dent and the officers of Congress with recommendations, review contemplated new Government competitive activities. The Board would have the authority to require other Government departments, agencies, etc., to furnish information on the subject. H. R. 8832 also contains what I believe to be an excellent definition of Government competition. It is:

"DEFINITION OF 'GOVERNMENT COMPETITION'

"SEC. 4. For the purposes of this Act Government competition shall be deemed to be any business-type activity of the Government which is, or normally can be, engaged in by the people."

H. R. 9834 would change the rules of the House and Senate and would provide for the termination of business-type activities by an individual bill for each activity in a somewhat similar manner as the handling of reorganization plans. This approach seems wholly impractical and unrealistic, Mr. Chairman,`as it does not provide for the exercise of prudent judgment in each case. The process would disrupt the executive department and in a sense deprive that department of some of its constitutional prerogatives.

H. R. 9835 is a simple declaration of policy. While it is important for Congress to make a declaration of policy, business and labor in this country, are entitled to something more in this field than a mere declaration.

H. R. 9890 is a bill which I introduced yesterday and is in line with suggestions received from the executive department. It is an excellent bill and is very much along the lines of H. R. 8832. H. R. 9890, Mr. Chairman, contains four elements: First, it states a declaration of policy; second, it directs the Secretary of Commerce to receive complaints from private business and labor, and to investigate them; third, it requires all Government departments to submit plans for new business-type activities to the Director of the Budget for his approval, and the fourth, it requires the President to make an annual report to Congress on the progress made by the executive department in carrying out the declared policy of Congress. In my opinion, Mr. Chairman, any bill in this field to be effective and constructive must contain these four elements.

I want to take this opportunity to state for the record that the Eisenhower administration has made an outstanding start in attempting to end unnecessary Government competition. I also want to pay tribute to Congresswoman Harden, our distinguished colleague from Indiana, for the fine leadership she has given to her subcommittee in its work in this field. Ray Ward, who heads the subcommittee staff, has made an extremely valuable contribution to the work of the committee and has been a great help to me in my search for a legislative remedy. In bringing this brief statement to a close, Mr. Chairman, I can think of no more appropriate words than those of Abraham Lincoln: "The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves."

The CHAIRMAN. I might say to the winesses who are here that I owe them an apology for the request that went out for testimony and which limited the time to 5 minutes. That wasn't the intention, although undoubtedly I so advised Mr. Ward, who sent the wires. The Harden subcommittee has been holding hearings. How many, Mr. Ward?

Mr. WARD. Four volumes.

The CHAIRMAN. And how many pages of testimony, approximately? Mr. WARD. About 1,600, I would say; something like that.

The CHAIRMAN. So, we see that the subcommittee has been fairly well advised of the situation.

It has always been my opinion that it is the height of absurdity for the Government to engage in any business which individuals or business organizations can transact. This is for the very simple reason that without the taxes which are paid by the individuals and workers, and by the business people, the Government couldn't exist. So, why commit financial suicide by continuing and extending Government operations?

From my own viewpoint, I see no necessity for legislation. The executive departments can take care of the situation if they desire

to do so. Every year the Bureau of the Budget O. K.'s requests to the Congress for funds to the various departments, without the appropriation of which they couldn't engage in the business.

Do you want to say something, Mr. Condon?

Mr. CONDON. No; I would just as soon have the witnesses come on.
The CHAIRMAN. Who is the first witness you want, Mr. Ward?
Mr. WARD. Congressman Curtis.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. WARD. Congressman Curtis.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Curtis, our colleague from Missouri.

Mr. CURTIS. Where does one sit here?

The CHAIRMAN. Any where you choose.

Mr. CURTIS. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. While this is the committee having the widest jurisdiction of any committee in the House, and in the opinion of some of its members is the most important, there is no formality, no particular procedure which we follow.

Mr. CURTIS. May I begin, Mr. Chairman?
The CHAIRMAN. Any time it suits you.

Mr. CURTIS, of Missouri. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS B. CURTIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI

I want to commend the committee for the work it has been continuing to do in this field of Government in business.

As the chairman knows, I served on this committee in the last Congress and I was on the subcommittee, the Bonner subcommittee then, which was going into military procurement and supply, and other aspects of Government procurement and supply, and we went into this very same field, and I know Mr. Ray Ward, the counsel of this present subcommittee, did a great deal of the work on that committee, and the Harden subcommittee, whose activities I followed very closely, has been going into this subject further.

I am happy to see that Mr. Osmers has reduced this matter to bill form so that we can actually move ahead in this field.

The first thing I would like to state is to emphasize with figures the tremendous problem that we do have. I am going to quote from the Tax Foundation's bulletin, Facts and Figures on Government Financing 1952 to 1953, and on page 22, their Table No. 16-Estimated national wealth in current and 1929 dollars, and continued on those two pages, pages 22 and 23. Under the line of the year of 1929 public wealth was $43.6 billion and private wealth was $375.5 billion.

In 1948, which is the last column for which we have complete figures, although there are incomplete figures for 1951, public wealth was 126 billion; private wealth 671 billion.

For the year 1951, on the incomplete basis, we can see that the trend is continuing along the same lines.

Now, the significant figures are the ratios, and by taking the ratio of public wealth to private wealth in 1929 and 1948, for the last year we eliminate any factor, dollar factor, as to the value of the dollar because it is purely ratio-the ratio will show private wealth to public wealth is 9 to 1. That ratio declines to 1948 to a ratio of only 5 to 1 and, as I again say, for 1951, on the incomplete figures,

there is an indication that it would be below the ratio of 5 to 1. In other words, in a period of some 20 to 25 years, the ratio of private wealth to public wealth has declined from a 9-to-1 ratio to a less than 5-to-1 ratio.

Our tax base essentially is the private capital investment because when public capital investment goes in there is no taxes on that and essentially our activity in this country is always going to be private capital investment as far as the tax base is concerned.

So, if we have a tax base roughly of 9, your tax rate can be 3, and you have a tax take of 27. If your tax base is only 5, you have to have a tax rate of over 5 in order to get the equivalent 27.

I think that indicates by figures exactly the tremendous field that this committee is digging into-in other words, how has the Government moved into the field of social endeavor, let's say, to the extent that a ratio of private to public wealth is reduced from a 9-to-1 ratio to a 5-to-1 ratio-and that is one thing I think, of course, we have to examine very carefully.

My own conclusions are, of course, that we have to move out, move Government out of these fields and get those endeavors back into the private enterprise field and back into the tax base.

If we do that, incidentally, we can reduce our tax rate, reduce taxes, and still have the wherewithal to carry on our defense program. The second reason I think this field is very necessary to go into is simply on the basis of personnel, personnel practices.

Regardless of what the endeavor might be, whether it is making shoes or roasting coffee, human beings have to do the job, with what machinery they have. If private enterprise is doing the job, it is doing it under the personnel practices of private enterprise. If Government is doing it, it has to do it under the civil service system of personnel practices, which I submit is, at best, a compromise system because we, all of us, are aware of what can happen if spoils politics operates in the field of Government personnel practices; and for that reason all of us have been behind a system of civil service, but in adopting this method of personnel practices we sacrifice a great deal of efficiency.

We all are familiar with the problems we have in trying to run various enterprises through a personnel system of civil service, and I might say to those who are interested in the great American unions in this country-and I, myself, am deeply interested in them-I question their wisdom to encourage Government to go into these fields because just as soon as Government goes into these fields the personnel that has to do the work is immediately under civil service and, so, not under the great private-enterprise system where these men can be members of unions, where a man has the basic right, the right to strike, because as soon as he is a Govern ent employee that right to strike is considerably whittled down.

So, I raise this other question of the wisdom of Government moving into these fields.

Now, when our subcommittee in the last Congress had its final hearings one of the points I made a great deal of was the fact that these govern mental projects that the Government moved into had no accounting system where we could ever estimate what their cost was.

One of the things we examined in St. Louis, Mo., was this optical shop that the United States Army was running, the largest optical

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shop in the world, and it was obvious, from questioning, that they had no idea what the costs were. In fact, I asked how they estimated the depreciation on machinery, and they said they didn't estimate it because they had to come before Congress under a different kind of appropriation in order to get new machinery when the old machinery had worn out.

We had the same situation when this committee went into the big field of coffee roasting, which was only an example of some of the enterprises that Government had gone into. We were unable to tell the cost because the accounting systems adopted in this instance by the United States Navy and other defense establishments were such that no one could tell what was being done.

Another big field that the military in particular had moved into was the distributive field. Apparently they had gone on the theory, as I have paraphrased it, that if you could buy a hammer or, say, a million hammers at 50 cents a hammer at the factory they would save 50 cents a hammer over buying a hammer at a dollar a hammer at the retail outlet where the particular defense base was where they needed the hammer, ignoring the tremendous American distributive system, which, in my opinion, is just as great and miraculous a thing as our mass productive system, of how do you get hammers from the factory out to the using unit; and again digging into that big field we found that the military establishments had no concept at all of the costs involved of transportation, warehousing, and all the tremendous details that go into distributing material from the factory to using units.

Of the suggestions I made at the time of our last committee hearings one was that we do get proper accounting systems so we know what it is costing us.

That is the No. 1 thing.

Then, No. 2, there should be a place where industry, private enterprise, could go and complain to the Government and say, "We could do this cheaper," and then have their case heard.

As it is presently set up, business, small or large, has a difficult time knowing where to go to register their complaint. If they go to the military establishments, they actually are going before a group that you might say has a special interest in preserving their own situation.

I am going to conclude my remarks by pointing out exactly that situation.

In St. Louis, Mo., a small concern which had been manufacturing 24 twin-mount gun shields for the Navy, and done a very good job, suddenly found out that the Navy had withdrawn, the Bureau of Ordnance had withdrawn, a request to bid on an additional 24 of these units; and I inquired into it in their behalf and found out that the reason was that they were turning the work over to the Naval Gun Factory.

As I pointed out, this St. Louis organization already had the dies and the patterns, the jigs and the know-how to make these, and it was obvious that the Naval Gun Factory, which was not making them, was going to have to spend a lot more money in order to be set up to do it.

The answer, gentlemen, that the Assistant Secretary of Navy, Mr. Fogler, gave in his letter to me of June 22, 1954-and I have

turned this file over to the committee; so they have it-was that they needed this work at the Naval Gun Factory in order to keep the Naval Gun Factory going.

The CHAIRMAN. Would the gentleman yield there?

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Does the Naval Gun Factory pay taxes?

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. No; it doesn't.

The CHAIRMAN. Where do they get the money to operate?
Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. Well, they get-

The CHAIRMAN. You are on the Appropriations Committee; are you not?

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. No. I am or the Ways and Means Committee.

The CHAIRMAN. That is right.

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. The Ways and Means Committee has the job of trying to figure out how we are going to get the taxes to do all these things.

The CHAIRMAN. We would be interested in your telling us how the Naval Gun Factory could get the money.

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. I went into that, as the chairman knows, and the committee knows, in our last Congress, and the interesting thing is that the Military Establishment has gotten these tremendous funds through the maintenance item in their budget.

The CHAIRMAN. Did your local factory contribute to that fund? Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. Yes; in taxes.

The CHAIRMAN. Through taxes?

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And the workers?

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. Yes; they did.

Now, here is the final payoff on this particular situation in the gun factory

Mr. McCORMACK. When did that happen?

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. This is current. The date of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy's letter is June 22, 1954.

This isn't one administration over the other.

Mr. McCORMACK. Please, now, don't be suspicious of me.

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. This is a battle, I might say, against Federal bureaucracy, which I think is entirely apart from either political party, and both political parties should be deeply concerned.

Mr. CONDON. Aren't we setting up more bureaucracy under the Osmers bill to battle bureaucracy? We establish a 4-man board, or their deputies, which obviously means deputies since the 4-man board have many other duties and probably won't be able to serve in person.

We are going to set up a staff for them; set up administrative hearings. We are going to allow the Secretary of Commerce, the Comptroller General, the Director of the Bureau of the Budget and the Secretary of the Treasury to cut back to the Department of Defense instead of putting the responsibility on the Secretary of Defense.

Mr. CURTIS of Missouri. I am inclined to agree with the gentleman's observation, that the best way to solve problems isn't to go creating something new, but instead make that which you have function properly.

Now, that is a very basic view I have.