nvolved. Jobs in Rhode Island, jobs in Massachusetts and New Hamphire and other New England States are affected by the success of a naritime program.

I would like to hear your answer to the question as to why we as a tation have let this program slide down to the point it is now.

Mr. TIERNAN. Mr. Morton, I don't really have an answer to that (uestion. I think if I could answer that question I might not be sitting here at the table. It is one of those problems-that we tooled up so quickly during the Second World War that some things were let to lide after the war-and I think the direction of the administrations which followed were centered in that area. I don't believe there is any partisanship here.

As Mr. Hanna pointed out, I think there has been a lack of public understanding of the importance of the merchant marine to our total environment. People in the industries have been speaking out for 10 years with regard to the importance of this problem. It is only now that we can see clearly what the Soviet Union has done in the very short period since 1958. There is no question what their objective is. I think, because of the fact that Members of Congress are recognizing it now, that I must say in all modesty that the Members of the Congress have an understanding and get these responses from the people in the mail, and many individuals who are members of the maritime unions contact you and you get it before the people in the public

field.

I think, as Mr. Hanna pointed out, our job is to stress the importance of this to the people in the country and the administrationmaybe more than the people because the leadership has to come from the administration.

I think if it doesn't come from there, then the Congress has that obligation to pass legislation as proposed here before your committee. Mr. MORTON. Let me ask you this, putting it differently: In the meetings you attend with leadership groups in the State of Rhode Island does the question of the merchant marine come up? Are they putting the heat on you through correspondence, through interviews, through questioning, through demands that we do something about our maritime?

Mr. TIERNAN. Not really. The stress in our State has been in the commercial fisheries area not in the sense of the merchant marine or the shipbuilding yards. We don't have any shipyards in our State. We did during the war. We had a Kaiser shipyard that constructed Liberty ships but in Massachusetts we have had one of the finest shipyards for years and the historical trades and skilled people are there.

The distress that we have in our own State is the concern with the commercial fisheries and that type of interest in maritime affairs. But my own concern is the fact that in reading articles that have appeared in different magazines the article in this July Fortune magazine, an outstanding one which I think should be made part of the record of the committee hearings-have pointed out that Japanese methods and techniques have all been adopted from what has been learned from our shipyards and from our experience in the Second World War.

Why did we drop this and go back to the methods that were used before the Second World War? I don't know the answer to that. I know

the Navy is concerned. They have sent teams to Japan to inspect t methods with the idea of coming back and trying to instill these st the shipyards in our country. I think that the Government has to s in here and offer these incentives because it is requiring a treme amount of capitalization, a tremendous amount of investment, and r less they can see that there are going to be orders for this type of s or that type of ship, it is asking an awful lot for these private sh yards to tool up with this very, very expensive equipment to make the huge tankers that are required in the world trade today.

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Mr. MORTON. That is true, but with a little bit of change in our s sidy program and perhaps splitting our subsidy more equitably tween operating and construction and at a level of around a half lion dollars we can go into a vital shipbuilding program that will 1 us on a par with other nations.

The thing that burns me up is that we sit back and wait until t Russians do something or until the Japanese do something or s other nation before we get motivated to do it. Then we have to get: on a crash program basis to catch up, and crash programs alway have built-in inefficiencies.

I wonder whether we are tackling this thing at the right spot he in this committee. If we move the maritime administration into independent position does this really give us a maritime policy! De this change the general apathy that exists throughout the country

I have a feeling that the people who see our big reserve fr anchored in the James River and down in Wilmington and in othe areas, think we have a great maritime reserve in this pile of iron keep floating in these fresh water rivers and estuaries and we have because they don't meet the criteria.

The living conditions are not compatible with American standari They don't have the modern loading and unloading devices that ar required. Even with the technology we have had to develop. Th just don't meet the criteria of a modern ship that can compete w the cheap labor of other nations.

The very distinguished dean of the House, Mr. Celler, was in th chair where you are and I asked him the same question-we d ever seem to get the answer-as to why we are in such bad shap in the maritime. Maybe somebody on the committee knows. Mr. HANNA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. MORTON. I vield.

Mr. HANNA. Wouldn't you agree that at least these factors ha been at work. No. 1, coming out of World War II there was a pr emption of priorities in this country by programs which grasped imagination and the glamour attraction of the people in space ar in some of our other programs. The missiles race, the missiles g and that sort of thing really preempted the priorities.

No. 2, there was a ready alternative to our problems in the merch marine because of the availability in places like Japan, and the p policy then was to help Japan. So there was this alternative. T alternative then multiplied the problem because we didn't keep with the technology, and when you reduce your position in te nology you increase the burden of trying to bring yourself up, wh immediately makes the alternatives much more attractive as y

go on.

I kind of think that that trend of events took place. Then there was this final thing. There was an attitude that you get in any kind of activity where people are involved. There is an attitude of protecting that which is, because that looks like that is all there is going to be. When you get that kind of an attitude you don't have any kind of innovation. You say, "Don't rock the boat, boys. We may lose the little that we have."

It seems to me that that attitude got into the departments where we would have expected some leadership, and the attention of the administrations has been turned to other places and it is left to the Congress to start being alarmed and concerned about this. Although we may not be going in precisely the right direction, I think this is a necessary exercise to bring it back into focus.

Would you agree that at least those things are involved?

Mr. MORTON. I think this must be involved. There must be something more to it than this. If we can spend $5,900 million in an annual appropriation for space it would seem to me that we could spend 10 percent of that, which is $500 million a year, even at the expense of slowing down the space program, to bring surface transportation on the sea into a relatively equitable position with our adventure in space. Somewhere there is a prejudice against our maintaining ourselves in a leadership position on the high seas. If we can ever find out where that prejudice really exists and eliminate that prejudice, it wouldn't make any difference if the Maritime Administration were part of the Treasury Department or the Agriculture Department. We would have an ongoing shipbuilding program and ship operating program that would give us a reasonable share of the market of total world shipping. Until we find that and know how to articulate it, I think we are in an organizational vacuum.

Mr. POLLOCK. Will the gentleman yield?

I feel that the problem must be laid squarely upon the administration. I don't want to talk politics or partisan politics but every time the administration comes out strongly, enthusiastically, and dynamically for a program, it goes through Congress. Congress will just automatically pick up the enthusiasm. This is one of the areas where I think we are going to have to take an aggressive, dynamic approach as Congressmen because the administration will not recognize its responsibility.

If 70 percent of our total 200 million people that live in our coastal areas, I am absolutely convinced that a vast majority of those people know the dangerous condition that we have today; the dangerous position of our maritime and commercial fisheries industry. Yet we are doing nothing about it. We are getting some lipservice and nothing

else.

I think somehow all of us, with our collective efforts, have to convince this administration for the American people that we have got to put some emphasis in this area.

I agree with you. We don't have all the dollars we want to do everything, but if it means taking some of the space program and putting it here, I would be 100 percent for that enthusiastically, because I think we are going down the drain, as Bob Leggett said a little while ago, and we have to reverse this trend.

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Mr. DOWNING. Would the gentleman yield? When you say "adri T istration," I think it should be "administrations.". Mr. POLLOCK. I will certainly agree with that.

Mr. DOWNING. Because I don't believe since the Roosevelt adminis tration of 1936 has any President asked for a dynamic merchant wa rine policy.

Mr. POLLOCK. I agree 100 percent, Mr. Chairman.

Mr.

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Mr. MORTON. I don't think we have any area in the United State TAT where the economy is more tightly intertwined with the maritic program than your district, Mr. Chairman. I wonder if the people the streets of Newport News are as excited about the idea of buil new modern merchant ships as they are about building just mercha ships.

Mr. DOWNING. Yes, sir; I can tell you that they are. I say this The previous witness mentioned that Newport News has large order It is true that they have a backlog of Government orders but I real that there have to be other shipyards with the capability of supplying this country with ships, not only Newport Ships which today is in unfortunate position. We should have a capability on both coasts of building ships.

Mr. MORTON. Not only capability, Mr. Chairman, but we ought t be building ships on both coasts and I don't think we are ever go to build ships until this committee develops the authorization author ity to get into this program at a much higher level than it is today I believe the attitude of the Science and Astronautics Committee, the attitudes of the other committees is because of the fact that they have an authorization authority. They have an authorization and then ther have a responsibility for oversight in this area that this committe does not have.

I believe this is one of our problems, because we don't have the oppor tunity to get people excited around this Congress to do the kind of things for the merchant marine that should be done. I hope out of th we are able to reorganize ourselves in this respect, too.

Mr. DOWNING. Mr. Congressman, you made a fine statement. That is exactly what we are trying to do. Mr. Pollock.

Mr. POLLOCK. Yes. Mr. Chairman.

I know our good witness has not had an opportunity in the last fer minutes to say very much. I would like to congratulate him in berg here and on the excellent statement that he made. I would like to we come him as one of the members who is very, very interested in Cogress in getting our merchant marine back on its feet the way it shor: be and I would like to say that I am glad to have a colleague who a the same view I do about a Cabinet-level man to operate or to contre all of the aspects concerned with the sea.

No one can tell me that you couldn't get the ear of the President i you had a dynamic man there. I know darn well if I were sitting ther I would get his attention no matter what the other problems were.

Mr. TIERNAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Pollock. And I ag with your thoughts in regard to getting his ear. I think a Cabin position is the thing to do in this area because I think that the overs importance of it still hasn't been recognized even by the Congress

Thank you.

Mr. DowNING. Thank you very much.

Our next witness is our colleague from Pennsylvania, Mr. William . Green.

Mr. Green, you may proceed in any way you wish to present your

tatement.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM J. GREEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to be able to add a few houghts to this committee's deliberations about the need for an independent Maritime Administration.

I think these are highly significant hearings, because the whole future course of our merchant marine depends on how this legislation fares when it reaches the House floor.

The enactment of the Maritime Act of 1936 was an important milestone in our maritime affairs--but not as important as will be the passage of maritime independence legislation. The reason is that we are worse off today than we were 30 years ago, when the Merchant Martine Act of 1936 was passed.

This is unfortunate, because our growth as a nation, up to now, has been closely linked to our status on the seas of the world. I find it incredible, therefore, that in recent years we have turned our backs on the seas, which are so important in terms of our international commerce and our national defense.

Since before the birth of our Nation, the United States has traditionally been a maritime power. This tradition, which extended from the days of the Yankee traders and through the difficult times of two world wars, placed our Nation forever in a position of maritime importance. It has only been in recent years and since 1950 in particular, that the maritime position of the country has been seriously threatened. This threat to our position as a seapower coincided with the decision to make the Maritime Administration subordinate to the Department of Commerce, and thus unable to speak for itself on the urgent problems which it faced.

The need for an adequate merchant marine is universally recognized, yet few are willing to do anything about the appalling situation in which we now find ourselves. In the words of President Johnson:

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All through our nation's history the prosperity of our people and their safety have been tied very closely to the role we play on the seas of the world. That is a role we can never wisely or safely neglect.

Yet the President has asked the Secretary of Transportation, Alan Boyd, a man with the responsibilities of the entire Transportation Department to deal with, to formulate a new maritime program for this country. It should be apparent to the administration that a situation as grave as the one in which the American-flag fleet now finds itself, can only be remedied by an independent agency which can devote its full time and resources to the problem.

It is harsh but unavoidably a fact of life that this Nation is no longer able to meet its needs of ocean transportation. After nearly two