employ about 200 people. My firm is a worsted yarn spinning operation and our products are consumed by weavers and knitters.

I am also the retiring president of the Rhode Island Textile Association, which represents all segments of the industry located in Rhode Island. We are a voluntary group banded together to promote the welfare of our industry. Practically all the major firms in the State are members of our organization. Today, however, we would like to center our comments on the woolen-worsted segment as we did last year.

When we appeared before this committee on January 16, 1962, we stated we had not as yet realized any benefits at the plant level from the President seven-point program for textiles and that if prompt corrective action to regulate imports was not taken, we predicted further losses in the woolen-worsted segment of our industry. This statement is fully applicable today.

Imports continue to rise. Statistics provided by the national associations and the census bureau show in calendar 1961, 84.8 million square yards equivalent were imported. In calendar 1962, imports totaled 150.7 million square yards, or a 78-percent increase; 1962 represents a 36-percent increase over 1960, the previous high year. Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong were the primary countries of origin for these imports. It is estimated these 150.7 million square yards represent up to 20 percent of domestic consumption.

In 1962, we submitted a table, showing by local area, the firms and number of workers lost since 1950 in Rhode Island. The figures then were 42 major woolen-worsted firms that had closed employing 13,427 people. Today the number is 45 firms employing more than 14,500 that have gone.

Two of our members-and I would like to insert two of our members who were at this hearing a year ago-two of our members have had to reduce their operations since we last appeared here. According to public announcements, both indicated foreign imports played a major role in their decisions.

More important, last Friday, May 17, 1963, the Crown Worsted Co. of Providence announced to the press they have gone out of business "because of depressed market conditions caused by the influx of foreign imports."

In the story, the company reported the closing was prompted by the uncertainty for the future success of the textile mill in view of the failure of our Government to bring about relief from imports. The newspaper story goes on quoting the firm as stating:

As the result of this failure, the company did not have the confidence to make the heavy capital expenditures necessary to keep Crown Worsted Co. competitive and up to date.

Further, as an illustration of what these imports do, Mr. Roorbach of the Crown Worsted firm stated they

* began to lose their vital "bread and butter" business in 1955 when the Japanese captured the U.S. market for 2-ply 50s and 2-ply 40s natural color worsted yarns. Since then, the mill has spun both synthetic and worsted yarns in an effort to stay in business through product diversification.

He also stated:

The influx of foreign imports has forced the closing of a number of weaving mills that had been customers of the firm.

We believe this is a dramatic and concrete illustration of what uncontrolled foreign imports can do to a firm and the 100 job opportunities it provided to Rhode Island citizens.

Making this adverse trend more difficult is the fact that the Rhode Island textile apparel industry is a major segment of the State's economy and represents the largest employer in the State. Our annual payroll is estimated at about $125,000,000. Production workers averaged close to 40 hours per week throughout calendar 1962. The woolen-worsted part of the Rhode Island textile industry represents about 5,100 employees and is recognized as one of the major woolenworsted production areas in the Nation.

Senator PASTORE. Are you in a position to know what the Rhode Island yearly budget is?

Mr. LITTLEFIELD. The State of Rhode Island yearly budget? Senator PASTORE. When I was Governor, it was in the neighborhood of about $35 million, and I haven't kept close touch with it. Mr. LITTLEFIELD. The Governor tried to get $109 million

Senator PASTORE. In other words, the payroll in the textile industry is larger than the budget of the State of Rhode Island for all of its services?

Mr. LITTLEFIELD. Of course that doesn't include the Federal funds. In short, Rhode Island is dependent upon the vitality and prosperity of our industry for its economic well-being. Due to the decline of the industry, which we have documented only in part today, our Federal Government has designated practically the whole State as a labor surplus area and eligible for assistance under such programs as the Area Redevelopment Act.

We have had the President's seven-point program since May 2, 1961. At that time we assumed it was equally applicable to all fibers. Unfortunately, we have seen very little corrective action in the woolenworsted and synthetic areas despite assurances that something would be done by the executive department. Imports continue to disrupt our industry as we indicated earlier.

While we recognize the complexity of regulating imports by categories and countries, due to the lapse of time, better than 2 years, one might well ask if the departments directly involved in implementing the President's program are committed to getting the job done or not.

The appeal to the Office of Emergency Planning has also been pending since 1961. It is our opinion a favorable decision by the Board would greatly enhance this country's ability to negotiate with representatives of our foreign competitors. What we needed is definitive action in order that we manufacturers may plan accordingly. If it is favorable, capital improvements and technical research can go forward. If the decision is adverse, we can make arrangements for orderly liquidation.

In 1962, we stated we have suffered severe losses in firms and employment and predicted further attrition of our member firms. This prediction has proved accurate as demonstrated by action of the members I mentioned and the closing of Crown Worsted Co.

Nothing has changed. We are still seeing increased imports. We are still awaiting the implementation of the President's textile program as it relates to wool fibers. The only thing that has changed is our sense of urgency in requesting that the woolen-worsted import.

situation by resolved quickly. This is not a matter of feared threats coming up over the horizon. It is an immediate situation that our members are experiencing today. Difficult decisions are being contemplated that bode no good for Rhode Island and its economy. We respectfully urge you to do everything in your power to implement a quick resolution of this import situation, and it is our hope the answer will be a quota system by categories of goods and by countries. Senator PASTORE. Thank you very much, Mr. Littlefield for an excellent statement.

I want to thank all of the witnesses who came here today and did testify. We appreciate your testimony very, very much.

[From the Providence Journal, May 17, 1963]

CROWN MILL CLOSES; 100 OUT OF WORK

Crown Worsted Mills, Inc., worsted wool yarn spinning firm that has operated in the Olneyville section of Providence for 65 years, has gone out of business because of depressed market conditions caused by the influx of foreign imports. The closing affects 100 jobs.

George B. Roorbach, president and treasurer of the company, said last night that the mill building at 43 Troy Street and the plant's machinery will be sold. Negotiations already are under way to sell the building, he said.

Mr. Roorbach said the closing was prompted by the "uncertainty for the future success of the textile mill" in view of the failure so far of the Kennedy administration to live up to its promises to bring about relief from imports.

"As the result of this failure, the company did not have the confidence to make the heavy capital expenditures necessary to keep Crown Worsted competitive and up to date," Mr. Roorbach said.

He said the decision was made reluctantly and praised the company's employees for cooperating in every way to keep the mill operating.

The Crown Worsted president said the company began to lose its vital "bread and butter" business in 1955, when the Japanese captured the U.S. market for two-ply 50's and two-ply 40's natural color worsted yarns. Since then, the mill has spun both synthetic and worsted yarns, he said, in an effort to stay in business through product diversification.

Recently, Mr. Roorbach said, the influx of foreign imports has forced the closing of a number of weaving mills that had been customers of the firm.

Crown Worsted was founded in 1898 and was acquired in 1927 by Henry Wood of Bristol, a superintendent of the former Cranston Worsted Co. in that town. Mr. Wood operated the Olney mill until a year ago, when he sold the controlling interest to Mr. Roorbach, his son-in-law. Mr. Roorbach had been general manager of Crown Worsted for 3 years prior to acquiring control of the operation.

[From the Providence Journal, Jan. 3, 1963]

PARAGON MILL WILL CLOSE; 350 AFFECTED

Sale of Paragon Worsted Co's fabric manufacturing business to the Uxbridge Division of Indian Head Mills, Inc., and closing of the Providence operation on April 30 were announced yesterday.

The plant, last major manufacturer of worsteds in Providence, employs 350 persons at 39 Manton Avenue, Olneyville. Aram Milot, Paragon president, said the future plans of M. & F. Worsted Co., a Paragon subsidiary which employs 300 persons at the same address, will be announced when they are completed.

Paragon's orders will be processed in the south where Indian Head's Uxbridge Division has mills in Cedartown, Ga., and Talladega, Ala. Paragon makes cloth for men's and women's wear.

Indian Head Mills, of which Royal Little, former Textron, Inc., president is board chairman, in recent years acquired the Franklin Process Co. of Providence and the Bachmann-Uxbridge Worsted Co. in Uxbridge, Mass. Both plants were closed and their operations were moved to southern mills.

Mr. Milot said the decision to sell Paragon's worsted cloth mill was based on a combination of high operating costs and Japanese competition. Japanese imports forced Paragon out of the fine worsted fabric business, he said, and into manufacture of coarser, less expensive fabrics.

Paragon was founded in Woonsocket in 1909 by the late Arthur C. Milot, Aram Milot's father, and a group of Woonsocket businessmen. The company moved to its present location in 1910. M. & F. was established as a yarn-spinning subsidiary in 1919.

[From the Providence Journal, Jan. 8, 1963]

TEXTILE CONCERN CLOSING PLANTS

STILLWATER TO STOP WEAVING AND FINISHING IN RHODE ISLAND

(By Joseph L. Goodrich)

The Stillwater Worsted Mills, Inc., of Harrisville soon will discontinue its Rhode Island worsted weaving and finishing operations, employing about 250 persons, and will concentrate all cloth production in its three southern plants. Marcus Thompson, Stillwater president, said yesterday the move is being made because it is "no longer economically feasible" to operate the Rhode Island plants. He said the company will increase the productive capacity of its plants in Augusta Springs, Craigsville, and Goshen, Va.

The shutdowns will affect two Stillwater operations in the town of Burrillville: a finishing plant in Harrisville and a Mapleville weaving operation. The company produces staple worsted fabrics and uniform cloth. The runout will be completed within the next month, Mr. Thompson said.

The closings will mark the end of large scale staple worsted cloth weaving in Rhode Island. For many years, through the mid-1950's, the State was one of the Nation's major producers of this cloth.

The shutdown will also close the book on Rhode Island cloth manufacturing operations of what was the mighty textile empire of the late Austin T. Levy, who founded Stillwater in 1919 and built it into an 11-mill enterprise once valued at $10 million.

All that will remain in Rhode Island of the former Levy empire is the wool top making operation which employs 150 to 175 persons in Burrillville.

Mr. Thompson said this phase of the business will continue at its present location. Stillwater also will retain its general offices in Harrisville, he said.

Early in November Stillwater sold its worsted yarn spinning equipment to Cumberland Worsted Mills, Inc. The yarn operation employed 160 persons, many of whom went to Cumberland Worsted, which leased the spinning sections of the Harrisville plant from Stillwater.

At Stillwater's annual stockholders' meeting Monday night, Mr. Thompson presented a report showing that the company had encountered heavy going in the fiscal year ended September 29, 1962.

He reported the company recorded a loss of $291,921 on net sales of $9,453,081. That compared with an operating loss in the prior fiscal year of $138,760, which was reduced to $55,059 by a net gain from the sale of real estate. Net sales in the 1961 fiscal year were $7,079,871.

The loss for the fiscal year ended last September came despite a 4.8 percent increase in woven goods production over the previous year, the report said.

Mr. Thompson told stockholders in the report circulated at the meeting that financial results of the year "clearly demonstrate that under present conditions involving wages, power costs and taxes, it is no longer economically feasible to continue yarn, weaving, and finishing operations in New England.

"A determined effort has been made during the year to put these units on a competitive basis but without success," he said. "As a result, a reorganization of the company's manufacturing facilities is being made to provide adequate production to meet sales requirements and to eliminate these units.”

Another factor influencing the decision to close down the Rhode Island operations was the influx of foreign imports. Mr. Thompson told stockholders that in the year just ended Japanese yarn prices dropped 30 to 40 cents a pound in the face of steadily increasing wool prices. The same situation prevailed in Japanese worsted cloth prices.

"This condition seriously affected prices of domestic goods and discouraged the possibility of any general increase in prices to offset increased manufacturing costs," Mr. Thompson told the stockholders.

Stillwater Worsted Mills was launched by Mr. Levy 43 years ago in Harrisville. In 1925 Mr. Levy initiated a program of expansion and diversification by starting up mills in East Woodstock, Conn., and Ashaway.

In the succeeding years through 1941, the Levy interests established mills in Mapleville, Greenville, Washington Village in Coventry, Nasonville, and Glendale. In 1929 Stillwater, under Mr. Levy's guidance, established its three Virginia plants and became one of the first northern worsted fabric manufacturing operations to go south.

During the last 5 years all of Stillwater's northern textile operations, except those in Harrisville and Mapleville, have been shut down and most of them sold.

Senator PASTORE. Now, is there anyone in this room who desires to testify this afternoon, because he can't come back tomorrow?

(No response.)

Senator PASTORE. We will include in the record at this point a letter from Charles F. Myers, Jr., Burlington Industries, Inc., Greensboro, N.C.

(The letter referred to follows:)

Hon. JOHN I. PASTORE,

Chairman, Senate Textile Committee,
Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.

BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES, INC.,
Greensboro, N.C., May 20, 1963.

DEAR SENATOR PASTORE: Burlington Industries is a highly diversified textile manufacturing company producing yarns, fabrics and other textiles made of cotton, manmade and wool fibers and blends of natural and manmade fibers. Burlington operates 125 plants in 16 States and 100 American communities. It employs 60,000 Americans. Its annual payroll is approximately $265 million.

I would first like to commend this committee for recognizing the necessity of conducting further hearings at this time on this subject. Certainly these hearings are timely as the records of the imports show a worsening situation in all fiber lines.

We are, however, pleased that after long delay Congressman Cooley has finally entered a bill in the House (H.R. 6196) and Senator Ellender a companion bill in the Senate (S. 1511) and we hope that this committee will see fit to support this legislation addressed to the removal of the two-price cotton inequity. The delay in acting on this problem has had a very unsettling effect upon the cotton goods textile market. It is a plague to both sellers and buyers.

As we move into the last 6 months of the first year of the long-term cotton arrangement, it is disturbing to find that despite the frustrating experience of the short-term agreement which was, in part, attributed to the newness of the program, imports of cotton products and apparel are, as of the end of the past 6 months, at a level in excess of the prorated fiscal year. Projecting this trend through the remaining 6 months of the first year of the long-term arrangement, it appears that unless steps are taken promptly to hold these imports at proper levels we will find on October 1 that the levels of the short-term year have been substantially exceeded. Such an increase, if it should occur, coming on top of the approximately 35 percent excess over intended levels of the short-term year would make a sham of the basic understandings which prompted these much heralded Geneva cotton arrangements.

I would like to next pass to the neglected area of manmade-fibers fabric and apparel imports. Little attention has been paid to this sector, but here again the trends are clear and unless steps are taken without delay to establish country-by-country, category-by-category limitations on imports of these products into the United States, we will find, in a year or two, that we have permitted another monster to be born.

Textile marketing developments clearly indicate a rapid movement toward textile fabrics made of blends of manmade and natural fibers, particularly manmade fiber and cotton blends. Import figures for manmade fabrics and manmade-blend fabrics during the past few years dramatically demonstrate the speed at which foreign exporting nations are following this trend. Over the past 10 years imports of manmade fiber textile products have increased by 1,020 percent, growing from 15 million square yards in 1953 to approximately 168 million square yards in 1962. Figures for 1963 to date indicate that imports of these products will in 1963 exceed the 1962 levels.