going back to the period of the Rifkind Commission and during the period of the Rosenman Commission.

But I would not like to criticize either side by stating that there has not been collective bargaining. There have been serious and honest attempts on both sides. Unfortunately, the results have not been produced.

I would also say that both sides are thoroughly familiar with the positions taken by the other, and collective bargaining, even for a few hours, might have the desired effect of achieving a solution. So, any time added to the process which would permit collective bargaining is useful. I would never say that even if an extra day was possible that was a waste of time. I don't think any extra time is a waste of time.

Mr. CURTIN. Of course, I appreciate your statement in reference to the President's proposal and what it involves, although I must say that I feel that it does involve compulsory arbitration, regardless of the phraseology.

Would you care to comment on Mr. Meany's suggestion that we put off any type of drastic Government action for a short period to see if the parties can now get together without the remedies suggested in the President's recommendation?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Mr. Congressman, I, of course, would not be in a position to recommend any alternative suggestion to the President's. I do firmly believe that the President's recommendation to the Congress at this point is the only sound solution of the problem and the best means of achieving not compulsory arbitration but collective bargaining which will result in a resolution.

Mr. CURTIN. Thank you, sir.

That is all, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hull.

Mr. HULL. I have no questions.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cunningham.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Secretary, according to your statement, you vigorously support the President's proposal?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Yes, sir: I do. I think that is clear.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. There is another proposal which has been referred to as the Meany-Staggers-Bennet proposal. Have you gone into that, sir?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. No, sir. I have not examined it in detail. But, as I said before, I believe that after all the efforts that have been made over the last 4 years by the President and by the two commissions which we appointed, by the Secretary of Labor and his staff, by the Mediation Service, I believe in all sincerity that any alternative to the President's recommendation would not be really a sound resolution of the situation by the Congress.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Is it fair, then, for you to say that you do not believe it has merit in solving this dispute?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. No, sir. I don't want to be put in the position of criticizing Mr. Meany's suggestion, but I believe that the President's suggestion is the preferable one at this point.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. You are familiar, perhaps, with the fact that your brother, Jimmy, introduced the Meany proposal, also?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Yes, sir; I am. And the great advantage of my family is that we agree to disagree on occasion.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Secretary, we have mentioned the matter of compulsory arbitration and I am firmly convinced that the President's bill is compulsory arbitration and all of the railroad brotherhoods are equally firm in their belief that it is. But we don't need to get into a discussion as to whether it is or is not at this time.

I would like to ask your Department, which is primarily concerned with the economic effects of the strike, for the record, do you have knowledge that your Department was consulted in the preparation of the President's resolution that was sent down here, the one that you adhere to?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Yes, sir. We were consulted and we participated in the area covered by our Department with regard to the President's message and his recommendation.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Secretary, we have been here for about 10 days hearing the pros and cons. This may be an unfair question, sir, and you may not wish to answer it.

Recognizing the economic impact that would result from a rail stoppage, do you have any opinion as to the points in dispute that you would care to comment on?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. No, sir. I am primarily here before the committee to give the committee the results of our investigations on the economic impact.

The Department of Labor and other branches of the administration are dealing with the points in dispute.

Of course, the Secretary of Commerce did sit on the President's Factfinding Panel which report has already been presented to the committee.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Secretary, in your statement, on page 10, at the end of 1 month, the number of unemployed would rise by approximately 6,500,000 persons and total unemployment would approximate 15 percent of the Nation's labor force, the highest percent since 1939. That is a staggering figure of unemployment and I certainly agree that it is most serious.

However, if there would be a strike, the opinion of the public would come to bear, in my view. I wonder if it would last more than a day or two or three.

Do you, as a matter of philosophy, feel that the impact of a strike is more important than the basic and historical right of labor and management to work out their own dispute without interference? Mr. ROOSEVELT. Mr. Congressman, you raise a very interesting conflict, and that is the conflict between the right of an individual or a group of individuals joined together in a union in a free country such as ours to protect and fight for their own interests-self-interests. I think self-interest is the best way to describe this right.

There is opposed to this the Nation's interest, the public welfare interest, the interest of all the rest of the American people who are affected by the exercise of the first right of self-interest.

This conflict, of course, arises in staggering proportions in this dispute. It arose some 6 months ago in the dock strike by the longshoremen. It has arisen in the aircraft industry. This conflict is used by some to downgrade the first right in favor of the second. By those people compulsory arbitration makes sense-or to those people compulsory arbitration makes sense.

The position of the Kennedy administration is that this is an extreme solution and is not necessary. There remain to the President and to the Congress methods of accounting in specific situations to resolve the problems of this conflict with regard to a specific situation. And that is fundamentally what the President is trying to do here, to avoid compulsory arbitration which might be used as a precedent in the future in other parallel or similar situations.

I recognize the conflict and, as I said earlier, I think the President's suggestion is the only reasonable means of resolving the situation and still preserving both rights to both the Nation and to the railroad brotherhoods and their membership, to preserve their right of selfinterest, their right to strike.

There is no assurance, I might add, that at the end of this 2-year period that the strike might not then occur.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I was going to ask you about that, Mr. Secretary. Conceivably, under this resolution the 2 years could go by and one party or the other may propose a work rule change, and the ICC would approve it. However, after 2 years-somebody argued it might be 4 years because of litigation-however, we will say after 2 years are up, the aggrieved party will still then have the right to strike or a lockout in case of management. So, we are really right back where we started. We hope that won't happen.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. We hope it won't happen, but there is no question but that at the end of this period provided in this joint resolution, it is possible that we might be back where we are today.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. At the present time, if there is a dispute between labor and management in the railroad industry, say there is a strike, the only way to resolve it is to just knock heads together and try to resolve the difference. There is no recourse to the courts, no strikebreaking provisions are available through the courts. Under the President's proposal, there is. It allows for injunctive procedures so that, for example, if management proposes a change in work rules and the ICC approves, and they are in effect for 2 years and the brotherhoods, as I say, don't approve they are mad about it-they may strike. If they do, they can be enjoined, and this is a new concept in labor relations so far as this industry is concerned. Is not that true? It suspends the Norris-LaGuardia Act?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. It would be a temporary interim rule and at the end of the 2 years the brotherhoods would then have the right to strike if the Congress did not take further action at that time. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I just wanted to make that point.

At the present time, collective bargaining means that one party or the other can lockout or strike.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Shut down.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Shut down. They have to work it out among themselves and the Government cannot interfere.

But, under the President's proposal, the Government can interfere with an injunction to break a strike, even though it is for, as you say. 2 years. Some people say four or longer. So that does set up a new concept.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. I would say it sets up a temporary new concept. It does not destroy the right to strike at the end of that period.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. But if it destroys the right to strike for 1 day, there is a principle involved; isn't there?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Of course, there is a principle involved, and that is what I was referring to in my remarks about these two conflicting interests, between the self-interest and the Nation's interest.

It is the opinion of the President quite obviously that the Nation's interest at this point, because of the facts I have presented to the committee this morning, cannot tolerate the economic chaos and disaster which would follow the impact of a shutdown.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I agree with you on that point.

Mr. Chairman, just one final question.

We hear now that there is mediation going on and the StaggersBennett or James Roosevelt resolution might provide some settlement and it says that every 10 days the committee of Congress shall be informed as to what progress is being made.

Is the chairman of our committee in any position to give the committee any information he has received as to whether during these last several days of intensive mediation any progress is being made?

The CHAIRMAN. I don't believe the Chair is in a position to give any report at this time. We will probably have something on that later. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Is the chairman confidentially being kept advised of these mediation efforts?

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair has had some discussions but, as I say, he has no information at this time which he cares to impart. I hope we can get along with this hearing so we can conclude, Mr. Roosevelt.

We have one more witness and I, personally, don't want to stay here tonight. We are going over a lot of these things-over and over-and if we ever do get through with these hearings we will be able to talk about some of these things in executive session.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I think Mr. Roosevelt's testimony was most refreshing and had not been gone into before.

I think my time is up.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Van Deerlin.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. I would be glad to begin by yielding to my colleague from California.

Mr. YOUNGER. I understand there is a press release out to the effect that the carriers and employers are further away than when they started 4 years ago.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the great difficulty of these matters. We can get all kinds of rumors and reports, and I would like to urge my colleagues not to formulate any opinions until we are given facts as to what the situation is.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Mr. Secretary, at the risk of asking you to be repetitious, you feel that the parties are still so far apart under collective bargaining to date that any effort to continue it, except under the machinery provided by the Kennedy resolution before this committee would be fruitless?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. I would hesitate to say that any attempt

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. So little opportunity of success that it is not worth trying?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. I believe at the end of the long period of almost 4 years that for us to now rely on a hope that collective bargaining would result in a quick solution, that hope is not sufficient to permit the Congress to just rely on that.

I believe that is the fundamental reason why the President has submitted his proposal in its present form to the Congress. His proposal will provide for 2 years of collective bargaining, but it will also prevent a strike during that period or a shutdown during that period. Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rhodes.

Mr. RHODES. Mr. Secretary, if the President's proposal is adopted, would there be any assurance that a strike would not occur within the 2-year period after the decision of the ICC if it were objected to by either of the parties?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Of course, the ICC has the injunctive right to enforce its decision. This should prevent any formal strike or lockout by either party as a weapon against such an interim rule decided upon by the ICC.

Mr. RHODES. Would it be reasonable to assume that this committee may find an effective compromise which would make the President's proposal more acceptable?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Mr. Congressman, as a former Member of this body. I am well aware that the wisdom of the Congress can frequently work improvements on recommendations by the executive branch, but, in all honesty, I do not believe, in this case, there could be certainly any substantive modifications which would improve the President's recommendation.

Mr. RHODES. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

That is all, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Roberts.

Mr. ROBERTS. I have no questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Williams, do you have any questions?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Secretary, let me join the others in welcoming you back to the Congress. I remember our service together with a great deal of pleasure. I recall when you served in Congress you had a very distinguished and active record in support of many of the causes of organized labor. I wonder, if you were still in the Congress, if you would support this bill.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Yes, sir; I would.

Mr. WILLIAMS. You definitely would?
Mr. ROOSEVELT. Yes, sir.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Would you also support a similar proposal in the event of a pending teamsters' strike under the same circumstances, referring it to the ICC for a 2-year arbitration?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Mr. Congressman, I learned, during my years in the Congress, not to be a prophet and not to try to foretell what I would feel about what my father used to call an "iffy" situation or an "iffy" question. I can't answer that. It would depend on the circumstances at the time, and my judgment would be based on that. Mr. WILLIAMS. Let us go to that point just a minute and ask you to speak as Undersecretary of Commerce rather than what you would do as a Member of Congress.

If it is right in the case of a pending railroad strike to submit the matter to the ICC for a 2-year arbitration, why wouldn't it also be equally fair and right for the Department to submit a dispute between the teamsters and management under the same circumstances to the