enforcement is the function of the Department of Justice, not of this committee, though we are authorized to make recommendations with respect to antitrust policy and procedure. The function of the committee is merely to study facts and to make report thereon with its findings and recommendations.

The committee is composed of 12 members, 6 from the legislative and 6 from the executive branch of the Government. The executive departments and commissions represented on the committee are, by the resolution, directed to appear before the Committee, or its designee, and present evidence or reports on matters within their jurisdiction under existing law.

It is this phase of the work which is now beginning.

The presentation of any evidence or report by any agency of the Government does not, of course, exhaust the power of the full committee. It may receive evidence on the same subjects from any other source or from any other witnesses. In due course, that will be done.

In the meantime, it should be clearly understood that no department or commission, no member of the committee, no employee or agent of the committee, no witness who appears here speaks for the committee. Such evidence as is presented is either on the authority of the agency which offers it or is received because the committee believes it wil be useful in developing the facts which are later to be analyzed when the committee undertakes to make its report.

Whether this study will be fruitful of benefit to society or altogether futile depends largely upon two factors:

1. The manner in which it is conducted, and

2. The manner in which it is received by the public.

Let me say, therefore, in the language of a resolution unanimously adopted by the committee at its last session:

That is the unanimous sense of this committee that its function and purpose is to collect and analyze, through the medium of reports and public hearings, available facts pertaining to the items specified in Public Resolution 113 (75th Cong.), in an objective, unbiased, and dispassionate manner, and that it is the purpose of the committee to pursue its work solely from this point of view.

The members of the committee are deeply sensible of the responsibility that rests upon them to utilize the broad powers with which they have been invested solely for the public good. No personal, partisan, or factional program is controlling here. The processes of the committee will not be used for any purpose save to develop economic facts which in the very nature of things must be widely comprehended before any constructive recommendations may be outlined.

The committee has approached its task with an open mind and with the intention to afford to interested persons the widest possible latitude for the presentation of evidence or suggestions.

The hearings begin today with a preparatory presentation to be made by Dr. Isador Lubin of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He will be followed by Dr. Willard Thorp, who has been associated with the Department of Commerce, and by Mr. Leon Henderson, executive secretary of the committee. Next week the formal presentation of evidence will be begun by the Department of Justice.

When that presentation is undertaken, the committee will be acting under rules of procedure which were adopted at the last meeting of the

committee to apply to those portions of the hearing which are carried on under sec. 3 (b) of the resolution. It seems appropriate that these rules of procedure should also be filed at this point in the record.

(The rules referred to were marked "Exhibit No. 3" and are included in the appendix on p. 193.)

The CHAIRMAN. The prefatory statement which is about to be made by Dr. Lubin was undertaken because in the judgment of the committee it was desirable that there should be first an analysis of the facts of our economic system as they have appeared to the various Government bureaus.

As everybody connected with the Government and most of those connected with business understand, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor, as well as other departments in the Government have for many years been collecting official information with respect to our economic structure.

The question, which it is now to be undertaken to answer with the testimony first of Dr. Lubin and then of these other gentlemen, is: "What exactly has been the effect of our industrial and economic system upon the community life of the Nation?"

I now introduce Dr. Lubin as the first witness of this public hearing. TESTIMONY OF DR. ISADOR LUBIN, COMMISSIONER OF LABOR STATISTICS, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Dr. LUBIN. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, any attempt to measure the performance of our economy must be in terms of its efficiency in meeting the requirements of our citizens. To maintain our standards as our population grows we must increase the output of the goods and services produced at least proportionately with the growth of our population.

I shall attempt to portray our population trend and to measure the amount of goods and services that have been available to our people over a period of years.

In presenting my evidence, Mr. Chairman, I shall use a series of charts prepared in the Department of Labor and based upon information collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as well as by the Department of Commerce, the Federal Reserve Board, and such authoritative private statistical agencies as the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The statistical data upon which these charts are based will be submitted in tabular form as an appendix to my testimony, numbered to correspond with the exhibit number given each chart.

I want to turn first to exhibit No. 4, which shows the trend of population growth in the United States.

(The chart referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 4" and appears on p. 4. The statistical data on which this chart is based are included in the appendix on p. 194.)

DR. LUBIN. If you go back to 1850, the middle of the last century, you will note that the increase in population from that year to 1935, was from 23,000,000 people to 127,000,000. Such estimates as are available place the estimated population in 1940, 2 years hence, at approximately 132,000,000 people.

The significant fact that should be brought out is that between 1850 and 1880 our population doubled. Between 1880 and 1910, 30 years later, population increased by 80 percent.

Between 1910 and estimated 1940 a similar period of 30 years, it is estimated our population will have increased 43 percent and the esti

mated increase in population from 1940 to 1960 will be about 10 percent. In other words, the rate of increase of our population has been steadily going downward, so that in 1960 it is estimated that there will be but 10 percent more people in the United States than there will be in 1940.

Contrasting the growth of population with the goods and services that are available for our people, which is measured in terms of our national income, you will note from exhibit No. 5 that our national income increased from $2,000,000,000 in 1850 to $61,500,000,000, which is our estimate for the year 1938. But the significant thing to emphasize is that between 1910 and 1919 the average annual national income was $42,500,000,000. Between 1920 and 1929, it averaged $69,000,000,000 per year or an increase over the preceding 10 years of approximately 60 percent.

(The chart referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 5" and appears on this page. The statistical data on which this chart is based are included in the appendix on p. 194.)

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, W. I. KING, AND U. S. DEPT. OF COMMERCE

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The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Lubin, won't you, for the benefit of all who may hear or read what is testified here, give your definition of the national income? I find sometimes that that phrase is confused with the income of the Government.

Dr. LUBIN. The national income is the total amount of goods, namely, clothes, automobiles, food, houses, and things of that sort, the total sum of all the goods plus the total sum of all the services, which means laundry, garage, electric utility, and every other service sold the sum total of all the goods and services produced in the United States in any one year, and this chart portrays in terms of dollars what has happened to the value of all those things during the period covered

Senator KING (interposing). Including agriculture, of course.
Dr. LUBIN. All goods.

Senator KING. Agricultural commodities and production?
Dr. LUBIN. Anything that is produced.

The CHAIRMAN. That covers all mining production, all agricultural production, all industrial production, and all the activities of trade and commerce?

Dr. LUBIN. Yes. As I was saying, between 1920 and 1929 the average annual income was 60 percent greater than it was in the decade preceding.

Between 1930 and 1938 the national income averaged $56,000,000,000. In other words, there was a decrease in the income available, goods, and services produced available to the American people, from an average of $69,000,000,000 per year between 1920 and 1929 to $56,000,000,000 per year between 1930 and 1938.

For 1937 our national income was estimated by the Department of Commerce at $70,000,000,000. For this year the estimate is about $62,000,000,000, roughly, so that despite the fact that the national income is now relatively high as compared to the past, when you take into consideration the drop in national income during the early years of the decade you find a marked decline from $69,000,000,000 to $56,000,000,000

The CHAIRMAN. How reliable are those estimates?

Dr. LUBIN. They are the most reliable estimates that are available. They are made by the Department of Commerce and are accepted by economists, statisticians, and business people of the country as the most reliable figures that are available.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the basis of the various estimates?

Dr. LUBIN. What the Department does is to get such figures as are available, that is the amount paid out in wages, the amount paid out in salaries, the amount paid out in interest, the amount paid out in dividends, and other things of that sort, to estimate the total amount of income paid out. The income paid out is not always equal to the income produced, because some of it is saved by corporations and otherwise.

The CHAIRMAN. Over what period has the Department of Commerce been making these estimates?

Dr. LUBIN. I think they originally started in 1930 but they worked the figures back, and have been keeping them current since.

Senator KING. The Census Bureau has also made a contribution to the determination of the income.