the Navy, or commerce, it is very costly. Most of the companies are receiving very generous subsidies from the United States Government. That is quite proper. They are developing a new art which is very useful, in many respects, to the country. The business is growing and growing, and it is difficult, of course, to provide all the necessary equipment. Now, gentlemen, I state frankly that I believe that the equipment has been used too heavily. In other words, at the present state of the art I think that a plane requires a rest period. That is an easy way of putting it. By that I mean, of course, that after a certain amount of time, which is rather short, that plane must be inspected from tip to tip. You cannot imagine the stress on every square inch of that plane. You have all flown I am sure. You have 10 or 12 tons in the air. It is not resting on the ground, gentlemen, it is resting on its wings. It has nothing to rest on but those wings, and it is speeding forward. Sometimes we have a bump, and if it is a small bump the passengers are a little amused. If it is a heavy bump they look kind of serious. It is just as if you took 10 tons and dropped it right down like that [illustrating]. There are very few automobiles or trucks that could withstand continuous hopping on the ground. And yet that is what you have in the air. It is not a glide, it is a drop. It is just as if you took an automobile and lifted it and dropped it, or expected an automobile to operate without repairs and watching, by hopping instead of rolling. But that cannot be helped, of course. So that as we build these larger planes we naturally are experimenting. It is quite true that each new type of plane is tested before it is put into commercial use. As you all know, there is only one way of testing a plane, and that is by breaking it. You just have to break every part of a plane before it is properly tested. That is done in this way. As a new plane is designed, perhaps two or three models are first made. One of the models is taken and put on the testing blocks. Weight is added to each part, and they keep adding weight and keep adding it until the plane breaks. That is the only way to test a plane. The design of planes has changed a great deal of late. Frankly, I do not know much about the new type of design. But as I understand it, the stress is put on the covering of the wing, while in my time it was all put inside of the wing. As we take these large new planes and put them into commercial use and increase the speed, first, you have your test. You know exactly what the factor of safety is. Then you simply have to experiment to find out and learn how much that plane can stand in the air without going back to the shop for overhauling, and what the useful life of that plane is. Senator DAVIS. What is the useful life of a plane? Mr. LA GUARDIA. I cannot tell as to these new ships, I do not know. I think that is what is causing us so much trouble. |