TESTIMONY

OF ALLAN SELWIN, DISTRICT EMPLOYMENT OFFICER FOR WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION, DETROIT, MICH.

Mr. SELWIN. The only figures we would have would be the number of aliens receiving relief at the present time.

I am not sure just what that figure is today, but it has varied between 900 and 3,000.

Mr. SPARKMAN. Is that in one county?

Mr. SELWIN. That is in the city of Detroit.

Mr. SPARKMAN. What is your first name, Mr. Selwin?

Mr. SELWIN. Allan.

Mr. SPARKMAN. And you are?

Mr. SELWIN. I am district employment officer for the W. P. A. in the city of Detroit and Wayne County.

TESTIMONY OF ABNER E. LARNED-Resumed

Mr. LARNED. I am informed that there are 2,500 aliens on relief in Detroit at the present time. And at this time there are approximately 300,000 aliens in Michigan. One of the interesting parts of our program is our Americanization effort to make citizens of those aliens. We have carried on that effort for a number of years, with very great success, but as you see, that is a considerable number, and even in a highly intelligent State like Michigan, we have 71,000 illiterates a fact which we are not stating with any particular pride. Those two groups form probably the most fertile soil for subversive propaganda that could exist in our country. That is why we are intensifying our Americanization drive at this time, in an endeavor to teach these people something about the country they live in and the reason why they should be loyal to it.

Mr. SPARKMAN. Do you have an opinion as to whether Congress should relax the restrictions that it has imposed on alien employment? Mr. LARNED. My own impression is that it should do so, because many of these aliens are here performing excellent work for the country and were admitted with due process of law and are in the process of getting their citizenship papers.

Mr. SPARKMAN. Many of them have their first papers?

Mr. LARNED. Yes. And I think that would be the time to treat them with the greatest leniency and make American citizens of them.

Surely we don't want any influences at work that will make them a part of a "fifth column," and we have either got to have them with us or against us. I feel that they want to be of us, not against us.

Mr. OSMERS. Mr. Larned, would you make a distinction between the alien who has signified his intention to become a citizen and the alien who has not?

Mr. LARNED. Well, I think that would need a little examination. So often ignorance is at the bottom of their failure to take any steps in that direction. That is why we can be very helpful to them. They are timid about approaching the Federal agencies, to begin with. They don't know how to make their first approach, and in our classes we are able to draw them together. The classes are not held in Federal buildings, or in any public building where they are likely to feel

that there is a policing of their activities. Sometimes it is difficult to get them to go, but through contact with members of their own race, we bring them the thought that we are there to help them. When they once understand that, they are very eager to come to the classes.

NO DIFFICULTY IN SECURING SPONSORS

Mr. OSMERS. Do you have any difficulty in the State of Michigan in securing sponsors for projects?

Mr. LARNED. I should say none whatever. Our difficulty is in satisfying sponsors that we are not always able to do what they want us to do. Of course there are certain areas where their financial means are very restricted, where it is difficult for them to sponsor projects. Perhaps one of the most striking illustrations would be in Houghton County.

Mr. OSMERS. In what part of the State is Houghton County? Mr. LARNED. That is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in the heart of the "old copper country," as we call it.

DROP IN ASSESSMENTS IN HOUGHTON COUNTY

Some years ago, not much more than 10 years ago, Houghton County had an assessed valuation of $180,000,000. It crowded. Wayne County very closely in its assessed valuation. Today the assessed valuation of Houghton County is less than $18,000,000. Well, you can see that such a tremendous drop as that makes direct relief extremely difficult, and it is extremely difficult for those people to sponsor W. P. A. projects with a 25 percent sponsor contribution. Mr. OSMERS. Is that 25 percent mandatory all over the State?

Mr. LARNED. Our average must be 25 percent, and I am allowed the liberty at times of going below that, but if I do, then I have got to sell somebody else a coat and vest at a higher price in order to bring the average up, and that isn't a very satisfactory way of doing business. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Larned. You have filed with us a very valuable statement, and we appreciate your coming here. I think it is a very fine report.

W. P. A. AS DETERRENT OF MIGRATION

Mr. LARNED. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the courtesy of my reception. There is just one thing that I would like to say before I leave. I presume this thought has occurred to you, but I would like to emphasize it: It seems to me that W. P. A., by reason of its widespread employment, has been able to afford to these communities as outstanding a deterrent to migration as exists in this country.

Ask yourself the question: "Why do people migrate?" The answer is, "To get something to do that they can't find available in their home community." Now, W. P. A. has helped to prevent that migration in the State of Michigan, in all its 83 counties. We have done something about it and have given the residents of those counties a way of averting the necessity to pack up their belongings and go on a fruitless search for a job, wasting their own substance and giving us something of the picture we had back in the 1930's, when our highways were thronged with them.

60396-41-pt. 18- -24

Mr. OSMERS. Do you feel that the very factor that you have pointed out has had the effect of freezing populations in certain places, populations that might be used to better advantage to themselves and to the country in other places?

Mr. LARNED. I presume in some instances that is true, Mr. Osmers. However, I think it is rarely so because the wages that W. P. A. pays certainly are not very inviting. They represent just a mere subsistence.

Furthermore, the people are anxious to get off W. P. A. at the first opportunity that offers private employment. They embrace very readily any opportunity to get private employment, and they do that because of the provision of the law that gives them some security in doing it. If they leave W. P. A. employment for private employment and then are severed from that private employment through no fault of their own, they can immediately be taken back on W. P. A. That makes them perhaps bolder than they would be otherwise about leaving W. P. A.

I haven't found any tangible evidence of people on W. P. A. wanting to make a career of $44 a month.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Larned, you speak about migration. This committee has been all over the United States, studying the mass migration of destitute citizens. You have just indicated one of the causes for that migration, but there are other causes too-tractors, ill health, worn-out soil. Therefore, there is no single solution. One solution you have indicated is to make their home conditions satisfactory.

Mr. LARNED. May I add a thought to that? Isn't migration the natural impulse of the human family? Our ancestors in Europe migrated all over that country and even emigrated across the sea. They covered our country in wagons. And it seems to me that migration is not an unmixed evil, by any means. It is the natural ambition of man to better himself. If he can't do it in his own community, he will go somewhere else to do it.

The CHAIRMAN. You are practically quoting from our report, which has already been filed with Congress.

Mr. CURTIS. Perhaps he has read it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LARNED. And I might say that that part I have read is very interesting. Thank you, gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is Mr. Weiner.

TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH L. WEINER, REPRESENTING THE CIVILIAN SUPPLY DIVISION, OFFICE OF PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT, WASHINGTON, D. C.

The CHAIRMAN. This is Mr. Joseph L. Weiner, representing the O. P. M., Civilian Supply Division. For the purposes of the record, I will read a telegram from Mr. Leon Henderson, of that office:

Had made all plans to be in Detroit tomorrow and hoped until very last minute to come myself. However, House Banking and Currency Committee is keeping me here on price bill. Since impossible for me to come am sending personal representative, Joe Weiner, who will present brief and I am sure do noble job.1 Please express my regrets because had fully expected to be able to

appear.

1 The paper to which reference is made appears on p. 7453.

That is signed, "Leon Henderson, Office of Price Administration." Mr. Weiner, Congressman Osmers will interrogate you.

Mr. OSMERS. Mr. Weiner, I think I ought to open the questioning by saying that every witness who has come before the committee in the State of Michigan has had something to say about your office, and I think, in the interest of accuracy, I should tell you the comment hasn't been very complimentary in most cases.

Mr. WEINER. I hope it wasn't unanimously uncomplimentary. Mr. OSMERS. Well, I think it would come pretty close to being that. Mr. WEINER. I am very sorry.

Mr. OSMERS. I think the committee realizes, and probably the country too, that the job you are doing in Washington would naturally cause a great deal of criticism.

The Michigan problem is, I would say, more acute with respect to the operations of your office than in any other State in the Union that we have visited, because so much of the industry here is the manufacture of passenger cars, and because of the curtailment of that manufacture.

Now, you will recall that Mr. Henderson was before this committee in Washington last July.'

Mr. WEINER. Yes; very well.

Mr. OSMERS. And since that time we have been informed that there has been a reorganization in your office.

Mr. WEINER. That is correct.

REORGANIZATION IN OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION AND CIVILIAN

SUPPLY

Mr. OSMERS. Now, I wonder if you would just describe briefly to the committee the nature of that reorganization?

Mr. WEINER. As the office existed at the time Mr. Henderson appeared before your committee, it was a price administration office and a civilian supply office, all in one unit, which was a separate and distinct organization from the Office of Production Management.

Under the reorganization, the civilian supply part of the office was transferred into O. P. M. as a new division of that body, so that the independent office today is a price office exclusively. The civilian supply work is now being carried on through the new division of civilian supply of O. P. M., of which Mr. Henderson is director, in addition to his job as Administrator of the price office.

Now, apart from that, and in addition to it, there was created this over-all policy board.

Mr. OSMERS. What is the name of that board?

Mr. WEINER. That is Supply, Priorities, and Allocations Board, popularly referred to as S. P. A. B. It is not directly related to the change in the office, but is a new creation designed to bring together into one body, a purely policy-making body, the representatives of the principal interests that have to be considered in connection with the supply and allocation problem.

1 See Washington hearings, July 17, 1941, pt. 16, pp. 6620-6666.

If you care to have the membership of that body elaborated on, I will be happy to do so.

Mr. OSMERS. The names would not be particularly important, but the various functions of the members would be helpful.

FUNCTIONS OF MEMBERS OF SUPPLY, PRIORITIES, AND ALLOCATIONS BOARD

Mr. WEINER. The set-up, briefly, is this: As chairman of that Board, the President designated Vice President Wallace, and of particular significance in this connection is the fact that Mr. Wallace had previously been designated Chairman of the Economic Defense Board, so that that whole problem is represented on that Board directly through Mr. Wallace.

Mr. Hopkins was named to the Board primarily, of course, because of his active connection with lend-lease problems.

The Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy need no accounting for.

Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Hillman are included, in their capacity as director general and associate director general of O. P. M., respectively, and particularly because of the problems that they have been dealing with and for which they have been the public representatives for so long.

And finally, there is Mr. Henderson, whose problem has been primarily the civilian supply and price problem, from the days of the National Defense Commission.

MAJOR CRITICISMS OF SUPPLY, PRIORITIES, AND ALLOCATIONS BOARD

Mr. OSMERS. In general, I think it would be fair to say that the major criticisms that have been directed against the Board have been these and the other members of the committee may care to add to the four that I have listed here:

First, and apparently the most serious charge that has been leveled at your office, has been the fact that there has not been an adequate inventory made of the materials available in the United States, of the machines available, and of the labor available for both our civilian needs and our war needs.

The second charge that has been made here has been that the Government-this may not be your department-has failed to crowd our industries sufficiently to speed up and to get business out to small contractors subcontractors and suppliers and this failure has had the effect of lengthening the transition period and of lengthening the period of unemployment between nondefense and defense.

The third charge is that there are remaining in the country, and in the State of Michigan particularly, many unused facilities that the Government should use. That ties in a little with the second one.

The fourth major charge has been that organized labor has not had a sufficient voice in determining the policies of the Government with respect to defense. In other words, they feel that while the Board may be set up in such a way that they are represented on paper, in operation they have not been adequately represented.

Now, we might just keep those four items in mind as we go along. When we were in Washington, we were primarily concerned with