General RUGGLES. Oh, no; not at all.

Mr. WRIGHT. Just to give them orders for jigs and dies? General RUGGLES. Small orders, including one set of jigs, dies, fixtures, and gauges.

Mr. WRIGHT. That is what is at present contemplated?

General RUGGLES. To have them go through the necessary experimental and study work to study this thing, so that if war should come they would not have to spend three or four months in making drawings and jigs and dies. They would have at least worked out the dies and fixtures and have adopted this manufacture to their own plant, so that they could go ahead rapidly without wasting three or four months' time.

Mr. WRIGHT. You wouldn't estimate there would be any considerable expense incident to this work, would you?

General RUGGLES. It would be some additional expense, but not a very serious matter. There is this much benefit. When we fire a round in target practice we get training for the soldiers who fire it, and sometimes the soldier is gone in three years. If in addition to the training we get in firing, in target practice, we get a training of the manufacture who has made that round, we get double insurance, because we have not only trained the soldier but we have trained the manufacturer upon who we must rely to make that ammunition, and we will cut down that 2-year period. We want to cut it down as much as we can, and we hope to get it down to 14 or 15 months, and sometime to a year.

Mr. WRIGHT. So what you want is to have some responsible commercial concerns in the United States ready, so that if an emergency arises you can say, "Here, make so many guns of this type, and so many cartridges of this type, according to the models you have on hand"?

General RUGGLES. That is right.

Mr. WRIGHT. Isn't that the whole idea?

General RUGGLES. That is it exactly. And people can not make these noncommercial articles without a great deal of preparation and study.

Mr. WRIGHT. In other words, getting ready is the thing, isn't it? General RUGGLES. That is it.

Mr. WRIGHT. Preparing the blue prints, and so forth. The first thing, when you build a house, is to have an architect.

General RUGGLES. Absolutely.

Mr. WRIGHT. That requires time. The same thing applies to the production of these munitions; it requires time to work out the patterns. That is what you want done?

General RUGGLES. Yes.

Mr. WRIGHT. As I understand it, you contemplate under this bill, if it becomes law, as appropriations were made from time to time you would have authority to allocate certain portions of the appropriation to this particular work.

General RUGGLES. That is the idea; when Congress sees fit to give us money for munitions.

Mr. WRIGHT. In other words, you want the skeleton, or the layout? General RUGGLES. We want to use this appropriation for training manufacturers.

Mr. MCSWAIN. General, the total number of dies, jigs, gauges, and patterns necessary to produce the quantity that would be consumed in the event of a major war is a matter of easy computation, is it not? General RUGGLES. Not easy computation. It could be computed. It would be quite a job to compute it. It would be very expensivealso. We have no intention of building all the dies and fixtures that would be needed in war. We only want to get a sample set for each manufacturer in the industrial preparedness program.

Mr. MCSWAIN. Have the arsenals any reserve of these patterns and dies to be issued to industry to be used in the event of an emergency? General RUGGLES. We have a considerable reserve of gauges, but not of dies and fixtures. And, another thing; the dies and fixturesusesd in one plant could not necessarily be used in another. Your fixture has got to be adapted to your machine. You have got to use the machines, so far as possible, that happen to exist. Not the most ideal machine but any machine that can be adapted to the work. That machine might use a different die or a different fixture from: some other machine.

Mr. MCSWAIN. Your proposition is to eliminate all limitations as to advertising and competitive bidding and to pay the private manufacturer to set up, in peace time, an outfit, including all the work that would be necessary for him to do in planning and designing and engineering, all these gauges and dies and patterns?

General RUGGLES. Yes.

Mr. MCSWAIN. Use them a little while and then lay them aside until an emergency arises?

General RUGGLES. Yes; because it gives training to his key men. to know how to make these complicated articles. He then puts these dies and fixtures and jigs in his storehouse. He only makes a limited quantity. But anyway, he knows exactly what he is to make. It is a long, careful study, more or less mixed with experiment, to determine for a given plant the particular kind of fixtures and jigs needed for that plant to produce a given article. After he has gone through that thing once, and has made drawings and has a sample in his storehouse, it will save months in getting into production.

Mr. MCSWAIN. You have the result of your last experience along that line.

General RUGGLES. We had the experience of the last war. But that experience will not last forever. The last war was 10 years ago. The war we are preparing for now may not come for 20 years, if it does come, and most everybody will be dead or retired who had anything to do with this last war.

Mr. MCSWAIN. Including the key men in these industries?
General RUGGLES. Yes.

Mr. MCSWAIN. And you propose to keep their sons educated up? General MCSWAIN. Yes: and a great many of them are doing it. One of the witnesses here is doing that with his own son, Mr. Glover, of Marietta, Ga.

Mr. MCSWAIN. What does he manufacture?

General RUGGLES. I think he does general machine work. He manufactures miscellaneous articles.

Mr. MCSWAIN. It seems to me the thing for ordnance to do, for you in your arsenals, is to manufacture a large supply of these dies

and patterns and have them on hand to be issued to these factories whenever they need them, and say, " Here, you take these things and go ahead and manufacture the stuff with them."

General RUGGLES. The trouble is that what will fit one plant will not fit another.

Mr. MCSWAIN. Well, of course, there are standard plants. I won't take up any more time along that line now. I want to ask Mr. Trigg a question. Mr. Trigg, do you remember that some time ago the chamber of commerce took a referendum on the question of universal draft in the event of war to eliminate profiteering in war times?

Mr. TRIGG. I believe we did. Mr. Leasure, can you answer that question? I don't carry all those things in my mind, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MCSWAIN. Well, I remember that they did. But they haven't said anything about it in the past few years. I wondered if they had changed their mind. Has the United States Chamber of Commerce any attitude or policy on that now?

Mr. LEASURE. This is the referendum to which you refer.
Mr. MCSWAIN. What year is that?

Mr. LEASURE. It was a resolution passed at the annual meeting in 1917; that "the chamber of commerce reaffirms its hearty support of the principle of universal military training as laid down in proposal No. 7, referendum No. 15 (our referendum). Your committee deigns to hope that the nation generally will have opportunity to realize that no principle is more in accord with the republican form of government, no doctrine more truly democratic than that which asserts that every able-bodied male citizen owes military service to his country."

Mr. MCSWAIN. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about profiteering on supplies sold to the Government in time of war. They held a referendum on that.

Mr. LEASURE. That was not covered in referendums, as I recall it; but a resolution in annual meeting declared that manufacturers should produce supplies of war on a basis that would eliminate the profit element as largely as possible.

Mr. MCSWAIN. As large as possible. And they did that during the last war, didn't they?

Mr. TRIGG. Without speaking merely for the chamber of commerce, and not having looked up what action may or may not have been taken, as an individual I am prepared to assert that that is the position of certainly the great majority of the business men of America, whether members of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, or not, at this minute.

Mr. MCSWAIN. Universal draft for man power?

Mr. TRIGG. You were discussing the question, I thought, of profiteering in war supplies furnished to the Government.

Mr. MCSWAIN. Are you in favor of the other one, too?

Mr. TRIGG. We are on record in favor of that. That was a resolution at an annual meeting. We are definitely on record.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. Right on the point raised by the gentleman from South Carolina, how long would it take you to get a referendum of your members on the proposition?

Mr. TRIGG. It requires 40 days after the referendum is prepared and submitted to our membership. To that 40 days must be added the time required to prepare the referendum.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. In view of the attitude of your members, that you state here, I was rather interested in regard to the matter that Mr. McSwain has mentioned, a resolution which we have pending in Congress which is now before the Committee on Rules, originally introduced by Mr. McSwain, and now by me, committing the Government to the principle of the universal draft and providing for a commission to consider the subject, so as to formulate the necessary legislation. I wonder whether it would be difficult to get the views of the chamber of commerce on that proposition, so that the Committee on Rules might be impressed with their view?

Mr. TRIGG. I will be very glad to take that up in our committee as a beginning point, and discuss it.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. I would like to ask you now if you won't consider that and see what you can do along that line.

Mr. TRIGG. I would be very glad to.

Mr. MCSWAIN. I ask to have inserted in the record the referendum No. 22, submitted on September 12, 1917, found on page 121 of this book, Policies of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, and I will ask Mr. Leasure if that is still the policy of the Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. LEASURE. It is.

(The referendum referred to is as follows:)

CONTROL OF PRICES DURING THE WAR

There should be additional legislation to create authority to control prices during the war.

Authority to control prices should extend to all articles which have importance in basis industries as well as in war, and which enter into the necessaries of every-day life.

Authority to control prices should extend to raw materials and finished products.

Authority to control prices should extend to the prices the public pays as well as those paid by the Government.

Authority to control prices should be administered by a small executive board appointed by the President.

An agency working in harmony with the board controlling prices should have authority to distribute available supplies to those purchasers whose needs are most directly related to the public welfare.

Each leading industry and trade should create a representative committee to represent it in conference and to advise with agencies that control prices and distribution.

Mr. HOUSTON. General, is it the policy, providing this bill is passed, for the department to make allowances or a subsidy, perhaps, for the cost of these jigs and dies? Otherwise, I can readily understand that a small educational order might not be sufficient to pay for the cost of the jigs and dies.

General RUGGLES. We would pay for that, because it is considered by us essential to have in the manufacturing plants that we are going to allocate the jobs to, and which require a large number of these dies, jigs, and fixtures. It will save months in getting into manufacture.

Mr. HOUSTON. So that payment would be made for them in the ordinary way?

General RUGGLES. Oh, yes; and in the 10-year program we have an estimate for those very things. It is included in the total cost of the program.

Mr. GLYNN. Now, General, let me ask you right there; these jigs and dies, being paid for by the Government, would belong to the Government?

General RUGGLES. Yes; they would belong to the Government.

Mr. HOUSTON. But would have to be maintained by the factory? General RUGGLES. We could do that or we could store them in Government establishments and list them as being available to that particular factory.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. General, have you any provision now for making changes in jigs and dies necessitated by improvements or changes in type?

General RUGGLES. We do change our gauges, and, of course, if the article is one we are currently manufacturing, we would change our jigs and fixtures, but, as a rule, the changes in existing types that we make are relatively minor. The changes in type we made with our new types were so radical that practically none of the gauges, jigs, or fixtures would be useful for the new article. For example, take the .75-millimeter gun. It shoots 50 per cent farther than the French gun. It is a very superior weapon to the French; it shoots half again as far and covers a very much wider arc. You can shoot anywhere within 45° without changing the position of your trail, without moving your gun carriage.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. As a matter of fact, you made very few of this first type American .75?

Geenral RUGGLES. Very few, and if we go into war we must start with the French type.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. If you wanted to go into a war with the American type, in order to go into quantity production, wouldn't it require the creation of a great number of jigs and dies for that new type of ordnance?

General RUGGLES. It would, to make the new guns.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. Might not that apply to some of the other types of ordnance as well?

General RUGGLES. Absolutely. We have to start the war with the old matériel in store. We can not get new matériel, under the most optimistic circumstances, under a year. If we do that, we will do twice as well as we did during the World War.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. Suppose we had to create a certain number of thousand of the new .75, these orders would have to be distributed aroung among certain of the industry?

General RUGGLES. Absolutely.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. And wouldn't it be important that these industries should have the jigs and dies for that particular type right on hand, so as to get into production?

General RUGGLES. Absolutely; it would save several months.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. Is that really what you are talking about here? General RUGGLES. That is what we are providing for; exactly. Mr. JAMES. How much money is laid aside in your $20,000,000 program for the purpose of dies, gauges, and so forth? General RUGGLES. I can't give you that now.

my head.

I don't have it in