be—wants this or that, and so they are
going to give it to him, they are not act-
ing in the spirit of the principles upon
which the Government is based. When
a Government official comes to Congress
and says “I want this” or “I want that,”
and Members of Congress say they will
grant the request simply because it is
made, that, Mr. President, is merely act-
ing in the spirit of fascism. That is
what was done in Italy, that is what was
done in Germany, and that: is what
brought fascism and nazi-ism to those
countries.

Army officials have testified that the
Army will have in this country January
1, 1944, over 5,000,000 men. That of
these 5,000,000 the Army cannot move
overseas for fighting purposes during the
whole of the year, 1944, up to January
1, 1945, over half this number, and that
the Army will have in this country, in
uniform, January 1, 1945, in excess of
two and a half million men. Yet, Gen-
eral “Marshall has previously testified
that 500,000 men were sufficient for the
defense of this country.

There is no question that the men who
are drafted come out of the labor pool,
and the more taken the more serious
the labor shortage will become.

No one knows, neither the Army gen-
erals nor civilians, the number of men
who will eventually be required to finish
the job; but from time to time we do
have exact figures from the Army as to
the number which can be fed, equipped,
and. transported. No matter how the
fortunes of war go, whether we lose thou-
sands of men or whether we do not, the
fact is that we cannot transport more
men than the Army estimates can be
transported. Under those circumstances,
would it not be sounder to time the in-
duction of these men in accordance with
the actual schedules of ability to use
them effectively, rather than in accord-
ance with some preconceived idea of the
Army as to the number of men who will
be eventually needed, which, being spec-
ulative, is subject to change from time to
time?

Looked at from another angle, first,
there are the men actually in the armed
forces. Then there are the men who are
engaged in war industries. Both classes
of men must be supported by the remain-
ing population. So the burden on the
civilian economy becomes increasingly
greater with each man drafted and each
man taken for industry. 'The' standard
of life under this pressure is of necessity

554199—3636

 

constantly reduced; yet it is because of
this standard of life that we are able to
outstrip the whole world in production.
From the evidence, we are approaching
the limit, the fair minimum to which this
standard of life can be reduced without
seriously affecting the productivity of
the worker and upsetting the national
morale.

With respect to industrial waste, the
Baruch report speaks for itself of the
great wastage of labor, and labor hoard-
ing, which, if relieved, would go a long
way toward correcting any local labor
shortage, and would go a long way to-
ward preventing the drafting of fathers.
Speaking of cost-plus contracts, the
Baruch report points out:

Not alone on the west coast, but all
through the country, much labor is being
hoarded and poorly utilized.

How can anyone insist upon taking
fathers and breaking up American
homes when Mr. Baruch admits, first,
that the situation is the fault of the vari-
ous bureaus in Washington; second,
that labor is being hoarded in indus-
try; and third, as everyone knows, that
labor is being hoarded in the Govern-
ment by every department in Washing-
ton and throughout the country?

Mr. REED. Mr. President, will the
Senator yield?

Mr. WHEELER. I yield.

Mr. REED. At that point I should like
to add to what the Senator from Mon-
tana has said:that when I was at home I
visited three airplane-manufacturing es-
tablishments in Wichita. One of them
employs 5,000 men, another 11,000 men,
and the third 26,000 men. There are
45,000 men. engaged in the airplane-
manufacturing business in that one city
in Kansas.

A representative of one of those fac-
tories told me that their first contract
was a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. They
did not like that. It meant a waste of
labor. So they changed their contracts,
and they are currently operating upon
fixed-price contracts. Under those
fixed-price contracts they offered what,
for want of a better term, we may call
incentive wages, which had some rela-
tion to the productivity of the employees
as a whole. Under the present arrange-
ment that factory has increased the pro-
duction per man 25 percent. That is the
experience of one very efficient airplane
manufacturing concern in my own
State. I visited the plant when I was at
home.