this industry must be regulated more strictly than it has been in the past, and there must be more enforcement of regulation.

Enforcement has been lagging. That is one of the principal troubles in the present set-up. Approximately a month ago the Washington Merry-Go-Round uncovered the fact that in over 4 years of regulation by the present Bureau there is only one case that has been turned over to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

In 1933, when we were before the Code Authority and the Labor Board, struggling to obtain the protection that we now have in the present air-mail law, the statistical department of the Department of Labor made a study of pilots' flying hours. The safety limitation at that time was 110 hours. This survey disclosed that there was a 10-percent violation of the 110-hour safety limitation for pilots. There was a 10-percent violation, but no record of any prosecution of any kind.

The pilots fully agree with the contention that all phases of control of air transportation should be vested in one place. At the present time we have it scattered between three governmental departments: The Post Office Department, the Department of Commerce, and the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The best and most irrefutable argument for transferring air-line safety from the Bureau of Air Commerce to the Interstate Commerce Commission is the fact that on the railroads safety is controlled by the Interstate Commerce Commission, the same agency that controls rates and the economic balance of the industry. As a matter of fact, the two should go together. No two things were ever more closely related than safety and economic balance. Pilots are not talking about money; they are talking about safeguarding human life.

The same is true with reference to trucks and busses. The Interstate Commerce Commission controls that situation all the way through, including safety.

Safety control of air transportation belongs in the Interstate Commerce Commission, together with all the other phases of control and regulation. This is the only proper and businesslike approach to the problem. It is not a new idea. It is something that has been proven over a period of years. The Interstate Commerce Commission's record, dealing with safety in transportation, speaks for itself. The Interstate Commerce Commission has just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary; and I went over there and looked over some of their exhibits; and it is gratifying to look at their safety charts on the railroads and see how safety has increased on the railroads under the Interstate Commerce Commission's regulation.

What we are talking about is safeguarding human life. If we pass this law there is every reason to believe that accidents will be greatly reduced. The chances are that we will go along with few, if any, accidents for the period just ahead. The reason for this is that it will be mostly good flying weather. Then next fall, as in every other fall in the past, we will have more terrible accidents. It runs in cycles.

No matter what our accident percentage will be for the next 12 months and I certainly hope we do not have any-the pilots are firmly of the opinion that if this law is enacted there will be less accidents than if the present Bureau of Air Commerce set-up re

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 NEVADA— Resumed

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 Interstate Commerce Commission has increased the pay rates. The 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.