Additional information submitted for the record by-Continued United Steel Workers of America, CIO: Statement submitted by Uranium Ore Producers Association: Statement submitted by Norman Utah Chamber of Commerce Executives: Letter from J. A. Miller, Page 318 153 Utah Mining Association: Data and statements submitted by Miles P. 32 Victory Fluorspar Mining Co., Elizabethtown, Ill.: Letter from A. H. Wilfley, C. R., consulting engineer, Denver, Colo.: Prepared statement 144 PROBLEMS IN THE METAL-MINING INDUSTRY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 1953 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE TO CONDUCT A STUDY AND Denver, Colo. The committee met at 9:30 a. m., in room 321, Brown Palace Hotel, Hon. William S. Hill, chairman, presiding. Present: Representatives Hill (chairman), McCulloch, Patman, and Multer. Also present: Bynum E. Hinton, committee counsel; and Carl Davis, staff director of the committee. The CHAIRMAN. If the house will come to order, we will begin our hearings. As chairman of the Select Committee on Small Business, I wish to make a short statement. We are here this morning representing a special House committee which is quite different from a legislative committee. The purpose of our being here is very simple. We are here to give you an opportunity, every one of you, to, shall I say, testify before a part of the Congress brought to you in this particular locality. That is the reason we are holding the hearing. It is needless to say, gentlemen, that we are all glad to be here, and we have had a very nice welcome. We wish you to feel, every one of you, that the testimony will be free and open, and the discussion the same way. As far as possible, we will let you have as much time as it seems practical to make your statements. Then we are going to follow it up by briefing all the hearings. As you know, we have a reporter taking down the testimony. Then we will take the matter under consideration. That is the job of the House Select Committee on Small Business. We will see that it is properly briefed and turned over to the proper legislative committee. What we are trying to do is to give you the opportunity to see your congressional committees in action and to give you, without an expensive trip to Washington, the inside information of what you think is the trouble with the mining industry in this western part of these United States. This hearing is being especially held for the lead and zinc section, or segment of the mining industry. That does not bar anyone however who wishes to bring up something else. But that was the main idea behind the hearings. We know this segment is in critical condition. We know that many of the lead and zinc mines could be, and may be, closed for good. Those are some of the things that we wish to 1 have the Congress consider. We are going to give you the opportunity to lay before a committee of your Congress, in your own words and in your own way, what you think the difficulties are. And, of course, we hope someone along the line will give us some really good ideas of how to solve them. Now I wish to introduce my committee members who are here with me. I think I should introduce first our ranking member of the minority and we are glad to have him with us today. He was practically the father of this committee, the Honorable Wright Patman, of Texas. Mr. PATMAN. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I am delighted to be here in the home State of Bill Hill. Naturally, Bill is very popular with the Republicans, being a Republican; but he is also popular with the Democrats. I am a Democrat. We like him on both sides. He has told me about the problem he has here, and I am particularly anxious to know more about it, as well as our other colleagues. This committee has an unusual record over the years. It is 12 years old. It went through the period when small business needed a friend in Washington. You know, the test of small business is that if a business is so small it is financially unable to have a lobbyist in Washington, it is a small business. This committee has graduated a lot of members. You take, for instance, in the Senate. Senator Jackson, of Washington State, used to be on this committee and went over the country with us, and Senator Mike Mansfield, and Senator Kefauver, of Tennessee. But over on the House side is Republican Majority Leader Charley Halleck. He has been on this committee since it was first established. In addition to that, when the Republicans needed a good national chairman here a while back, they went over and picked out Leonard Hall, who was with us for 10 years on this Small Business Committee. So this committee over a period of 12 years certainly has a very fine record. I am delighted to be out here with Bill Hill. I am going to listen attentively to what you have to say, and I am going to work with him shoulder to shoulder in helping to solve your problems. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Patman. I will say it has been an honor to serve under Mr. Patman, too. When I was placed on the committee back in 1947, I think it was, Mr. Patman was chairman and I never had anything but the finest treatment in the world out of Mr. Patman, which is a compliment for me, and I am sure a compliment for him, too. It is nice to have him here. It is quite a little effort for some of us to leave Washington and come out. We could not set these hearings up except 6 or 8 weeks ahead, and there is no way of knowing what the program in the House is going to be that far ahead. We had to take a chance and set them up. I know Mr. Patman is sacrificing a bill, maybe, right out of his own committee on the floor while we are at this meeting. The next gentleman I wish to introduce, and while he is a newcomer on our committee he is not a newcomer in the House. He is a Republican, a good lawyer, and from the good old State of Ohio. Mr. McCULLOCH. Chairman Hill, men of the mining industry : I am particularly pleased to come out here to Bill Hill's home State. He has his roots back in Ohio. As a matter of fact, his father and his grandfather were born and reared in our great State and it was our loss and your gain that he or his father decided to come westward. We have a very high regard for Bill Hill. I expect personally to learn much from what you men have to say to us here today. We do not have any mining of lead or zinc or gold or silver or such elements in our State. Our mining is confined to coal, limestone, aggregates of various kinds. Obviously we know a little something about the problems with which you are confronted. I look forward with extreme interest to what you are going to tell us, the conditions which confront your industry, and I hope that you have some constructive suggestions that we might implement so that you will continue to do that which you have done for this great country of ours in the past. Thank you very much. The CHAIRMAN. The last member of our committee who came along with us, but in no way the least, is my good friend from the State of New York, and the city of New York. He and I have always worked together wonderfully, and we have been on many committee hearings. It is my pleasure to introduce to you from New York and New York City, Abe Multer. Say a word, please, Abe. Mr. MULTER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I would not have given up the opportunity to come here for anything. I have traveled the country from one end to the other with Chairman Hill and if a Democrat and Republican can cooperate we have shown how it can be done. All the members of this committee have. This is one committee that really is not bipartisan; it is nonpartisan. We have always had in mind one thing, and that is how can we serve the people in the country. I want to tell you people in Colorado that you have every right to be proud of Bill Hill as your Congressman. When he was east in my town the people there liked him and even said to me, "If you can move him here to Brooklyn," where I come from, "We think you will be out of a job." I came out here to find out something about mining, because Bill Hill said our committee should be interested in finding something out about it. The nearest we come to mines in my hometown in Brooklyn is the two dugouts in the home ball field of the Dodgers. I want to find out something other than just how to get in and out of a dugout. I think you can tell it to us. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to say hello to these folks. The CHAIRMAN. Well, in order for the greatest number to state their views and also to give us the privilege which we always reserve for ourselves to ask you questions, we hope you will all be brief in your statements. If you find you have a 12- or 15-page speech, we suggest, by all means, that you brief it, and just talk as you would if you were talking to your neighbor and your friends, and then file your statement with the committee. We guarantee you that it will be properly briefed and presented to the proper legislative committee. Of course, we hope that everyone who comes up to testify will speak out plainly so our good reporter here may get your name, and also whom you represent. Now I think we are about ready, except for introducing our committee staff. At the end is our staff director, Carl Davis, a Colo |