complish. I assert that the Senator
from Montana has rendered’a great pub-
lic service in arousing the thought of
the people of the country on this. most
important: question. Later I expect to
take the floor in my own right to discuss
the subject now under debate.

I am one of the group which has been
working with the senior Senator from
Ohio [Mr. Tart] in preparation of an
amendment which will bear upon the
matters to which the Senator from Mon-
tana is addressing himself.

Begging the Senator’s pardon for in-
terrupting him, I invite attention to a
letter addressed to me from Wichita,
Kans., dated September 16, 1943, in
which my friend, the writer, states as
_ follows:

I would suggest that a thorough investi-
gation be made of these so-called essential
single men in the defense plants.

It may interest the Senator to know
that Wichita is one of four or five
largest centers of aircraft manufacture
in the country, and is the largest center
of such manufacture in the whole cen-
tral West.

My friend continues as follows:

From my own observation in the Wichita
airplane plants, and I have worked at several
of them, I would say that a great many
young men are needlessly deferred. I am
certain that they could be replaced by IV—F’s,
fathers, women, and older men.

In one large plant, great numbers of young
men, foremen and assistant foremen, sit for
hours with their feet on the desks with very
little to do. I am telling you the things I
have seen. ‘

Mr. WHEELER. I thank the Senatcr
very much. I am glad that there are
at least one or two Senators who are
sufficiently interested in the country, and
sufficiently interested in the drafting of
fathers, to obtain and to listen to facts.

When I returned after the recess of
Congress some of my Democratic col-
leagues said they did not know anything
about the bill or about the facts and
that they wanted some facts. Now
when we propose to give them some facts
they will not even listen.

Mr. REED.
tor from Montana that during the re-
cess of the Senate, from the middle of
July until the middle of September, I
Spent the time entirely in my own sec-
tion of the country. In the 5 years I
have been a Member of the Senate, in

554199—3636

I may say to the Sena-

 

all the trips combined I have made home,
I do not think I have talked to so many
people as I talked to during the recess.
Kansas and Colorado, where I spent a
couple of weeks, happen to have a very
large number of defense plants, a very
large number of air bases, and other.
Army camps. Everywhere I went, with-
out exception, in Kansas, Missouri, in
Colorado, I heard constant discussion
and statements made by people of con-
ditions that come under their own ob-
servation in their own localities, dealing,
for instance, with the excessive number
of men in the camps, indicating that
the Army really had more men than it
knew what to do with, and dealing also
with the very definite factor that the
defense plants had been used with the
approval, and in fact, by the manage-
ment for the purpose of accumulating
young manpower to help them in avoid-
ing the draft. I can make that state-
ment after the most thorough and satis-
factory contacts with my own constitu-
ents in Kansas and in other midwest
States in the 2 months I was home.

Mr. WHEELER. I thank the Senator.

As I was saying a moment ago, my
Democratic friends on this side desired
to have hearings before the committee
because they wanted to get the facts;
they were not familiar with them. All
that it is necessary to do is to take a
look on the Democratic side today and
see how many of them are interested in
obtaining the facts. The truth about
the matter is that if they want to get
men for the Army without taking fath-
ers they can get them; they do not have
to take a father; but, apparently, the
Senate of the United States or at least
my Democratic colleagues, prefer to take
fathers.

Mr. REED. I happen to have another
letter that touches upon a different fac-
tor, but a very important factor, in this
situation. I read from a letter addressed
to me from a town in western Kansas, in
which this statement appears:

if the Congress does not assert itself, this
country is going to be in a hell of a shape.
I have a good friend who is county chairman
of a bond drive in the eastern part of Kansas,
who made this statement recently: “It takes
a hell of a lot of guts for me to ask people to
buy bonds when we all know that about
three-fourths of all the money obtained from
these bonds will be wasted in the adminis-~

tration of the war and the Federal Govern-
ment.” ‘