rival. A labor-draft law will not solve the problem of scheduling production so that assembly-line manpower will not be wasted awaiting the arrival of needed parts. A labor-draft law will not solve the problems of housing, sanitation, and transportation, which today make impossible the recruitment of workers in crowded war centers. A labor-draft law will not solve the problems of contract allocation which may today create and complicate manpower shortages in some areas while unused labor is available in other areas.

The posing of these issues shows how impossible it is to think of manpower just as a matter of moving workers around. Manpower is part and parcel of the single problem of production planning and organization-the single problem of directing materials, machinery, and men to the right place at the right time.

To discuss manpower just as a problem of a labor draft is to divert the attention of the Nation from the real underlying issues. To pass a labor-draft bill would be to lull the Nation into a sense of false security with the notion that we have solved our manpower problem when in fact we would not even have touched it.

We urge, of course, the undisputed truth in a democracy that greater efficiency and spirit may be expected from free men working at their machines with the will and strength of men who produce because they want to produce for themselves and for their Nation. I cannot believe that anyone in a democracy would wish to trade that kind of worker for men brought to work at bayonet's point by a compulsory method. That is undoubtedly a strong part of the reason why this bill is opposed not merely by the representatives of labor but also by the most responsible spokesmen for employers as well. Over and above all of this, however, is the fact that the crowning danger to our production effort will be injected by the enactment of any measure such as the Austin-Wadsworth labor-draft bill at a time when our basic need is the kind of integration and coordination of our production machinery which is suggested by the Tolan-KilgorePepper bill.

This committee exists for the purpose of considering matters related to military affairs. From one point of view it might of course be said that there is nothing in our national scene today which does not fall within that sphere under present-day circumstances. Without debating, therefore, the technical questions of jurisdiction, this committee could make a substantial contribution to a constructive evaluation and strengthening of our mational war production machinery by directing its attention to the basic problem presented by the Tolan-Kilgore-Pepper bill. It is extremely unfortunate that instead of directing its attention to that problem the committee has permitted itself to be used through these bills now before it as a forum for concentration upon measures directed primarily at castigating the workers of America, measures which make no contribution to the effective organization of the national production, measures which at the present time can serve only to create confusion and divert attention from the serious concern which we all must have with the single task of winning the war.

The CHAIRMAN. That is Mr. Van Bittner's statement?

Mr. FLYNN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. I assume, of course, that you are not prepared to discuss the statement except to appear for the purpose of presenting

it to the committee?

Mr. FLYNN. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Thank you very much, sir, and we regret that Mr. Van Bittner could not be here personally.

Mr. FLYNN. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness suggested by the Congress of Industrial Organizations is Mr. Donald Henderson.

Is Mr. Henderson here? Will you come around, Mr. Henderson, please, sir, and tell us about this legislation and what you want to say about it.

STATEMENT OF DONALD HENDERSON, GENERAL PRESIDENT, UNITED CANNERY, AGRICULTURAL, PACKING AND ALLIED WORKERS OF AMERICA, CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS

Mr. HENDERSON. My name is Donald Henderson, general president of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, affiliated with the C. I. O.

I am representing a union that has locals and contracts and represents workers in the harvesting, growing, processing, and packing of agricultural commodities. These workers are in practically 32 to 35 States of the country. The union stands almost alone in the field, and therefore I speak generally in the interest of the agricultural wage workers and sharecroppers of the United States on the problem before the committee.

I wish to confine my remarks to H. R. 1728 and to S. 729. I am not sure whether teclinically S. 729 is before the committee, but it deals with the same general problem of attempting to meet the problem of manpower in agriculture as the Fulmer bill, H. R. 1728. The CHAIRMAN. Senate 729 is before the committee.

Mr. HENDERSON. The committee, in considering these two bills, is, of course, considering a very serious problem, namely, the effective utilization of agricultural resources to the problem of winning the war, and specifically with reference to the most effective use of manpower in agriculture to the problem of winning the war. The two bills cover not only the problem of manpower so far as agricultural wage labor and sharecroppers are concerned, but they cover the problem of manpower so far as the farmer is concerned.

The Fulmer bill is misnamed the Emergency Farm Labor Act of 1943, and the general discussion in the press has tended to create the idea that we are discussing only the problem of farm-wage labor. We are discussing the problem of both farm-wage labor and the problems of farmers or farm operators. I am speaking primarily from the point of view of the agricultural worker, the farm-wage worker, but the problem involved involves all of agriculture.

What is this problem? It is the problem basically of converting agriculture to a war footing; converting agriculture from a farming as usual basis to a war footing. There is no industry in the United States about which there has been done less and where there needs to

to be done more to convert to a war footing than the industry of agriculture.

It is unfortunate, and to some extent I feel like the farmer who closes the barn door after the horse is stolen, that no basic approach, either in these two bills or in any of the other bills before the committee, has tackled the problem of really converting agriculture to a war footing. On the contrary, the basic objection that we have to H. R. 1728 and S. 729, and the basic objection that we had to the Tydings amendment, was that these bills express, in our opinion, a desire to meet certain problems growing out of the fact that we are at war, as they show themselves in agriculture, by protecting agriculture against the necessity of converting to a war footing.

H. R. 1728 particularly neither approaches the problem of farm labor nor approaches the problem of the mobilization of farmer manpower, in our opinion, from the point of view of converting agriculture to a war footing so as to make the most effective utilization of the manpower available. On the contrary, it tends to immobilize instead of mobilize, manpower in agriculture for war purposes. It in effect immobilizes manpower in agriculture with the unconscious or intentional result of maintaining agriculture as usual on a peacetime basis.

I do not believe it takes any long, technical discussion to make the point that the agricultural wage labor market under peacetime conditions in the United States was organized, insofar as it was organized, on the basis of a surplus labor economy, an economy of hit and miss, an economy whereby there were always pools of cheap labor around to be called upon when needed, an economy of practically starvation wages in most sections of the country, an economy involving frequent violations of civil liberties, an economy in which a large proportion of farm labor was almost second-class citizenship labor.

The record will show that in the last 10 years, since I have been actively working in the field throughout the United States, the only scrap of legislation passed by the United States Congress with respect to attempting to put the labor market in agriculture on a sound footing was the act passed in 1937 dealing with the sugar-beet industry, whereby certain minimum wage rates were established for agricultural workers in that industry, which had to be paid as a condition for the farmers to receive certain prices and subsidies.

With this disorganized, or, rather, call it an organized farm labor market based on a surplus economy, naturally under the wartime conditions a whole series of problems arise. I want to state flatly that on the basis of the figures showing the number of farm laborers and the number of people working in agriculture in 1942 as compared to 1941, there was no over-all farm labor shortage. There was a great deal of ballyhoo, there was a great deal of panic headlines, but there was no over-all farm labor shortage.

There was, with respect to specific areas and specific seasonal peaks, a tight labor market, which occasioned increases in wages and which in some cases occasioned the actual necessity for Farm Security Administration and other agencies to bring labor to that particular tight labor market.

H. R. 1728 and S. 729 make the problem worse, so far as mobilizing manpower in agriculture, rather than being a step in the right direc

tion. It in effect freezes "every individual who was engaged in agricultural occupation or endeavor in any capacity during any part of the calendar year 1942." That refers to farmers, sharecroppers, farm tenants, as well as to agriculture wage labor.

This freeze takes place on the basis of no attempt to distinguish between those crops and those operations that are essential to the war and those that are nonessential to the war.

Mr. SPARKMAN. May I interrupt there, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. SPARKMAN. Do not both of the bills relate directly to the order handed down by the Department of Agriculture-I believe it was 164-defining war crops? I am sure that one of the bills does. Senate 729 does.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the Bankhead bill.

Mr. HENDERSON. The Bankhead bill in its present form does. I believe H. R. 1728 does not.

Mr. SPARKMAN. I think you are right on that, but Senate 729 does. Mr. HENDERSON. The important thing here is that you have had in agriculture in this country, call it an organized labor market, if you wish, or an unorganized labor market, as I would prefer, based on an excess supply of labor. Under these wartime conditions, that type of labor market and that type of disorganization cannot meet the problem of effectively utilizing our manpower.

H. R. 1728 basically attempts to freeze or immobilize the pre-war status at least, the status as of 1942. No effort is made to distinguish between essential and nonessential crops. No effort is made to distinguish between the agricultural worker who may be replaceable and the worker who may not be replaceable. That holds true, of course, for the farmer as well as the wage worker.

No effort is made to distinguish between those workers who may be doing a little bit of productive work and those workers who may be doing what we would consider a necessary minimum standard amount of productive work with relation to agriculture.

I cannot interpret H. R. 1729 in any other terms than an attempt to immobilize the peacetime status, so far as possible, of the manpower situation in agriculture.

I do not wish to go into the details of what is essential and what is nonessential in agriculture with reference to the war, but it seems to me clear that one of the first steps in an effective mobilization or utilization of manpower, whether it be farm labor or a farmer, is the distinction between what crops we need to win the war and what crops we do not need to win the war.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know of any kind of crops that we do not need?

Mr. HENDERSON. I think a great deal of the short-staple cotton crop could be cut down. I think a great deal of the tobacco crop could be cut down. We can take a small but typical type of crop, the socalled iceberg lettuce in the Imperial, Salinas, and Salt River Valley regions. It has no vitamins. It is not essential to winning the war, but you have some 10,000 workers tied up there.

I mention this in spite of the fact, Mr. Chairman, that to cut this crop out would mean the loss of some 10,000 organized workers in my union.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you not think there should be some authority to transfer those 10,000 workers from those lettuce patches to some wheatfields, for instance?

Mr. HENDERSON. I certainly do.

The CHAIRMAN. How are you going to do it without legislation? Mr. HENDERSON. I am not arguing against legislation. I am arguing against II. R. 1728 and S. 729.

The CHAIRMAN. What S. 729 attempts to do is to defer all workers that are already engaged in agriculture of any type or were engaged during the last year over a principal part of the time and includes the Tydings amendment. It would use a type of compulsion by saying that if you did not stay on the farm the board might send you to the Army.

Are you for that? You want the agricultural workers-do you not-in your industry?

Mr. HENDERSON. I am not opposed to the effective utilization and the immobilization or

The CHAIRMAN. Remobilization?

Mr. HENDERSON. Or remobilization of agricultural farm laborers or farmers on the basis of legislation or Executive decree that in effect converts agriculture to a wartime footing.

To use an example that has always impressed me, the conversion of the automobile industry or refrigeration industry or similar industrial industries that were making consumable goods certainly involved a tremendous readjustment and certainly involved the wiping out of a great many subsidiary businesses, and yet it was done because it was recognized as necessary to the conversion of these industries to a war footing. In the case of automobiles there were large numbers of subsidiary businesses that were practically wiped out.

I say the same thing has got to be done in agriculture; that you cannot convert agriculture to a war footing and at the same time maintain the normal peacetime usages that have prevailed in agriculture both with respect to employment of farm labor and with respect to growing of crops and also with respect to various other aspects of the agriculture industry.

Mr. SPARKMAN. Mr. Chairman, may I ask some questions right there?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. SPARKMAN. I would like to get clear just what you mean by converting agriculture. Of course, we all can see the conversion of various types of industry, but that involved very largely a change-over completely. Where they were making one product they changed over and started making another product, but I do not quite see where the analogy lies with reference to agriculture. I wish you would tell me, very briefly, what needs to be done specifically to convert agriculture to a wartime footing.

Mr. HENDERSON. There needs to be certainly a complete knowledge of the resources with respect to land and with respect to labor power, both farmers and farm labor. There needs to be a knowledge and a schedule of what are the crops necessary and the amounts necessary to the winning of the war

Mr. SPARKMAN. Right there you have named three crops that you thought there could be an elimination of. The first one you mentioned