General imports of cotton apparel, by international cotton textile agreement categories

It is noteworthy, too, that imports of coton woven apparel and knit goods from Japan during 1962, the year covered by the bilateral agreement with Japan, amounted to 121,800,000 square yards equivalent as compared with the agreement's provision for 104,500,000 square yards during this period.

It is understandable that proper enforcement of the short-term agreement was hampered in the initial stages by lack of experience. In the case of the longterm agreement, however, any failure to enforce strictly not only threatens its basic objectives but has the most serious consequences for the multilateral approach to regularizing international trade in textiles and apparel.

The long-term arrangement, whatever its weaknesses, does provide an international mechanism for regulating imports of cotton apparel. We are acutely concerned with the fact that to date no effective mechanism has been developed for regulating imports of apparel made of fibers other than cotton. Garment and clothing workers produce apparel of all fibers, and are affected by apparel imports regardless of fiber content. Any realistic program for the orderly development of international trade in apparel and textiles must take account of the ease with which the fiber content of apparel is changed. Such a program, if it is to be effective, must be comprehensive and industrywide in conception and implementation. It must set limits on imports of all categories in every fiber classification.

Obviously the threat to the domestic apparel and textile industries from imports has not been selective on the basis of fiber. In the case of wool products the relative impact of imports has been even more serious than in cotton. The steady climb in the physical quantity of imports of knit and woven wool apparel

is readily perceived from the data on imports to the United States expressed in the number of pounds of such shipments:

As can be seen from the above, the United States imported 22,700,000 pounds of wool wearing apparel in 1962. This is an increase of 246 percent since 1957. In this past year, 1962, the advance amounted to 66 percent.

Unfortunately, due to limitations in detail in the available import statistics, it is not possible to present an historical table in terms of the specific number of garments of different types which were actually brought into the country. Were such data available, however, they would show an even greater climb in the quantity of imports as a result of a general trend toward lighter weight clothing in this country.

More comprehensive statistics on wool apparel imports are available, however, beginning with 1961. Although they are still insufficiently detailed to present a complete picture of the growth in imports of all the individual products, they illustrate the changes in imports in the key wool apparel groupings. The following table shows what happened between calendar year 1961 and the year ending on March 31, 1963:

The mounting tide of apparel imports, irrespective of the fiber of which it is made, is a matter of grave concern. The apparel industry is particularly vulnerable to foreign competition. It is highly competitive domestically. It is predominantly an industry of small firms. It operates on a very narrow margin of profit. Most of its labor force is made up of women for whom there are few alternative employment opportunities. Competition from abroad, which is based primarily on the payment of substandard wages and on low costs made possible by the use of industrial homeworkers and the operation of sweatshops, means an increase in the already high rate of business mortality; it threatens not only the labor standards of American workers in this industry but also their jobs. Continued erosion of employment opportunities for apparel workers will increase

the already high levels of unemployment among the industry's experienced workers. The degree to which the industry's labor force is already plagued by lack of sufficient work opportunities can be seen from date published monthly by the U.S. Department of Labor. The unemployment rate among experienced garment workers runs from 12 to 2 times the unemployment rate among experienced personnel in all industry in the United States. The figures are: Percent of unemployed among experienced wage and salary workers in the apparel industry and in all U.S. industry

President Kennedy's program of assistance to the textile and apparel industry was not limited to any single fiber-it sought to meet the problems of the entire industry. It is imperative that it be implemented without further delay. There is an urgent need for an international understanding to regulate international trade in wool apparel and textiles, and for similar understandings for products of other fibers. In the absence of such understandings, congressional action is necessary to safeguard historic levels of domestic production in textiles and apparel.

Senator THURMOND. Our next witness is the Honorable Robert T. Stevens.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT T. STEVENS, PRESIDENT, J. P. STEVENS & CO., INC., NEW YORK, N.Y.

Senator THURMOND. I have a letter here I might read before you testify, Mr. Stevens, directed to Senator Pastore, the chairman of the subcommittee:

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I regret I cannot be present at the hearings of your special subcommittee tomorrow, as I will be in New Jersey for the visit to my State of Astronaut Cooper. I would have liked to have accompanied before the subcommittee Mr. Robert T. Stevens, a longtime neighbor of mine in Plainfield, N.J., and an outstanding citizen of our State and Nation.

As former Secretary of the Army and as the president of one of our largest and best-known textile firms, Bob Stevens needs no introduction to the members of this subcommittee. Indeed, this is, I understand, his third appearance before you. His longstanding interest in the contribution of the textile industry to our national security dates back before his service as head of the Textile Section of the National Defense Advisory Commission prior to our entry into World War II. I can think of no one better qualified to speak on this important aspect of the problem under consideration by the subcommittee.

Sincerely,

CLIFFORD P. CASE, U.S. Senator.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Stevens, we are delighted to have you with us. I was just looking over the Greenville News of Thursday, May 23, and I see where you were in Greenville, S.C., yesterday, and a dinner was given down there in your honor, and honoring the J. P. Stevens Co., on its 150th anniversary.

As a South Carolinian, and as one of the Senators from South Carolina, I want to say that I would associate myself with everything nice

said about you at that dinner. I understand it was a very fine dinner and some very laudatory remarks were made about you and your company there.

We are glad to have such a fine, enterprising, and progressive company as yours doing business in our State, and we appreciate the thousands of jobs that you have given to our people in South Carolina. Mr. STEVENS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a statement, Mr. Chairman, that I want to go through. I will do it as rapidly as I can. I realize the time element.

Before starting, however, I would like to make a brief remark or two, and that is that I am aware of the fact that our company has been mentioned one way or another by a number of the witnesses who have preceded me. At the end of my statement, if there is time, if you care to have me, sir, I would be glad to make some comments on some of the points that have been raised.

Additionally, a witness today made a point that one of the reasons for the rising imports into the United States of textiles was that the textile industry was bringing these goods in.

I would like to make it clear for the record that the Stevens Co. does not use any imported fabrics whatever.

Again, the point was made by a witness today that-or a reference was made to giants of the textile industry. And I presume he would interpret that our company falls within this category and I would like to say our best estimate of the situation is that we represent about 4 percent of what is commonly known as the textile industry.

Now, Mr. Chairman, my statement: My name is Robert T. Stevens. I am president of J. P. Stevens & Co., Inc., producers of textile products from cotton, wool, and manmade fibers. We have 55 manufacturing plants in 9 States from Maine to Alabama. I am currently serving as first vice president of the American Textile Manufacturers Institute, Inc. In the normal course of events I will become president for a term of 1 year beginning in October. The ATMI does not embrace the woolen and worsted industry, therefore I appear today as an individual businessman.

Stevens' 35,000 employees are keenly interested in the deliberations of this subcommittee and, on their behalf, I take this opportunity to thank each member of the subcommittee, especially the chairman, for the sustained interest which you have shown in the problems of the American textile industry and the fine workers who look to it for their livelihood and that of their families.

Textile industry problems have been the subject of three studies by this subcommittee. The present hearing is the fourth. As the record indicates, this is my third appearance before this distinguished subcommittee. I have made every effort to cooperate with you. Your official reports in 1959, 1961, and 1962 were models of objectivity and they focused much needed light on our problems.

As a result of your efforts, as well as the outstanding efforts by others-particularly the President's milestone, seven point textile program of May 2, 1961-some progress has been realized. This progress is well known to the subcommittee and to others familiar with the textile industry. I need not discuss it at this time unless, of course, it be the desire of the subcommittee that I do so. Instead, I would like to focus primary attention on the very serious and steadily

deteriorating situation with regard to the woolen and worsted segment of the overall textile industry.

In my opinion we are in serious trouble. American wool manufacturing is in a precarious state. Congress, in passing the Wool Act of 1954, did so as a "measure of national security" and declared that wool is an "essential and strategic commodity." Congress acted wisely but let us bear in mind that before raw wool actually acquires strategic value it must be fabricated into wool products for military and essential civilian demand. Without adequate wool manufacturing facilities in the United States and the necessary skills available in time of overriding national need, of what value is raw wool?

Woolen equipment, processing and skills are greatly different from the machinery, processes and skills prevailing in other segments of the textile industry. The average cotton manufacturing plant, for example, cannot possibly produce the wool goods needed by the military. Since Congress really passed judgment on the combined wool situation in the Wool Act of 1954, it seems ironic that 9 years later and scores of mill liquidations later there still has not been one single action to control the devastating growth and impact of imported wool products from cheap labor foreign countries.

In 1947, the wool industry had 36,972 broad looms in place. By 1962, this figure dropped to 15,136. In 1947, the industry had 3,331,000 spindles in place and by 1961 (latest figure available) spindles dropped to 1,170,000. In 1947, the United States could count on 2,656 combs, an abosolute key machine in the worsted manufacturing process. By 1961, this figure dropped to 1,564.

Meanwhile, during 1947 imports of woven fabric in chief value of wool were just 4,635,000 square yards and, by 1962, they increased to 65 million square yards. In addition to this increased yardage, imports of wool products in every other major category have also mounted astronomically. It is estimated that total wool product imports during 1962 amounted to 20 percent of domestic consumption. Statistics available thus far in 1963 indicate imports for the year will be still higher. These are the dismal facts which confront the American woolen and worsted industry. These are the facts which have led to the great deterioration of this industry. And, with these facts in mind, it is not difficult to understand why so many wool mills have gone by the boards during the past several years, although effective controls over wool textile imports could have prevented the major portion of these losses.

In 1961, at least nine woolen and worsted mills were liquidated. The largest of these, the Peerless Woolen Mills of Rossville, Ga., was a lamentable loss to the country's mobilization base. It had been a prime source of woolen cloth for America's armed services in World War II and in the Korean war. In 1962, 8 additional mills were forced to liquidate. And, thus far in 1963, 10 have announced their closing showing an accelerated rate of liquidation.

One of these is owned by J. P. Stevens & Co., Inc. It is the Marland plant located in Andover, Mass. The decision to close the plant was not arrived at lightly. The company has owned the Marland plant since 1879. During World War II and the Korean war, this mill produced desperately needed uniform cloth and blankets for the military.