MESSRS. BURTON L. FRENCH (CHAIRMAN), GUY U. HARDY, JOHN TABER, JAMES F. BYRNES, 12623-24 Au H6 NAVY DEPARTMENT APPROPRIATION BILL, 1926 ★★ HEARINGS CONDUCTED BY THE SUBCOMMITTEE, MESSRS. BURΤΟΝ L. FRENCH (CHAIRMAN), GUY U. HARDY, JOHN TABER, JAMES F. BYRNES, AND WILLIAM B. OLIVER, OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IN CHARGE OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT APPROPRIATION BILL FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1926, ON THE DAYS FOLLOWING, NAMELY: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1924. STATEMENTS OF HON. CURTIS DWIGHT WILBUR, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, AND ADMIRAL EDWARD W. EBERLE, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS PLAN AND SCOPE OF HEARINGS Mr. FRENCH. The committee will be in order. To-day we take up the hearings on the naval appropriation bill for the fiscal year 1926. The bill as it comes to the committee carries with it estimates aggregating $289,783,978, as against approximately $304,000,000 carried in the bill last year, or as it was made up from the addition to the bill of approximately $3,000,000 of deficiency appropriations and including $22,500,000 of authorizations apart from the direct money appropriations. For the help of the members of the committee and of the department, the chairman prepared an outline that he hoped would be suggestive of the best way in which the whole subject could be presented to the committee, and has called for data, including charts on various subjects where it seemed that the information could be furnished in advance. This is the method that was followed last year, and I believe that it worked admirably both from the standpoint of the department and of the committee and the Congress. Probably there is no appropriation bill that comes before the Congress as to which there is so wide a margin of difference as that involved in the naval appropriation bill. In other words, throughout the country there are those who would, it seems, proceed regardless of national economies that must be practiced, and even regardless of treaties that have been entered into, mainly the limitation of armaments treaty, and would boost expenditures for the Navy out of all reason. Again, throughout the country we have those who apparently would be regardless of the Nation's best interests and would follow a course that would practically scrap the Navy. The duty of the Committee on Appropriations is to endeavor to work out a bill that it can report to the Congress and that will be in harmony with the obligations our country has assumed, and that will furnish means for a Navy that will be adequate for the country's defense. M533116 1 |