Mr. SIROVICH. Could not these training schools to which we have referred in this bill, and which many States now have, as the distinguished gentleman representing the State of Pennsylvania stated this morning, develop a department like that?

Mr. HADDOCK. For training seamen?

Mr. SIROVICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. HADDOCK. They surely could.

Mr. SIROVICH. Why should they not be abreast of the times? Mr. HADDOCK. They should.

Mr. SIROVICH. Ninety years ago when this Pennsylvania institution was founded, they knew nothing about radio and wireless communication. I think in order to be abreast of the times, these wonderful schools that we have through the country should add an additional department which would train the youth of our country in that particular aspect of communication.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean those schools you refer to are training radio operators?

Mr. HADDOCK. The majority of them I am referring to are radio operators, yes; because that is what I am most familiar with.

Mr. SIROVICH. What would be your opinion, if we could have these schools that are training the youth of our Nation, as to having this additional course put in for those who would like to develop themselves along the line of radio and wireless communication?

Mr. HADDOCK. We have always favored the proper training of radio personnel. I may add that in some schools we have been quite successful in having them adopt a proper procedure in training their personnel.

Mr. SIROVICH. Do you not think that the finest training you could give to a radio operator who goes to your school only to learn wire

less and radio would be to give him a broad perspective of seamanship? Would not that make him a more valuable man?

Mr. HADDOCK. That has been one of the principles for which we have been fighting, that no man should be permitted to go to sea as a radio officer unless he did have such previous training.

Mr. SIROVICH. Did you ever communicate with the officials and the directors of these institutions in the various States that train men, to perfect such a department?

Mr. HADDOCK. We have not on a mass scale.

Mr. SIROVICH. Let me ask the gentleman here from Pennsylvania, Mr. Hines, what do you think of a proposal like that, that in addition to your regular curriculum you have a course of study of radio and wireless communication, so that a man could take the entire course, just as a doctor has to take a general course in every specialty and when he goes out can specialize on anything he pleases? Mr. HINES. As far as the key pounder, just the operator and the receiver, is concerned, it would be a very simple matter to turn out operators. It would be desirable in addition to the ability to send and receive messages to have all radio operators competent materialmen who could repair a set when it was out of commission and who could make all of the tests necessary to insure the proper operation of the set.

Mr. SIROVICH. Have you such a department in your present school? Mr. HINES. No; we have not.

Mr. SIROVICH. Do you not think you would bring it up to the minute if you did have such a department?

Mr. HINES. It would be an improvement on our output.

The CHAIRMAN. It would hardly pay you to put it in for that limited number of operators.

Mr. HINES. No; it would be an improvement, but it is not necessary to produce additional radio people.

The CHAIRMAN. They should probably be in some central organization themselves?

Mr. HINES. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. HADDOCK. Before we leave that question of schools, I would like to make it known here to the committee, if they do not know it already, that there are schools today who promise in vague forms to give their graduates a job, and those promises are never carried

out.

Mr. SIROVICH. You testified at a previous hearing, if my memory fails me not, that they pay as high as $1,000 to $15,000 for a course. Mr. HADDOCK. That is true. In many instances, in fact the great majority of instances, that money is borrowed by the parents of the boys. Today there are at least 8,000 licensed operators in the United States who will never have an opportunity to work on their licenses. Mr. SIROVICH. Have you an amendment perfected that would make it mandatory for ships under a certain tonnage to carry a certain number of men, and ships over another tonnage to carry another group of radio men?

Mr. HADDOCK. I have a bill right here which I am hopeful of getting introduced into the House this week.

Mr. SIROVICH. I am not asking you if you have a bill; I am asking you if you have an amendment that could be inserted here in much

the same manner as we have a provision for 2 cadets on ships under 10,000 tons and 3 cadets on ships over 10,000 tons. Could you put in an amendment that would specify the number of radio men that each ship should carry?

Mr. HADDOCK. The only amendment I would offer there is that there should be an 8-hour day as applied to radio officers.

Mr. SIROVICH. That is in the bill.

Mr. HADDOCK. That is not in the bill as it now reads.

Mr. SIROVICH. That is for seamen, if I am not mistaken.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is so, but not as to the radio oper

ators.

Mr. SIROVICH. We could have it apply to both seamen and radio operators, as well as not.

Mr. HADDOCK. There should be radio operators on any vessel of 1,600 gross tons or over.

The CHAIRMAN. There is an existing law that requires radio operators to be carried on certain ships.

Mr. HADDOCK. That applies to any vessel which carries 50 or more persons. It is a very inadequate law. In fact, there are only about 335 American vessels which carry radio under that law, and that is a 12-hour day.

Mr. RABAUT. What tonnage carries that?

The CHAIRMAN. I do not recall that that is specified, as to tonnage. Mr. HADDOCK. You are talking about the present law?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. HADDOCK. The present law applies to any vessel which carries 50 or more persons, irrespective of tonnage, provided it plies 200 miles or more between ports.

The CHAIRMAN. It depends upon the number of passengers carried and the distance?

Mr. HADDOCK. Not passengers; persons.

I may say that the United States is the only major maritime nation that has such an antiquated law. All the other nations have brought their laws up to modern times and placed modern equipment upon them.

Mr. SIROVICH. What is the law of Great Britain?

Mr. HADDOCK. Generally speaking, it requires that all passenger vessels, irrespective of size, all cargo vessels of 1,600 tons gross tonnage and upward, and all other vessels which are voluntarily equipped with radio apparatus, must maintain radio service.

Mr. SIROVICH. It does not state how many hours a day they are

to work?

Mr. HADDOCK. No; it does not state how many hours a day. Incidentally, the British law to which I just referred is carried in the London Treaty which has been adopted by all those countries. In addition to that, the majority of those countries have gone much farther and strengthened their provisions.

The CHAIRMAN. That treaty is the one that is pending now in the Senate, is it not?

Mr. HADDOCK. It is the one that has been pending for the last several years, and as I understand, it will not pass this time, it will just be tabled again.

In my opinion, this radio law should be amended at the earliest possible date, because it is, as has been shown, one of the greatest safeguards to life that have ever been placed on vessels.

Mr. RABAUT. What would be the average crew on the minimum size vessel there, of 1,600 tons?

Mr. HADDOCK. Probably 30.

Mr. RABAUT. At the present time we require 50?

Mr. HADDOCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. O'LEARY. How large must a vessel be to require 50?

Mr. HADDOCK. At the present time it does not make any difference as to the tonnage. Some of them which are less than 1,600 tons may have more than 50 persons on them.

Amend section 2, page 37, by deleting the words beginning with 'excepting those " on line 9 and ending with "sailing of the vessels" on line 15, and the last sentence beginning on page 38, line 15 and ending on line 17.

Mr. SIROVICH. By the way, if this ship subsidy bill should pass and we should give ship subsidies for construction purposes, for operating purposes, and so forth, what do you think should be the minimum standard of wages for radio operators?

Mr. HADDOCK. It should be the same as the others. Roughly speaking, it should be somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 a month. That is placing it roughly upon the same basis as the other

seamen.

Mr. SIROVICH. What are they getting a month today?

Mr. HADDOCK. The average is close to $100. I do not know exactly. In August of last year it was $91.

Mr. SIROVICH. Are they hired for the trip or are they hired by the year?

Mr. HADDOCK. By the trip. In many instances though it is almost entirely eliminated at the present time--about a year ago a radio operator would come in for 1 or 2 days and be laid off. We have been successful in eliminating that evil almost entirely.

Mr. SIROVICH. So that the average income of a radio operator is very meager?

Mr. HADDOCK. I would say the average income of a radio operator is in the neighborhood of $600 a year.

Amend section 4551 to read as follows:

Any person, partnership, company, corporation, that shall require their employees to carry any record as to their conduct and ability or shall in any other manner operate a blacklist shall upon conviction thereof be fined not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000, and/or sentenced to serve not less than 1 nor more than 5 years in a Federal penitentiary, or both fine and imprisonment upon the discretion of the court.

Mr. SIROVICH. Do you think there is a blacklist today amongst the owners of merchant-marine ships against seamen and against radio operators?

Mr. HADDOCK. I do not think so, sir; I know.

Mr. SIROVICH. Will you name the companies that are doing it? Mr. HADDOCK. Practically every company. I say I say "practically " and that is a general statement. To be more specific I would rather get down to my own little back yard that I know about. There is a blacklist operated against the radio operators.

Mr. SIROVICH. Why are they operating a blacklist against the radio operators?

Mr. HADDOCK. Because they do something that the radio companies or the steamship companies do not like. For instance, a man who is assigned under the Radio Marine Corporation today is forever blacklisted from the company if he dares to go on strike.

Mr. SIROVICH. Can that be proven through records?

Mr. HADDOCK. That can be proven through records, and I can give you names here and now if you want that information and will follow it up.

Mr. SIROVICH. Yes; I would like to have it as part of the record. Mr. HADDOCK. In reference to one strike in the Merchants & Miners Line, three vessels, the Fairfax, the Dorchester, and-I do not recall the other vessel-6 radio officers were on those vessels, and those 6 men are today blacklisted.

Mr. SIROVICH. Were they agitators?

Mr. HADDOCK. They were not agitators. They came off the vessel

The CHAIRMAN. I think the general statement of the case is enough. We cannot go into an investigation of each of these particular cases.

Mr. SIROVICH. I want to find out if it was the policy of your or ganization to put agitators on for the purpose of unionizing ships.

Mr. HADDOCK. We have no agitators in our organization, unfortunately. I wish we did have some, because I consider them a very necessary thing. I think the men who are members of our organization, generally speaking-and I think that other seamen will substantiate this statement-are considered the meekest among the crew. Mr. SIROVICH. If they are the meekest of the crew, why should they be ostracized through the medium of a blacklist?

Mr. HADDOCK. Because the organization is not powerful enough today to take the blacklist and tear it up.

Mr. RABAUT. What was the reason for these six men being on the klist?

Mr. HADDOCK. Because they went on strike for the elimination of a minimum 12-hour day, the elimination of the company's making them violate laws, and an increase in salary.

Mr. RABAUT. That is what we are trying to find out.
The CHAIRMAN. Let us proceed, please.

Mr. HADDOCK. Quite a bit has already been said here concerning the ill effects of the so-called "identification book ", which in reality is to be used as a blacklist. There is no purpose to be gained by repeating my remarks concerning this question. For the benefit of the record I would like to say just theoretically I personally consider the service record book good. However, we cannot overlook the fact that we are dealing with the human element, and the human being is not always perfect from a theoretical standpoint.

The CHAIRMAN. When you say that it is useless to repeat your remarks you are referred to your testimony of the other day? Mr. HADDOCK. Yes.

Mr. SIROVICH. You are in favor of the continuous-discharge book? Mr. HADDOCK. I am not.

The CHAIRMAN. He testified the other day against it.