stock of aluminum, or any other material. We have never conceived it that way that it gave us power to act in instances of this sort at all. Mr. ELSTON. Now, this is rather drastic legislation and I am wondering if you have had cases where there have been refusals to turn over to the Government property which was essential in our nationaldefense program and which you have not been able to settle and adjust? Mr. PATTERSON. Yes. Mr. ELSTON. Have you some now? Mr. PATTERSON. Yes-at what we deem a reasonable price. Of course, we have had some just plain outright refusals-"Not interested"; then we have had others where the owner wants too much money, an exorbitant price that we would not be justified in any way in meeting. Mr. ELSTON. Just what is it; I would like to know the extent of it. Mr. PATTERSON. Those instances come up all the time. I do not contemplate this act will be used much; but if you have the power it. will enormously shorten a great many of those long-winded bargainings that we have now. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, if the power exists, it has a moral effect on the solution of the problem? Mr. PATTERSON. Surely; oh, unquestionably. Mr. HARTER. And you have already recited some instances, such as airplanes and certain machine tools that got into the hands of certain dealers? Mr. PATTERSON. Yes; or any other type of weapon we wanted to take over. I am not saying those things are unsolvable, but they cause unwarranted delays and, if you had this, I am perfectly sure that the prices being demanded now of a very high character would come down to earth. Mr. ELSTON. Are there machine tools today, in the hands of secondhand dealers or others, the owners of which have refused to sell to the Government and you cannot get them? Mr. PATTERSON. I understand so; yes. Mr. ELSTON. Of course, you know, as a judge, when you "understand so" that is hearsay. Do you know of your own knowledge? Mr. PATTERSON. Well, it is reported to me by my assistants; yes. Mr. ELSTON. Is that of any substantial quantity, or is it isolated cases? Mr. PATTERSON. General Rutherford can tell you more about that, probably, than I can. They come up fairly commonly. They say, "We cannot do anything about that; the man is not tooled up; he cannot produce." "How much is he short?" "Well, he is short two or three machines, and he cannot get them. He is low on the priority rating." Mr. ELSTON. Now, Judge, you appreciate that, under this type of bill, it would be possible for one industry to strip another industry of all of its machine tools, equipment, and everything else. Mr. PATTERSON. Not one industry. Mr. ELSTON. Suppose, by way of illustration, one company is given an order by the Government and another is not given an order, but it has the machinery and equipment in its plant and the plant that gets the order wants the equipment from that plant: Under this bill, the Government can requisition the equipment and give it to the plant that has the order and virtually destroy the other plant. Mr. PATTERSON. I think we are entitled to the confidence of the Congress and the country that we will pursue the powers, restricted as they are here, in a reasonable and sensible manner. Of course you can say that under the lend-lease bill the President will give away the Navy. The CHAIRMAN. But he has not done it? Mr. PATTERSON. He has not done it and it would be utter nonsense; it is utterly inconceivable that he would do it. This measure, if enacted, would be administered, I presume, by the Army and Navy Munitions Board, and I think you will find that has the confidence of industry generally throughout the country. I do not know, but that would be the most sensible place to put the power, in my opinion. Mr. ELSTON. Well, you say we should have confidence in the Army and Navy officials and we do; on the other hand, should not we also have some confidence in the American people that they still have some patriotism left and they are willing to cooperate in the national-defense program; or are you going to say we have come to the place where the American people and American industry are no longer willing to cooperate with their Government? Mr. PATTERSON. No; I have already said that in the main they do; but why penalize the ones who do for the benefit of the others who won't? The CHAIRMAN. That is the answer to it. And the ones who won't are a slight percentage of 1 percent? Mr. PATTERSON. It is the same thing with our criminal statutes-99 percent of the people obey them anyway. Mr. ELSTON. I do not see the parallel there. The CHAIRMAN. I think we ought to go into executive session. Mr. KILDAY. Just one question, Mr. Chairman. Judge, I want to call your attention to section 4 on page 2 of the bill which reads: SEC. 4. The President may issue such rules and regulations and require such information as may be necessary and proper to carry out the provisions of this act, and he may exercise any power or authority conferred on him by this act through such department, agency, board, or officer as he shall direct or appoint. Of course the best and most expeditious manner for you to operate under this bill would be to know where all of these items are located. I take it the provision requiring information would apply to a sort of registration of the things that were available, would it not? Mr. PATTERSON. Yes. Mr. KILDAY. Now, for a number of years there has been very considerable agitation by a certain group in the United States with reference to the registration of all firearms, and bills are pending in Congress constantly on that. And under this provision, you probably recall that the sportsmen's organizations have been fighting it vigorously for years and years, and this provision right here now would permit the securing of that legislation which has been fought here in Congress for years, would it not? Mr. PATTERSON. Well, we have been working--perhaps it was a little presumptious for us to do so, but we have been working on what we think would be some rules and regulations under this, and that did not occur to me. Mr. KILDAY. The reason I ask that is somebody made the boast they were going to get the other legislation under this bill. Mr. HARTER. Mr. Chairman, I move we go into executive session. (The committee thereupon went into executive session, as the conclusion of which an adjournment was taken subject to the call of the chair.) Hor. ANDREW J. MAY, OFFICE OF PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR GENERAL, Chairman, Committee on Military Affairs, U. S. House of Representatives, MY DEAR CHAIRMAN MAY: I am taking the liberty of writing to you about S. 1579 because of my strong conviction that a requisitioning bill of this nature is urgently needed to assist us in speeding up the defense program. For your information, I am enclosing a letter prepared by John Lord O'Brian, our general counsel, at the time the bill was pending in the Senate. Mr. O'Brian's letter outlines some of the situations which the Office of Production Management has encountered and which have demonstrated the necessity for congressional action. I fully endorse Mr. O'Brian's statement. Should a general requisition statute be enacted, I doubt that it would have to be invoked except perhaps in very rare cases. But until we have such legislation it will not be possible for us to deal effectively and expeditiously with these situations. Sincerely yours, Enclosure. Re requisition bill. WAYNE COY, Esq., Liaison Officer, Office for Emergency Management, WILLIAM S. KNUDSEN. JULY 17, 1941. Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. Coy: I have your inquiry as to the usefulness of a properly safeguarded requisitioning bill. In answer, it is my belief that with the defense program gathering momentum and thereby causing greater stringencies in various products and materials, there will be an increasing number of occasions where it will be impractical to secure the necessary articles unless adequate requisitioning authority exists in law. Even at this stage of the program there are various situations which could be handled much more expeditiously if such a requisition statute existed. There have been instances where contractors working on defense orders have made every feasible effort to secure needed second-hand machine tools from dealers but have failed to secure them because the sellers were unwilling to part with them on any reasonable terms. As another example, our machine tools section has tried in vain to have some larger machine tools transferred from regular commercial work to defense use. This has occurred in connection with the larger or more special kind of tool not customarily found in or used by the smaller plants and machine shops. Suitable requisitioning authority would enable us to put these big tools to work on the defense program. In addition to such situations a requisitioning measure would be especially valuable in preventing excessive piling up of inventory and in controlling the distribution of materials, whether held in inventory or not, so as to assure the best interests of national defense and afford a measure of protection against unjustifiable interruptions in production. In these and other cases as well, the lack of clean-cut statutory authority to requisition has not only caused serious delays in working out critical cases, but also has made it impossible to deal effectively with some types of situations. The urgent need for speed and greater effectiveness in handling numerous defense problems leads the Office of Production Management to favor the passage of a properly safeguarded requisitioning bill. I enclose a copy of a letter Mr. Knudsen sent to Congressman Elston on June 27, 1941, in which he expressed himself in favor of legislation along the general lines proposed. Sincerely yours, JOHN LORD O'BRIAN, General Counsel. |