draft, you remember, you considered before this committee first in 1934. Upon the passage of the Trade Agreement Act Secretary Hull asked me to take charge, under him, of the building up of an organization for the making of trade agreements with foreign countries. That organization was built up, consisting of an inter-departmental group, men from the Tariff Commission, from the Department of Commerce, from the Department of Agriculture, from the Department of State, from the Treasury Department, and others interested in the field of foreign trade.

Instead of organizing an alphabetical Government agency, we felt the soundest and most practical policy was to make use of the various experts and officials in all of the Government departments, to bring them together, to coordinate their work, and then formulate a program and drive ahead, and that we did.

During the ensuing years I was very intimately connected with all that work as Chairman of the Executive Committee on Commercial Policy, as Assistant Secretary of State charged by Secretary of State Hull to work under him on this problem, and, through intimate contacts with all these other departments, and I suppose it was through that actual practical work that I did become familiar with the program, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Has it been your purpose and the purpose of Secretary Huil, to your knowledge, at all times to keep foremost in mind. in this policy the commercial and economic welfare of the American people, as well as world stabilization for purposes of peace?

Mr. SAYRE. That was the whole underlying purpose of the act, sir, as is recited in the preamble of the act. We tried to expand foreign markets for the products of the United States, both agricultural and industrial, and tried to do so without injuring domestic producers. We felt that we had a mandate from Congress to drive forward in promoting the recovery of American markets, both foreign and domestic. We were convinced that the key to unlock increased domestic markets lay partly through expanding foreign markets. We tried to keep faith with the American Congress at every point, and with the American people and with American domestic producers.

I can say that politics hasn't been played once during the whole course of the program. It has been an honest program, conceived from the viewpoint of the national interests in order to promote the interests of American farmers, American industrial workers, American producers throughout the length and breadth of the land.

The CHAIRMAN. Did the departments, Doctor, with which you have worked cooperate in the work? Did the Tariff Commission cooperate with you? Have you been able to work together pretty harmoniously and reach somewhat harmonious understandings in your conclusions? Mr. SAYRE. We did, sir. I think one of the most encouraging and illuminating experiences which I have ever had in Washington was the remarkable cooperation and harmony of effort between all these groups. We used to meet every so often in committees. We got to know each other intimately. They were all men earnest to achieve this one purpose, without axes to grind, and generally in the course of my life I have found that honest men seeking common objectives do not often disagree. That was markedly true in those conferences. As a matter of fact we set up an organization, interdepartmental,

with these various departments and agencies represented, and we never proceed without agreement in these interdepartmental committees. One of our fundamental practices is never to make any important decision without submitting it first to one of these interdepartmental committees.

The CHAIRMAN. Have your proceedings been approved or concurred in by the Tariff Commission?

Mr. SAYRE. The Tariff Commission has whole-heartedly been with us. In that first Executive Commercial Policy Committee of which I spoke, Mr. O'Brien, who was then Chairman of the Tariff Commission, and Mr. Page, who was then Vice Chairman, attended our meetings regularly. In all of our interdepartmental committees the Tariff Commission has played a very important and a most helpful part. Without the Tariff Commission I don't see how we could have proceeded.

Naturally, the Tariff Commission is a group of men. Both Democrats and Republicans are represented on it. I cannot say that on every occasion every member of the Tariff Commission has agreed with what we do, but I think I can say that the Tariff Commission, speaking through its authorized representatives, has been wholeheartedly back of us and in all the time when I was connected with the organization I cannot remember any time when the Tariff Commission, as such, has opposed any important step which we have taken. I think there has been remarkable unanimity of feeling and of opinion so far as I have been able to gage it.

The CHAIRMAN. It has approved or has not approved?

Mr. SAYRE. They have approved. It has been a cooperative undertaking, and I don't know any interdepartmental committee in Washington where there was such harmony and such singleness of purpose as in these interdepartmental committee meetings.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions?

Mr. KNUTSON. How many practical businessmen have been members of these interdepartmental committees that you mention?

sir.

Mr. SAYRE. I don't know how you define a "practical" businessman,

Mr. KNUTSON. I define him as one who has made a success of his business and had a pay roll to meet regularly, and always met it without coming to the Government for aid. How many have you had of such?

Mr. SAYRE. I think that most of the men on the committees have been very practical men who have devoted their lives in many cases to studying the particular fields in which they are engaged. I think that they are particularly proficient. I say that because many of them receive the most flattering offers from various businesses to join those businesses, and in many cases-I could mention names-they have accepted those offers and have become leaders in various businesses.

Mr. KNUTSON. For the benefit of the record at this point, will you please mention 5 or more outstanding industrialists who have been members of these interdepartmental committees? I am not talking about college professors, who have always been on the receiving end. There are a lot of things that look fine in theory that don't work out in practice, and I suppose you can find college men whenever you want to who will explain how a certain thing will work regardless of all other

considerations. Now, please, for the record, mention 10, or even 5, outstanding businessmen who have been members of these interdepartmental committees.

Mr. SAYRE. I wonder whether that would serve any useful purpose to begin mentioning names, sir.

Mr. KNUTSON. I think it would, because it would give the committee and it would give the country an idea of their experience. I think the country would feel rather uneasy if they knew that these trade treaties were negotiated by theoretical college professors.

Mr. SAYRE. I would like to refute that, sir. The work is not theoretical. The work is very practical. We are prepared to show results, concrete results in dollars and cents, in American expanded trade.

Mr. KNUTSON. Are you prepared to insert in the record at this point the names that I have asked for?

Mr. SAYRE. I don't see that any useful purpose would be served.

Mr. KNUTSON. I suppose you don't, but I do, and I ask that you do so at this point. We have had a very illuminating and interesting discussion this morning, but it has been more or less academic, and I would like to get down to hard brass tacks. Now, if you will insert at this point 5 or 10 leading industrialists who have sat in with these interdepartmental committees, will you do that, please, at this point? Mr. SAYRE. By industrialists, probably you are referring to men who have been out in the field of business.

Mr. KNUTSON. Don't you know what an industrialist is?
Mr. SAYRE. Yes; I do.

Mr. KNUTSON. Then will you please give, for the record, the names of some five or more?

Mr. SAYRE. I can, but it simply gets into the field of personalities. Mr. KNUTSON. Everything is personal. This is a very, very personal matter, because it affects the bread and butter of 130,000,000 people.

Mr. SAYRE. I think that would be very unfortunate.

Mr. KNUTSON. If it was merely an academic question I would not think of asking you to do so.

Mr. SAYRE. Mr. Knutson, doesn't that suggest that those who are not taken from the ranks of business have a certain incompetency? I deny that absolutely. Some of these men-I think of men in the Department of Commerce. I think of men in the Tariff Commission, I think of men in many of the other departments-are so competent that they have been taken over by other businesses and are being paid royal salaries. I contend that men who are giving their lives to such studies are just as competent and frequently more unbiased and more careful of the national interests as opposed to sectional interests than any others.

Mr. KNUTSON. In order to save the time of the committee, can you name five or more?

Mr. SAYRE. I can.

Mr. KNUTSON All right. Please put them in the record at this point-industrialists.

Mr. SAYRE. I think it would be an unfortunate thing to do. Mr. KNUTSON. I think that is for the committee to decide, because this is our hearing.

Let me ask you this. Have you ever met a pay roll? I am not talking about the maid out in the kitchen, or the chauffeur. I am

talking about an honest-to-God pay roll, that runs into the thousands. Mr. SAYRE. I take it you are referring to a business pay roll, is that it?

Mr. KNUTSON. Yes; that is right.

Mr. SAYRE. I have never been the manager of a business, sir. Mr. KNUTSON. Have you had any practical business experience? Mr. SAYRE. It depends altogether on how you define it.

Mr. KNUTSON. Now, now, now, let's not quibble over terms. You know what I mean when I ask you, have you had any practical business experience in business?

Mr. SAYRE. I have had a lot of practical business experience, but I have not run a business.

Mr. KNUTSON. You have not run a business?

Mr. SAYRE. No, sir.

Mr. KNUTSON. You have been on the pay roll, being paid, rather than paying?

Mr. SAYRE. Yes. But I think that is absolutely immaterial to the matter in hand, as I said before.

Mr. KNUTSON. That is a matter of opinion. You think it is immaterial, I think it very pertinent. You will concede that I have the right to define what I consider to be material.

Mr. SAYRE. The real issue is whether a program has been placed before the country which is producing results. We are prepared to prove that this program is not an experiment, that it is producing results, results in dollars and cents as well as other results.

Mr. KNUTSON. All right. Let's explore it a little. Unfortunately I didn't come in until you were well along. Let me ask you how many countries require legislative approval of trade treaties that they have entered into with us.

Mr. SAYRE. I have a chart here showing that, sir. I will be glad to insert that in the record.

Mr. KNUTSON. Just read it for us, please.

Mr. SAYRE. I am not sure whether I can turn my fingers to it quickly. Mr. ROBERTSON. Doctor, if you will take this list I have, it will save you some time.

Mr. SAYRE. Thank you. That is just what I was looking for.
Mr. KNUTSON. Who issued this list?

Mr. SAYRE. I am not sure whether it is the Tariff Commission or the Department of State. I can't say off-hand, sir; I am not sure which.

The agreements not requiring subsequent foreign legislative action are those made with Belgium and Luxemburg, with Cuba, with Ecuador, and with Peru.

Those agreements put into effect provisionally, subject to eventual foreign legislative action, are Argentina, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Venezuela.

Those agreements which did not become effective until after foreign legislative action are Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba (supplementary agreements), El Salvador, Finland, Gautemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sweden, and Uruguay.

I would like to add that with respect to many of these, they are agreements with countries under the parliamentary system of government. By that, of course, as you realize, the executive is in control

of legislative action. So long as the executive, the Prime Minister, remains in power, he can command the action of the legislature, so that an agreement entered into, agreed to by the executive, sanctioned by the Prime Minister, practically is assured of legislative support. That is, in those countries one does not have the distinction, the separation, I mean, between legislative and executive functions.

Mr. KNUTSON. Has the Department of State entered into trade treaties giving preferred rates to such competitive agricultural products as early vegetables, corn, wheat, dressed meats, and fruits? Mr. SAYRE. If I understand your question correctly, you ask whether we have entered into trade agreements giving concessionsMr. KNUTSON. On these items?

Mr. SAYRE. On the items which you have mentioned. Yes, we have, to a very limited extent.

Mr. KNUTSON. Were we importing meat under any trade treaty at the time that we killed 62 million pigs in this country in order to reduce the domestic surplus of meats?

Mr. SAYRE. I suspect you are referring to the years before the trade-agreements program came into existence, sir.

Mr. KNUTSON. No, I don't think so. I am referring to the period subsequent to the entrance of the New Deal, and we started negotiating treaties in '34, did we not?

Mr. SAYRE. The act was passed in '34, in the summer of '34.

Mr. KNUTSON. We were killing pigs when?

Mr. SAYRE. I think it was before that. I speak subject to correction. I can't say, sir.

Mr. KNUTSON. The pig-killing program was worked out and executed not by practical farmers.

Mr. SAYRE. Of course that had nothing whatsoever to do with the trade-agreements program.

Mr. KNUTSON. I understand, but you have put a halo around the heads of these various members of these interdepartmental committees.

Mr. SAYRE. I don't remember ever discussing pig killing in any one of the committees.

Mr. KNUTSON. Please let me proceed for a minute.

Some great economist down in one of the bureaus figured out it would be a fine idea to kill pigs and we assassinated six and a half million, which we should have now, of course. If they had looked ahead as much as they are taking credit for doing

Mr. REED. Or their offspring.

Mr. KNUTSON. Or their offspring, of course there would have been about thirty or forty million by this time. That policy was put into effect by college professors, was it not, who had given a lifetime of study to the question of food production and marketing and so forth?

Mr. SAYRE. It was not, so far as I know, sir.

Mr. KNUTSON. No; probably because they weren't connected with the State Department, but that is neither here nor there.

You have made a very interesting statement that I would like to read. It is found on page 10, the third paragraph from the bottom:

Economic isolation leads inevitably to lowered standards of living and increased unemployment.