that is the policy that we have taken. From that meeting they furnished me Mr. Lenz. The next day we had a meeting on lead and

zinc.

We had Mr. Bilherz from Tri-State Zinc & Lead, Mr. Walter Carroll from National Lead, Mr. Dwyer from Anaconda, Mr. Harvey from New Jersey Zinc, Mr. Ince from St. Joseph Lead, Mr. LeFevre from United States Smelting & Refining, Mr. Kenly from New Jersey Zinc, Mr. Snyder from Combined Metals Reduction, Mr. Strauss from American Smelting & Refining, Mr. Weinberg from International Minerals & Metals Corp., Mr. Zimmer from American Metal, and Mr. Zoller from Eagle Pitcher Co.

At that meeting we stressed the necessity of them furnishing us with a man who was familiar with the various ramifications of the lead and zinc industry, so that they could write orders. It has been our policy to take people from industry and take the people who are recommended by our supervisory groups to write these orders.

Mr. Lipkowitz' responsibility is merely to furnish supporting data to those men.

Mr. REGAN. Right there, Mr. Ewing, did the lead-mining industry furnish you a man at your request?

Mr. EWING. I still have that up with them. We have been using a gentleman who was furnished by American Smelting & Refining, Mr. Halpern, whom you have on your list. I discussed it last week with Mr. Carroll. We have taken every opportunity to point out to these men in these industries that they must furnish us the men. If they don't give us the adequate tools to draw these regulations, they can't be drawn properly.

Mr. REGAN. But you are expecting your guidance from men in the industry?

Mr. EWING. From men in industry. I have worked in industry all my life. I know if we don't draw on the experience of those men, we will not put out satisfactory regulations. And it is the responsibility of the industry committee to furnish those men to us. Mr. REGAN. Mr. D'Ewart has been very patient.

DOMESTIC MERCURY MINES CLOSED BY FOREIGN IMPORTS

Mr. D'EWART. This committee has at various times concerned itself with mercury. I will ask if you had anything to do with the State Department at the time we imported the mercury from Italy, Mr. Lipkowitz, several hundred flasks.

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. What year was that?

Mr. D'EWART. 1948 or 1949.

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. I left the State Department in 1947.

Mr. D'EWART. This committee has been very concerned about that. Did you have anything to do with the importing of the Spanish engineers that were brought over here to study our processing and mercury mining and then went home and put us out of business?

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. Not that I recall, but as I remember the situation the Spanish mercury mines are the richest mines in the world from the point of view of ore grade. I believe they run around 4 to 8 percent, whereas most of ours run less than a half of 1 percent, so they do start off with a terrific advantage which can overcome a good deal of inefficiency.

Mr. D'EWART. Would you tell us who in the State Department was responsible for the importation of that mercury?

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. I am afraid I don't know, sir. I wasn't there. Mr. D'EWART. We are not happy about it, I will tell you for your own information, because we had some 70 mercury mines operating in this country. Today every one of those mines except possibly one is closed down because of the policy of the State Department and we have never been able to find out who was responsible for it and I wonder if you had.

Mr. LIPKOWITZ. I am sorry, sir; I have no information on it.
Mr. D'EWART. If you find out, will you tell us?
Mr. LIPKOWITZ. Yes.

DUTIES OF OFFICE OF PRICE STABILIZATION EXPLAINED

Mr. D'EWART. I would like to ask the chairman one question now. Who is it that writes the ceiling prices on minerals?

Mr. REGAN. Who is it that writes the price on minerals?

Mr. D'EWART. Yes; under this price control. We have been here an hour and a half, 2 hours this afternoon, and I would like to know now who is it that writes and issues this price control regulation.

Mr. REGAN. I assume that Mr. Ewing works out the price control regulations that he submits to the higher echelons and finally a ruling comes down. It has come down on one thus far. It is tungsten.

Mr. D'EWART. And after 2 hours of questioning we haven't found out whose responsibility it is.

Mr. EWING. I can explain that quite briefly. The responsibility lies with Mr. DiSalle, but Mr. DiSalle has delegated to me the responsibility for preparing these orders. Our policy has been to get the best industry man that we can get who is available. It is very difficult. To many men we can't offer attractive salaries, so most of the people on our staff are without compensation on leave from their companies. That man prepares the necessary material, he looks at the old orders, he works the bugs out of them as best he can; he calls in a group running anywhere from 12 to 17 or 18 men who are actively working in the industry; he clears that order with them.

Mr. Lipkowitz's responsibility is merely to give the supporting data, the statistics to that industry expert that we have. He, then, in turn goes to the lawyers, he submits data that is taken into consideration that he has, and they will put it into legal form which is required under the law.

Mr. ENGLE. Here is something that puzzles me. If these fellows are not being paid, how do they pay their bills?

Mr. EWING. They are being paid by their companies.

Mr. D'EWART. You say that Mr. DiSalle has the final say?

Mr. EWING. Oh, yes; he has.

Mr. D'EWART. Right here now I have in my hand a letter from the Economic Stabilization Agency, dated March 29, addressed to Senator Pat McCarran

This letter is in response to your letter of March 17 concerning the price of tungsten. The information contained in your letter is most helpful to me, and through the Office of Price Stabilization and in arriving at an equitable determination with respect to the price per unit of tungsten, I am glad to report to you at this time that the price of tungsten will be pegged at $65 per unit as recommended by you. The regulation on the subject probably will be issued next week.

That would indicate to me that Mr. Johnston, perhaps, had something to say about it. It is signed by Eric Johnston.

Mr. EWING. You realize there is a chain of command. When the orders come out they are signed by Mr. DiSalle, but Mr. DiSalle is responsible in a sense to Mr. Johnston, who is supposed to coordinate the over-all policy of wages and prices.

Mr. D'EWART. He signs them, but he clears them with Mr. Johnston. Mr. REGAN. I believe Mr. Ewing answered that before, that so far as he knew, Mr. DiSalle was the final word.

Mr. EWING. He is the final word. It is his responsibility on price, but he, in a sense, is responsible to Johnston, and Johnston is responsible to Wilson, and Wilson to the President. You have a chain of command through there, Mr. Regan.

Mr. D'EWART. This letter, for the information of the committee, is signed by Eric Johnston from the Economic Stabilization Agency. Mr. EwING. Mr. D'Ewart, undoubtedly that letter was addressed to Mr. Johnston and Mr. Johnston in turn replied.

OPS METALS BRANCH STAFFING PROBLEM DISCUSSED

Mrs. BOSONE. Mr. Ewing, who appointed you to this job?

Mr. EWING. I was brought down here, Mrs. Bosone, for what I thought would be a relatively short tour of duty. I was brought down by Mr. Valentine.

Mrs. BOSONE. Mr. Valentine, who was appointed first?

Mr. EWING. That is right.

Mrs. BOSONE. And then who set up the office of the men whose histories are delineated?

Mr. EWING. I did.

Mrs. BOSONE. Of course, it is pretty tough to be in Government these days; isn't it? You see, you have been panned today, and we Congressmen get it when we go home. So, it is "dog eat dog." Mr. EWING. Sure.

Mrs. BOSONE. Which is pretty sad.

Mr. EWING. I don't think I have been panned.

Mrs. BOSONE. And Government is so complex that it is pretty hard, and once in a while it is a little bit sad. I think that that is a bad commentary today, too. I haven't any doubt but what you are trying to do a good job. I have no criticism of Mr. Lipkowitz. Maybe it is because I don't know more about his background and what he has done in Government before, but certainly at this point I haven't any.

Of course, you realize, Mr. Ewing, this whole committee is interested, I believe, to a person, in the development of mineral resources, and at this particular time to augment the production in minerals for defense. Most of us are from the West, and it seems to me— and it isn't your fault perhaps, and yet some of it is, maybe that some of the big mining or the small mining production men-we have some in my own State of Utah; I am thinking of Mr. Ed Schneider, who has developed mines from little old veins and little old pockets and became a big mining operator, and yet he knows zinc and lead and silver as probably no other man in the country does know it— it seems to me that somebody representing those people, should have been in the employ here.

I don't think the advice should have come entirely from industry. I think it should have been a commingling.

Mr. EWING. You mean Mr. Schneider from Combined Metals Production?

Mrs. BOSONE. Yes.

Mr. EWING. I asked him for a man. He has yet to produce. I know Mr. Schneider. We had him down here. He represents in a sense that territory on our committees.

Mrs. BOSONE. Then, you do have advice of all of these people?
Mr. EWING. Oh, of course we do.

Mrs. BosONE. And even men lesser in position and money than Ed Schneider, for instance. You have some of those?

Mr. EWING. I presume we do. We try to get the small and large. We try to get a geographical distribution on our advisory committees. Mrs. BOSONE. Then, even though most of you do represent the industry, you do have men out in the field, out in the hills, on the production end, and actually in mining operations? You do have them working in an advisory capacity?

Mr. EWING. In an advisory capacity; and it is the responsibility of those advisory groups to produce these orders. We wouldn't think of putting an order out without them.

Mrs. BOSONE. Then, it isn't as bad as it has seemed. You arrive at an order, at a regulation, after you have consulted all of these people, and there are many of them from the West?

Mr. EWING. Certainly we bring them in here, but we try not to bring them in unnecessarily. Those people are in constant contact with us. If they come to Washington they drop by and discuss their problems.

Mrs. BOSONE. Of course, the howl has gone up, Mr. Ewing, that nothing has been done. Now maybe the time has been short. I think I am one of those understanding and sympathetic people. I don't expect reforms overnight. I have lived too long for that, and maybe what you say is true here: that the staffing has been difficult.

I know it is most difficult to get anybody who can write 60 words a minute on the typewriter and do it accurately; so, I know what you are up against.

Mr. EWING. We have one girl who can do it.

Mrs. BOSONE. And you just can't operate because you only have two legs and hands and one head, and you shouldn't expect to, but still these people in the field who are losing thousands of dollars and losing their men and their patriotic sense, of course they want action, and we all want action. I am glad to know that it is not quite as bad as it all seems, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. EWING. I can sympathize very deeply with some of those people, and we have tried our best to get some orders out which would correct some of the situation. Possibly somebody else could have done it better. I imagine there are lots of people who could have done a better job than I could have done, but I have done the very best that I could to get all of these orders out. We have followed the consultation of miners. We have some of them on the staff.

I don't know the exact mining history of some of these people, but we certainly called in a wide enough range that we get the experience of the miner, the smelter, and the fabricator.

Mr. REGAN. It seems to the chairman, Mr. Ewing, that you gave a very good list of representatives of the industry, but did you have any representatives of the small mining industry, one of the associates of small mines in your advisory council? That is the only criticism that I can see that could be made.

Mr. EWING. On copper, Copper Range Co., is a small company. Of course, Mr. Schneider represents a lot of small mines, but he is a big operator, too.

Mr. REGAN. My understanding is that in mining areas the very small miners have their own little group or association. Don't you think that it might be helpful with the program that we are concerned about to have a representative of these small miners and get their views at least?

Mr. EWING. Sure, it probably would be because we have no way of knowing.

Mr. REGAN. The time is about up. Mr. Donovan has a question and then the chairman has a question I would like to ask you on tungsten if time permits.

Mr. DONOVAN. Dr. Boyd, a rather distinguished gentleman of the DMA was in here and after 2 hours I went away with the impression that the DMA had something to do with making recommendations as to prices of these raw materials; is that right?

Mr. EWING. That is true. They have a very fine staff of men over there

Mr. DONOVAN. I didn't ask that. I just asked if it is true if they have something to do with fixing the prices.

Mr. EWING. We consider their recommendations, Mr. Donovan. Mr. DONOVAN. You consider them?

Mr. EWING. Certainly.

Mr. DONOVAN. Have they made any recommendations to you on any of these vital metals that are mentioned in your mimeographed statement?

Mr. EWING. Yes; they have.

Mr. DONOVAN. Have they made recommendations as to prices to be fixed on all the minerals?

Mr. EWING. NO. They have changed their recommendations on occasion, too, Mr. Donovan.

Mr. DONOVAN. Have you adopted any of their recommendations? Mr. EWING. We took their recommendation on tungsten.

Mr. DONOVAN. Have you rejected any of their recommendations? Mr. EWING. Their recommendations are pretty much in line with the standard prices.

Mr. DONOVAN. Have you rejected any of the recommendations? Mr. EWING. We haven't rejected because tungsten, of course, is the only one that was issued.

Mr. DONOVAN. Are you still considering their recommendations? Mr. EWING. Certainly. I think they have made, Mr. Donovan, I believe they have made specific recommendations on two other metals. I think they have had a recommendation on mercury and antimony.

Mr. DONOVAN. Do you see eye to eye on those?

Mr. EWING. I think we see eye to eye on mercury, and on the antimony we are pretty close. Mr. Lipkowitz may have something to add about it.