Mr. TABER. You are asking for more money than you used last year for this purpose.

Mr. BARNES. We estimate here for $728 less for personal services and other obligations combined.

Mr. TABER. It is $150,000 as against $100,000.

Mr. BARNES. Our estimate on account of the C. C. C. for 1938 is $99,500 for personnel, and $10,000 for contingent expenses; a total of $109,500.

Mr. WOODRUM. It should be less than for 1937, should it not? Will there not be fewer checks?

Mr. BARNES. The C. C. C. estimate 6 million checks for 1938. The original language of the act provided a limitation of $250,000. This is rasing the limitation by $150,000, making the amount $400,000. That represents a margin of $51,100 on our estimates for all of those activities that we do work for. All of the various activities were covered in that language. We will have a margin of about $53,100. We do not know what additional work we will have to do.

Mr. WOODRUM. The margin does not mean anything.

Mr. BARNES. No, sir; we put it on an estimated basis. If you limited it to the amount we estimate for, we would have no leeway at all on account of the increased activities of those organizations.

Mr. WOODRUM. This language also includes the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.

Mr. BARNES. We formerly had the Home Owners Loan Corporation included in the language. The Federal Home Loan Banks are issuing debentures, and for that reason we put the additional language in, although for 1938 and 1939, I do not believe we will ask for any funds for servicing debentures.

Mr. WOODRUM. If you do, you will have it.
Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir; within the limitation.

COAST GUARD

TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1937.

STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL RUSSELL R. WAESCHE, COMMANDANT

INCREASE IN NUMBER OF CIVILIAN INSTRUCTORS AT COAST GUARD ACADEMY

Mr. WOODRUM. We have before us for consideration in House Document No. 309, the draft of a proposed provision pertaining to the appropriation, "Pay and allowances, Coast Guard, 1938." We have with us Admiral Waesche, Commandant of the Coast Guard, I understand that your request this morning, Admiral, does not involve the appropriation of any more money, so we are very glad to hear from you. Admiral WAESCHE. The only item we have in this deficiency bill, Mr. Chairman, is a request to strike out the word "two" from our regular appropriation bill, which limits the number of civilian instructors in the Coast Guard Academy.

The present session of Congress passed a law, Public, No. 38 of the Seventy-fifth Congress, approved April 16, 1937, authorizing five rofessors and three civilian instructors. Therefore we would like

the word "two" stricken from the appropriation bill, so that the appropriation will be available to pay for three instructors. Mr. WOODRUM. Instead of two?

Admiral WAESCHE. That is correct. No increase in funds is requested.

Mr. LUDLOW. Will you tell us the need of the additional instructor? Mr. WOODRUM. The proposed language does not make it three. It merely says "civilian instructors.

Admiral WAESCHE. We would prefer to leave it that way, because it is already limited by this law. Placing it in the appropriation bill would merely make a double limitation. It seems to me it is sufficient to be in one act of Congress without having it also in another act of Congress.

Mr. WOODRUM. In other words, you only have authority to use three civilian instructors?

Admiral WAESCHE. By the enabling act. Therefore we cannot possibly appoint more than three.

Mr. BACON. Your appropriation will be adequate to take care of the extra instructor?

Admiral WAESCHE. Yes, sir. In this current year we will probably not appoint the third civilian instructor anyway until toward the end of the year. This is a bad time of the year to go out among the colleges and universities and get an instructor.

Mr. LUDLOW. You might tell us the need for this additional instructor.

Admiral WAESCHE. As you gentlemen know, the Coast Guard has been limited, ever since its establishment, to two civilian instructors. We have been handicapped in carrying on our work at the Academy for that reason.

Mr. CANNON. There is no similar limitation at the other academies? Admiral WAESCHE. There may be; I am not prepared to answer that question.

Mr. BACON. At least there are many more than two at West Point and Annapolis?

Mr. LUDLOW. Of course, those are larger academies.

Mr. CANNON. Will you state the relative size of the student bodies? Admiral WAESCHE. We have an average number of students at the Coast Guard Academy of about 150 to 175.

Mr. CANNON. That would be about one-third the number at West Point and about one-fourth the number at Annapolis.

Admiral WAESCHE. About 10 percent. I think Annapolis will run about 1,500 to 2,000 at the present time and West Point will run 1,200 to 1,500.

Mr. CANNON. I was thinking of a 1-year class.

Admiral WAESCHE. I am talking about the total student body. Mr. WOODRUM. The Enabling Act has been passed authorizing you to have the additional instructor, is that right?

Admiral WAESCHE. Yes, sir.

Mr. WOODRUM. So that is all water that has gone over the dam? Mr. LUDLOW. I should like an answer to my previous question as to the need for this additional instructor. We had this up in the consideration of the regular bill, did we not?

Admiral WAESCHE. Yes, sir. The hearings on that bill are very complete. You will also find some information on this in hearings before the Appropriations subcommittee.

We have been forced to use commissioned officers of the Coast Guard as instructors, with the exception of two. Naturally they must rotate in their duty. They come to the academy for 3 years then they go aboard ship for 3 years, which breaks up the continuity of the instruction. At the same time, our commissioned officers, in the subjects of mathematics, physics, chemistry, English, history, and general civilization, are not nearly so competent to teach as are trained educators.

Mr. LUDLOW. And if you get a good man, this will enable you to keep him there, is that the idea?

Admiral WAESCHE. Yes; exactly.

Mr. LUDLOW. What salary will he receive?

Admiral WAESCHE. The salary of a civilian instructor, and will be under civil service rules. It will start around $2,800 to $3,000. Mr. WOODRUM. That is all, thank you, Admiral.

TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1937.

UNITED STATES MARITIME COMMISSION

CONSTRUCTION OF VESSELS

JULY 27, 1937.

Hon. CLIFTON A. WOODrum,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR CLIF: As chairman of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, having the benefit of approximately 15 years of service on that committee and having the benefit also of much longer study of merchant marine matters, I write to urge the adoption by the Committee on Appropriations of the program for construction of ships proposed by Chairman Kennedy, of the United States Maritime Commission.

It is my solemn conviction that unless affirmative action of this kind is taken at once the flag of the United States on merchant ships will disappear again from the seas; American seamen will be deprived of employment; American shipyards will be out of work; building of merchant ships will again become a lost art in the United States; business organizations built up through long and trying years at an enormous expense will be destroyed; trade connections for American flag ships will be severed; the stabilizing influence of American ships on ocean freight rates will be lost; the trade advantage of American carriers for American goods will be surrendered for the disadvantage and danger of transportation only in foreign bottoms operated by foreign competitors interested primarily in promoting the trade of their nationals to the detriment of American commerce; freight rates will be increased sufficient to compensate foreign competitors for losses sustained by American competition; the national defense will be imperiled through the lack of auxiliaries for the Navy in time of emergency; American farmers, merchants, manufacturers, and other shippers will again be subject to loss and disaster such as they sustained at the time of the Boer War and the World War when foreign ships serving American commerce were recalled by their own governments for their own national purposes and left the American shippers without bottoms to carry their goods; and the foreign commerce of the United States will be again at the mercy of foreign competitors whose policies this Nation cannot control, and will be subject again to the whims, caprices, and discriminations of those competitors withour any voice on our part.

For my part, I am unwilling that the billions already spent to build up American trade and an American merchant marine shall be wholly lost, the experienced gained shall be thrown in the discard, the American Government shall confess itself impotent in the face of difficulties, and one of its oldest and most essential industries shall again be faced with extinction. I urge favorable action on the proposal of Chairman Kennedy.

Yours very sincerely,

S. O. BLAND, Chairman.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1937.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

STATEMENTS OF J. WARREN MADDEN, CHAIRMAN; BENEDICT WOLF, SECRETARY; AND CHARLES FAHY, GENERAL COUNSEL

ADDITIONAL AMOUNT FOR SALARIES AND EXPENSES, 1937

Mr. WOODRUM. We have before us in House Document No. 326, an item requesting an additional amount of $15,000 for salaries and expenses of the National Labor Relations Board for the fiscal year

1937.

Mr. Madden, will you tell us about the necessity for this additional appropriation?

Mr. MADDEN. I do not need to say, gentlemen, that we are enormously embarrassed by this situation of having incurred a deficiency of approximately $15,000 for the past fiscal year.

The excuse for doing it is the fact that on April 12 of this year the Supreme Court of the United States rendered several decisions involving the National Labor Relations Act which gave to the Board a very broad jurisdiction. The consequence was that out of the publicity that those decisions developed there was an enormous influx of business into our regional offices and into our Washington office. were, in fact, completely swamped.

We

Our stenographic work, our clerical and fiscal work and our laborrelations work in the sense of adjustment and compliance was enormously increased. Our facilities were all taxed beyond any possibility of keeping up with that work.

The consequence was there was much additional work to do in our regional offices.

Many of the labor situations were very critical and needed immediate attention, and our people went ahead and did what they could in those critical situations.

We were doing our best in Washington to keep track of how much they were spending in the regions, but the reports were slow in coming in, and our clerical staff in Washington was not adequate to keep us advised. So, in spite of the best efforts we could make to tell how much we were spending, in spite of the fact that down to the last day we thought we were in the clear, these things came in, and it develops. that we did overspend our appropriation by approximately $14,145. Now, gentlemen, that is the situation we are up against, and that is the reason we are asking for this additional $15,000.

AMOUNT APPROPRIATED TO BOARD FOR 1937 AND 1938

Mr. WOODRUM. How much was your appropriation for 1937?
Mr. MADDEN. It was $740,000.

Mr. WOODRUM. You spent all of your printing money, did you?
Mr. WOLF. No; there is a balance of $1,206.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. You had $700,000, and also $35,000 for printing and binding, did you not?

Mr. WOLF. There was a transfer of funds from the previous year of $40,994.

Mr. MADDEN. The figure of $740,000 that I gave you was exclusive of $35,000 for printing and binding.

Mr. WOODRUM. What is your appropriation in the regular appropriation bill for 1938?

Mr. MADDEN. It is $750,000, with $35,000 for printing and binding. Mr. WOODRUM. Then you have a supplemental estimate of how much?

Mr. MADDEN. The supplemental estimate is $1,800,000 plus. Mr. WOODRUM. Making the total amount for 1938, if the supplemental estimate is granted, of about how much? Is it not more than

21⁄2 million?

Mr. WOLF. It is $2,485,000, plus $100,000 for printing.

REASON FOR INCURRING DEFICIENCY

Mr. LUDLOW. Is the condition that has called for this deficiency estimate continuing during the present year?

Mr. MADDEN. Yes; the volume of work is as great as it was in June; in fact it was greater in July. So unless the supplemental estimate is granted we will run out of money rather shortly.

Mr. WOODRUM. Of course, that is a rather unusual situation where a department can be so far off on the amount of its expenditures. Do any of your field agencies have the right to incur bills without the approval of the central office at Washington?

Mr. MADDEN. They do; as a matter of fact, the kind of thing which this extra money went for are things like travel from the regional offices. We have only 21 regional offices with which we cover the entire country. Some of the western offices cover several States.

If a call comes in from a place in the region the regional director or some one of his staff goes out there, so there is a good deal of travel. We have not, and we cannot, as I see it, give to each regional office a certain budget for travel.

Mr. WOODRUM. Do you not have a top limit on it at all?
Mr. MADDEN. We have not had, as a matter of fact.

Mr. WOODRUM. Would not that top limit hold you within your budget or appropriation allowance?

Mr. MADDEN. We could not, in the situation that is confronting us now, do that. We would not have any idea today where it would be necessary for our regional people to travel day after tomorrow. It would depend on where they would have to go.

Mr. WOODRUM. You could make an allotment, and if that was not enough you could change your allotment, it seems to me.

It is inconceivable to me that an organization would come in with a statement of the fact that they needed money to spend, but did not know that they were spending all they had. It is at least a novel budget arrangement.

Mr. WOLF. We could do it for the future, but during the past few months we did not have a sufficient clerical staff or accounting staff to enable us to have that information and to keep up with our financial affairs, although every one of them was working hours overtime.

Mr. WOODRUM. What was the date of the Supreme Court decision? Mr. WOLF. April 12.

Mr. WOODRUM. It was following that that you had all this rush of business that you refer to?