Page 7: Add a new sentence in line 15.

There shall be no limit to the production of coal for overseas export. Page 11: For paragraph (a), beginning at line 8, substitute the following:

(a) The Commission shall ascertain the cost of the production free on board the mines including the cost of labor, supplies, power, workmen's compensation, taxes, insurance, administration, and all other direct expenses of production, but not including depreciation, depletion, or cost of marketing, in each of the producing districts as defined herein. The average costs free on board the mines thus ascertained for the period for each district taken to the next highest even center per ton, shall be the minimum price in each such district at which coal may be sold by producers for wholesale distribution. To the minimum production price thus determined shall be added a sum representing the average cost of wholesale marketing in each district as determined by the Commission and the total thereof shall be the minimum fair market price at which coal may be sold. The minimum production price and the minimuin fair market price shall be announced by the Commission to all districts boards not later than March 1 of each year as the effective prices in each district for the enusing 12 months beginning April 1. The determination of the minimum production price for each year beginning April 1 shall be based on the actual costs for the preceding calendar year, adjusted, if necessary, to compensate for any change in wage rates, hours, or other basis factors. The average cost of wholesale marketing shall be based upon facts and cost figures presented by wholesale distributors.

Page 18: In line 12, after the word "producers" add the words "and wholesale distributors."

Line 13: After the word "producer" add the words "or wholesale distributor."

Line 15: After the word "title" add the words "or to a Commission or differential below the minimum code prices."

Page 19: In line 1, after the word "producer" add the words "or wholesale distributor.

Line 6: After the word "code" add the words "by producers.' Page 21: In line 21, after the word "mining" add the words "or wholesaling.'

Page 23: Add to section 15, line 16:

The term "wholesaler" shall include any person, firm, association, corporation, trustee, and receiver who buys coal for resale in carload or cargo lots, without physically handling it for retail distribution over or through his own vehicle, dock, trestle, or yard.

Thank you.

STATEMENT OF W. EDWARD NEWBERT, REPRESENTING THE UNITED STATES ENGINEERS, INC.

Senator MINTON. Mr. Newbert is next.

Mr. NEWBERT. Mr. Chairman, my name is W. Edward Newbert, and I represent United States Engineers, Inc.

I am appearing here in opposition to this bill for reasons altogether different from any of those that have been heretofore advanced. In fact, I might say that I would be appearing in opposition to any bill being considered anywhere by either House of Congress, because I claim that we have come to the time when we can frame only one measure that will bring us out of the depression, and that is the only measure that we can frame.

I am going to read in a moment from the book I presented to you some extracts only. I would like to have that finally included in the record, inasmuch as it was in the record in the hearings before the Senate Finance Committee on the social security legislation.

Senator MOORE. Are you in the coal business?

Mr. NEWBERT. I have been extensively interested in coal from the standpoint of engineering for over 50 years, being very intimately acquainted with the Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas coal fields from contact with them to the railroads that I was so long having to work out seeing to putting through the building of sidetracks and matters of that kind.

Senator MOORE. But not in actual coal mining?

Mr. NEWBERT. No. On the Pacific slope I have made reports to the big financial interests in the East on some of the large deposits of the lignite coal in the State of Washington. That has been only recently used, on account of its being so bad in clinkering. Of course, when it comes to coal, I know something about it.

Senator MOORE. All right, sir.

Mr. NEWBERT. The point that I want to bring up now is that none of these measures get us anywhere to get us out of the depression; none of them whatever. They all have that point in common, that they tend to have occupied, sealed, tight compartments separate from each other. The thing that we want to do primarily is to abolish those tight, separate compartments and merge all our efforts into one gigantic effort to get us out of the depression. As long as we keep our minds on these separate compartments we are not going to get anywhere. All the measures now being considered do that, every one of them.

I would like to read a quotation or two from some eminent authorities.

Senator MOORE. Will you get into the coal compartment and tell us why you are against this bill?

Mr. NEWBERT. Yes. I will say this: We can make a very good plan to carry on for the next 90 or 50 years without the least consideration of the use of a single bit of coal anywhere in any form, or any oil or any gas. That is one extreme we can do. We can rely exclusively and solely on hydroelectric power for that. For example, we do not have to have any coal of any sort, shape or description or any oil, or any gas. That is one extreme. On the other hand, we can entirely abolish the use of hydroelectric and say we will not build a single dam and will not have a single bit of energy from hydroelectric, and rely exclusively on further developments of coal and oil and gas. That is another extreme.

Actually, in the set-up that exists we want to get some kind of a mean for the best use of all those different factors to obtain the best results. Of course, when it comes to coal, we are not doing that. We are wasting more of our resources in coal by the way we use it. We ought to develop a plan under which we can gradually transfer those activities from the forms we are using at present to ways in which it will be more serviceable to humanity and particularly to people in this country that are most interested in it. That is another extreme. am just generalizing a little bit along these lines.

I

But, primarily, the thing that we want to do is to get out of the depression, and get out of it as quick as we can. Not only that, but if we have got enough gray matter to plan how we can go on without ever having a depression again, that also is a very desirable thing.

Now, along this line, I would like to quote these comments from the chief engineer of General Motors, which I think are important.

Perhaps you gentlemen have already read them. One statement he made was:

People think that invention is labor saving. It isn't at all; it is labor creating. It creates new hours of labor, new jobs. New inventions and new things for men

to make are what we need most of all must now.

Here is another statement in connection with some of these trips that some of our distinguished Congressmen and private individuals have been making to try to find a way by which we can frame and shape our course and progress in this country by what is being done in Europe. This is another quotation from the chief engineer of General Motors:

The first thing we have got to do is to come out from under the anesthesia of European influence. We are dominated by European thoughts and fears and words and symbols. And yet the problems of Europe are in no way similar to our own. Over there they are faced with the eternal problem of scarcity, while we are already in an economy of plenty.

Don't take it from me, but this is from the chief engineer of General Motors.

Another point to try to calm down our egotistic thought that perhaps after all the "brain trust" and some of these people know it all. Here is another statement by the chief engineer of General Motors:

If we had libraries of books that told us what we don't know, they would have to be 70 times larger than the ones we have that tell us what we do know.

Now, frankly, gentlemen, the things that are going to get us out of the depression are the things that we do not yet know. Some of us do know. Those who do know, have got at least to go over the ground with those who do not know, and see whether we can come to a conclusion on what we do know, or it will be just a lot-I will not use any other expression. We don't want to have too vigorous language.

Now, these communications that I have given to the honorable gentlemen are communications that have already gone to the White House. If you will glance at page 1250 of the book I handed you, you will see a letter to Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt, dated May 17, 1934. That letter went to him at noon on May 17. At noon on Friday I got a brief note from Marvin H. McIntyre, who, I understand, is corresponding secretary, saying it was received and would be given very careful and serious consideration.

I will not trespass upon your time by reading that, but I would like to have that printed in the record, so you will have at least a little of the voluminous correspondence that comes to the White House, that came from the United States Engineers, Inc.

Senator MINTON. Who is United States Engineers, Inc.?

Mr. NEWBERT. That I would like to discuss only in executive session, whenever it may be brought up, and give you a few ideas as to what that is.

There is one thing in this letter to which I would like to call your attention. I will not read it all, but just this quotation, in which it is stated:

There is nothing too big to do that we can't do, and if we can make it pay to do we must finally do it or sink into oblivion.

I think the honorable gentlemen know the meaning of "oblivion." A stronger word could be used, but I thought that was sufficient. Senator MOORE. It is a common word in politics.

Mr. NEWBERT. Yes.

Now, coming back to the suggestion that I make in connection with this bill, 2 years ago and over a Philadelphia paper put as a headline a slogan to this effect: "Fight the Depression Like We Fought the War." One of the men in the Senate Office Building here, who was on duty at the time, knowing my interest in trying to put something over to get us out of the depression, called my attention to it. So I never had to read it, but he showed it to me. The words that I added to it at once are stiff good stuff, I think:

Fight the depression like, only better than, we fought the war.

We have got to do it with reasonable speed, not that reckless sort of speed under which it was the most inefficient operation that has ever been undertaken. But we can fight the depression like we fought the war, only better than we fought the war, to get anywhere. Now, what did we do, Mr. Chairman, when we started to fight the war? We boosted production up to the limit of what we called war industries.

Senator MINTON. Will you please make specific application of your thought to this bill?

Mr. NEWBERT. In connection with both labor and capital, if you do not want to go any further along this line, I will say this: The first thing we want to do now to take care of both the labor and capital problems, and with regard to all the various material factors in industry in common, is to start carrying under Plank No. 1 this Seventy-fifth Party.

I might tell you how the Seventy-fifth Party came into existence, but I will not do that.

Put everybody in the United States over 21 years of age on the United States pay rolls, and keep them on the pay rolls until they pass out. We thereby get rid of all the intricacies of pension systems and old-age relief and every sort, shape or description. I might read, and I think it might better be read, the suggestions made as to the amount paid on this United States pay roll.

The first category is to be paid $1,500 a year minimum. That is common labor.

The second category is to be paid $3,000 a year minimum, foremen and skilled labor. That is one-tenth of the first category.

The third category is to be paid $6,000 a year minimum, superintendents, and so forth, which is one-tenth of the second category. The fourth category is to be paid a minimum of $12,000 yearly, which is composed of managers, scientists, and so forth, comprising one-tenth of the third category.

The fifth category is to be paid $25,000 yearly minimum, such directors and heads of well-managed industries, transportation, communications, Members of Congress, judges, governors, heads of large cities, labor leaders, foremost professional men, and so forth, comprising one-tenth of the fourth category.

The sixth category would be paid annually a minimum of $50,000, which is one-tenth of the fifth category, less than 1,000 in the United States who can spell "ablest"; designation not being necessary.

Multimillionaires over $50,000 yearly income outside of categories, including the President of the United States.

Others are not included, Let them go.

Now, the proposition of a pay roll would be idle, quixotic and foolish, were we not to suggest the thing to do with those that are put on the pay roll. I will call attention to plank no. 7 in this Progress Party, which states:

Capital investment by United States and largest projects at lowest unit costsdams for "white coal", potable water, irrigation, and fisheries. Ditches for canalizing and lake connections. Drains to transform swamps into finest garden and farming areas, rented to ablest farmers and gardners at rents beyond competition. Terracing of mountains, irrigation of arid lands. Forestation of all lands not otherwise better used on largest scale by United States at lowest unit cast. United States owning and renting to users.

Senator MINTON. I think we are getting too far afield. We will never get through if we proceed like this.

Mr. NEWBERT. I just want to read one or two of these planks and let you digest them at your leisure.

Senator MINTON. I am afraid my digestion along that line is not good.

Mr. NEWBERT. The main thing, Mr. Chairman, is to show that we have something justifying putting all these people on the United States pay roll at reasonable rates of pay to begin with, with work that would result. That would last over a period of 40 or 50 years, at least.

Senator MINTON. That would be very interesting, but we have no jurisdiction to go into that sort of thing. We will have to confine ourselves to this particular bill.

Senator MOORE. You are against the bill because it does not agree with your idea of getting out of the depression?

Mr. NEWBERT. I am against all these bills that set up these watertight compartments that are not getting us anywhere, because we have to carry on a work that will cover all these factors, and the only way we can sensibly do it is to carry it on in a way similar to the way we carried on the war, only better, of course.

Senator MOORE. Your idea is to have these remarks of yours in this pamphlet incorporated in the record?

Mr. NEWBERT. The ideas of United States Engineers, Inc., and in those remarks are letters to the President. I would like to call attention to the wording of the resolution, which is only 61⁄2 lines and 60 words, that Senator Norris, your distinguished colleague, introduced on February 1, which was:

Resolved, That the President be, and he is hereby, requested to send to the Senate a comprehensive plan for the improvement and development of the rivers of the United States, with a view of giving to Congress information for its guidance in legislation which will provide for the maximum amount of flood control, navigation, irrigation, and development of hydroelectric power.

very

That line below was a note that I made to Senator Norris the next day that the word "control" should be changed to "prevention." Those 21 points, from A to U, include a very brief sketch to represent what could be done under that resolution that would at least keep everybody in this country busy, with the very best of machinery, the very best of management, together with the highest wages paid to labor for the next 40 or 50 years before we would have to seriously consider any other problems.