Mr. CROWLEY. Well, this would have to be a personal expression, Mr. Lea, and, personally The CHAIRMAN. Leaving out the argument about the Interstate Commerce Commission, I assume that you would not expect the Post Office Department to regulate the whole air service. Mr. CROWLEY. I certainly would not. I will tell you how I feel, personally. I like to fly. I do more flying, I guess, than anybody else in the Post Office Department. I fly all of the time. I make trips. I am very much interested in it. I have watched it grow, and I have helped some, possibly. And I do not think that it ought to be stifled and controlled and held down by any governmental agency. I think that it ought to be just as free as it can be, for a while. Let it alone. Let it develop. Let competition develop. Competition brought in new airplanes, brought in improved radio facilities, radio-beam facilities; and all of this is illustrated very well by one little incident here. The United Air Lines were controlled by Boeing, and they were all mixed up together. They got rich quick, and they began to fly the mails and manufacture aircraft. They used to buy all of their aircraft and equipment from one concern. When this divorcement bill was passed they were permitted to buy their supplies wherever they pleased, and I do not know whether they got a worse plane or a better plane, but the president of their company recently has bought a lot of these biggest Douglas air liners, where he used to use Boeings. He said he had to do it to meet competition. But, if you have got competition, and you let these air lines alone this is my own personal view about it—if you will just let these air lines alone and let them grow as much as they can and compete with each other as much as they can, you will have more aviation, better aviation, in this country. It is just in the beginning, just in its infancy. I live in Fort Worth, Tex. I used to go home occasionally, and leave here that is 1,500 miles away-leave here in the afternoon, get off of the train in Cincinnati and fool around there next day up until about noon, and get into an old Ford trimotored ship that you could hear for 25 miles, and the most uncomfortable thing you ever saw. That is since I have been in Washington. And I would get down there about midnight, and we would never know whether we were going to have to lay over in Memphis, Little Rock, or somewhere else. Now, as it is today, I can leave my office at 2 o'clock, get in an airplane at the airport at 2:15, and get into Fort Worth, Tex., at 10 o'clock that night, and have my dinner there. That is just the change in the past 2 or 3 years. And that change did not come about accidentally. It came about because of com petition between these lines. You let these fellows get together and work out all of the details of their service by dealing with some governmental bureau and you will not see the progress that has been made in the past few years. Mr. BULWINKLE. Leaving out the question of the mail, as Mr. Lea said, but in this matter of competition and improvement, would not the Interstate Commerce Commission require them to make improve. ments, just as they do on the railroad lines? Mr. CROWLEY. Well, I do not know; I do not know what the Commission will do. I do not know anything about what the Commission will do, but I do point out here that if you let competition control this industry for awhile, they cannot engage in cut-throat competi tion. They are forbidden to do that under the law. They cannot possibly do that. Mr. BULWINKLE. Then, they are regulated under the present law and have grown under the present regulations. Mr. CROWLEY. They certainly have, and yet they are not stifled at all. They are forbidden from doing certain things here, as a matter of principle, that would bring about monopolies and mergers and other things besides the air-transport operations. This particular discussion is just my own personal views. But if we leave aviation alone and quit trying to regulate everything that is done, for the next few years, you will see great progress. I do not doubt but what they will develop a plane within 5 years that will go up into the stratosphere and get across the continent in possibly 6 hours as easy as we have developed ships here that get across the continent in 14 hours. Mr. BULWINKLE. What do you think of the wisdom of the committee in regulating trucks and busses? Mr. CROWLEY. I do not know much about trucks and busses. Mr. BULWINKLE. You spoke of your carrying the mail on bus lines. Mr. CROWLEY. Well, most of that is star-route service. There are a lot of star routes that we cannot use. There are lots of bus lines that we cannot use at all because of their schedules, and a lot of short-line railroads that we have had to abandon as mail carriers because they were absolutely valueless to us because of their schedules. The CHAIRMAN. Anyway, we got this job of working out a bill which will not be detrimental to the Post Office Department, and if you can make some specific recommendations for amendments to this bill we will appreciate it. Mr. CROWLEY. All right; I will write something else on it and submit it to you. I want you to understand, gentlemen, that we do additional powers. We are not seeking them at all. all we can do to do a good job carrying the mails. we are interested in trying to do. not want any We have got That is what But, at the same time, we believe that any further, closer control by any other Government bureau will lead to impairment of the efficiency of the mail service by air and of the development of aviation. Another thing I would like to mention here, if you are going to put this thing in the Interstate Commerce Commission, aside from the fact that you may be transferring to it administrative matters that it has nothing, usually, to do with, you are inviting every State in the Union to pass their own regulatory measures and to try to control the air-mail lines. They do not do it now, but this control by the Government is bound to lead to control by the States within their borders, and might have generally bad effects at this time on aviation. I speak about that in this way simply because it is a new thing; simply because it has been doing so well in the past 4 years and I believe that it is worth-while to try it a little longer just like it is. Mr. ELLENBOGEN. May I ask a question? The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ellenbogen. Mr. ELLENBOGEN. Mr. Solicitor, the Post Office Department does not believe in competition; you do not believe in competition as far as air-mail contracts are concerned? Mr. CROWLEY. Well, yes. We do not have any objection to competition; in fact, we have competition. Mr. ELLEEBOGEN. You do not believe in making contracts with two competing companies between the same points, do you? Mr. CROWLEY. Yes, sir; we do in some cases have that. Mr. CROWLEY. Yes; I think-I am not right sure about that-but we have the United Air Lines, and I believe the American Air Lines carrying mail from Washington to New York. And I am sure that there are two lines carrying mail between New York and Washington, and between New York and Los Angeles; in fact, two or three different lines out of New York. Mr. ELLENBOGEN. But, generally speaking, you only make contracts between the same points with one company? Mr. CROWLEY. That is true, generally speaking. Mr. ELLENBOGEN. Well, as a matter of fact, under the existing law that is the policy. The existing law is not designed to have two competing carriers. Mr. CROWLEY. That is true; and obviously it is a sound provision because we have a hard time providing adequate service with the appropriation we have. Mr. ELLENBOGEN. And had not that been the case the subsidy provided by the Post Office Department would have to be larger, would it not? Mr. CROWLEY. Oh, indeed; yes. Mr. ELLENBOGEN. Now, as far as competing companies and lines are concerned the big four air lines are cooperating in the development of bigger transport planes; that is, they are carrying on the same experimental work before the planes are bought and building the same planes; is that correct? Mr. CROWLEY. Yes; I think they are doing that; carrying on the same development work, and probably did it with some other company on another occasion. Mr. BULWINKLE. I would like to ask one question. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bulwinkle. Mr. BULWINKLE. There is one point that is bothering me here. The President comes along and recommends that air transportation be put under the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the Post Office Department says that it should not be done. Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Bulwinkle, I am here representing Mr. Farley, who is perhaps as close a friend as the President has, and Mr. Farley has signed the report that was made on this bill and that has been mimeographed and copies furnished to you. Mr. BULWINKLE. Yes; I have read it over carefully. Mr. CROWLEY. And I do not want to be presuming to state the President's position on it, but I have never seen any statement in any message that he has given out that the commissions do more than what they already do, in fixing rates. I have never heard the President indicate in any message that he wanted to take away from the Post Office Department the control it now has. Mr. BULWINKLE. Well, he advocated in the report, and the special committee advocated putting the regulation under a special board, or a special commission, did it not? Mr. CROWLEY. I think the Commission did; the Commission made that recommendation. Mr. BULWINKLE. And the President said he did not approve of it but approved of its being put under the Interstate Commerce Commission. Mr. CROWLEY. Well, they have got it; they have got it. The CHAIRMAN. I just want to say that it was the general regulation of aviation that the President referred to in connection with the Commission. Mr. CROWLEY. We will be glad to help in any way we can. The CHAIRMAN. Will you submit the amendments you referred to? Mr. CROWLEY. I will be glad to. Mr. MAPES. May I ask a question, Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. Yes, Mr. Mapes. Mr. MAPES. I was not able to hear all of your statement the other day, Mr. Solicitor. Did you state at that time how near the recipts from air-mail postage come to paying for carrying the air mail? Mr. CROWLEY. I did not, Mr. Mapes, but I can give it to you approximately. The amount is about $2,500,000 less, received from postage, than the payments that we are making to the air-mail lines. Mr. MAPES. That is, you are giving the air-mail carriers a subsidy of about two and a half million dollars? Mr. CROWLEY. Yes. Of course, we have in that the expenses, and we are not calculating what it costs to deliver the mail, before it gets to the air lines, or what it costs to take it away. But the postage is now within about two and a half million dollars of the amount that we are paying the air lines. Mr. MAPES. How much is that additional expense that you speak of? Mr. CROWLEY. I could not tell you that. It involves the clerk hire, transportation back and forth from the airport, and delivery to the city offices. Mr. MAPES. Yesterday the representative of the pilots' association appeared before the committee. He spoke about the weather conditions as they affect flying. To what extent do you have control over the movement of the mail, that is, whether the planes carrying the mail shall go under unfavorable weather conditions? Mr. CROWLEY. Well, we do not have any. That is, the Department of Agriculture furnishes the weather reports, and they have been getting weather data for a generation and they happen to be the agency that is furnishing the reports to the air lines. Mr. MAPES. You have nothing to say whether the mail should be carried on certain days or not? Mr. CROWLEY. No; that is, we do not attempt to tell them; that is one thing we strictly avoid. Mr. MAPES. The slogan of the Department that "The mail must go through" is a little inconsistent with the idea that the planes shall not go up when the air conditions are bad? Mr. CROWLEY. Oh, no; I do not think there is any inconsistency there. When the weather is bad, and the planes cannot fly, the airmail superintendent is right on the job. They are informed about that, and immediately the mail is taken to the next fastest means of transportation. For instance, if a train was about to depart for New York and the air mail is held up, or the airplane is held up because of weather conditions, so they cannot possibly get through that day, they calculate the time that they can get the mail from Washington to New York by the next fastest means by train; and dispatch it by airplane when it can go through. Mr. MAPES. You do not try to speculate on how long the weather is going to be fair? Mr. CROWLEY. That is a matter of information for the air lines. We stay out of the business of directing their schedules to that extent. We do not want to tell them what to do about flying in bad weather. Mr. MAPES. Is the urge upon the air lines to go through? Mr. CROWLEY. I know of none. Mr. MAPES. To carry the mail through? Mr. CROWLEY. None that I have ever heard of. Mr. MAPES. None at all? Mr. CROWLEY. None at all. That might have been done in some instances. In fact, I understand that it was on one or two occasions, but the gentleman who made the suggestion was relieved of his duties. We stay out of that. Mr. MAPES. As far as the Post Office Department is concerned, as I understand you, it does not exercise any influence on the carriers to go through unless they are satisfied that the weather conditions are favorable? Mr. CROWLEY. That is right. Mr. MAPES. You say that the superintendents are constantly on the watch, and in case the plane does not go through they route the mail over the railroad? Mr. CROWLEY. That is right. Mr. MAPES. Thank you. Mr. KENNEY. May I ask a question? The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kenney. Mr. KENNEY. Mr. Crowley, who interprets the law in the Post Office Department? Mr. CROWLEY. I do that. Mr. KENNEY. You do that altogether, or does the Postmaster General or Assistant Postmasters General at times make some of the rulings? Mr. CROWLEY. Well, they submit all questions of law to me; and we have quite an office down there. We give legal opinions to the Postmaster General. Mr. KENNEY. I was very much interested in your statement that you want to keep aviation free, that it should not be stifled, and I am inclined to agree with you on that line. But what is more important to me is that we should still insist upon the freedom of the press and not stifle the press in this country. |