STATEMENT OF COL. EDGAR S. GORRELL, PRESIDENT OF THE AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, WASHINGTON, D. C. Colonel GORRELL. Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to be here. My name is Edgar S. Gorrell. I am president of the Air Transport Association of America, which is the trade association of the schedule air lines of America. It includes American-flag air carriers throughout the world, everywhere. With your permission I will hand the reporter one of our letterheads that gives our name, address, and telephone number in full; the names of the officers and directors of the association; the member companies composing it, both associate and regular; and a statement of the objects and purposes of the association. The CHAIRMAN. Very well. (The matter referred to is as follows:) AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 1515 Massachusetts Avenue NW. Telephone: Executive 2929 Alaska Star Air Lines Canadian Pacific Airlines, Ltd. Trans-Canada Air Lines OBJECTS AND PURPOSES The objects and purposes of this association are: a. To promote and develop the business of transporting persons, goods, and mail by aircraft between fixed termini, on regular schedules, and through special service, to the end that the best interests of the public and the members of this association be served. b. To advocate the enactment of just and proper laws governing the air line business. c. To promote closer relations with and cordial cooperation among the members. d. To promote friendly relations with, and to secure the cooperation and good will of the public. e. To improve the transportation service rendered by its members. f. To promote the construction of proper airports and airway aids over such routes as will best insure benefit to the public and the air line business, and to promote the maintenance, repair, and improvement of all airports used by air line operators. g. To promote the establishment of necessary terminals and connecting schedules. h. To cooperate with all public officials in securing the proper enforcement of all laws affecting air transportation. i. To promote aviation safety in general. j. To do all things tending to promote the betterment of air line business, and in general to do everything in its power to best serve the interest and welfare of the members of this association and the public at large. "BY COMMON ACTION TO ADVANCE THE AIR LINE INDUSTRY FOR BETTER SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC AND FOR THE NATIONAL DEFENSE" Colonel GORRELL. Our articles of association appear in the record of House hearings of former years. If you wish we could insert them here, but the House has previously printed them for the information of the Congress. When I last appeared before your committee our office was located in Chicago. It is now in Washington, where it has been since the 19th of January of last year. We moved to Washington because of a request from the Department of Commerce and the office of the War Department. The move did not originate on our part. May I, at the completion of my statement, have the privilege of revising and extending my remarks, adding whatever you may care to have me add? The CHAIRMAN. You have that privilege. Colonel GORRELL. This morning, sir, it is my purpose The CHAIRMAN. Colonel, do you prefer to proceed without interruption without questions by the members of the committee? Colonel GORRELL. If it meets with your approval I prefer to talk on one subject at a time and have questions asked me about that subject when I get through. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; if you will indicate when you are through with a particular point, the members will then ask questions. Colonel GORRELL. As a matter of fact, I would be delighted to have anyone ask questions at any time, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Very well. Colonel GORRELL. It will be my pleasure to do the best I can to try to answer all questions. I am authorized to appear before your committe on behalf of the air lines that are members of our association and talk on the general principles of this bill. Our industry has not yet studied the bill from the point of view of drafting, punctuation, or details. I have with me our attorney, who is prepared to speak on any of the legal questions. Before testifying, may I say that I never have owned stock in any aviation venture, and none is owned by my family, or anyone connected with me. So far as I know, no stock in any aviation venture is held by any employee of our association. It is one of our rules that we do not deal in the stock of aviation ventures. We are placing on the desk in front of each of you copies of a booklet called Little Known Facts. That booklet contains facts and figures on the growth of the air line industry since 1926. The last page deals with the question of safety. Also before you is a map of the top of the world, of which the map in this corner [indicating] is an enlargement. There is an advertisement before you written by Raymond Clapper, that speaks of flying over newly formed routes carrying cargo. It is an advertisement that each of you may care to read. I have also placed before you a mimeographed copy of a statement taken from a Senate report to which I will refer later. We are also placing before you, when we come to that point, copies of three statements of what happened in military aviation in the last war. The question before you, gentlemen, is a vital one. The airplane is probably the most decisive weapon in the world today, in that it is the only weapon that by myself, is changing the map of the world in favor of the country that has superiority in that weapon. You may be interested at the start to know that we have airplanes already in existence that will cross the ocean nonstop, We have airplanes coming through, of which I will not attempt to give any details, that will do the type of flying you see indicated on the charts behind you. We are very much in hopes that the airplane of the future will play a role between nations like the automobile does between our States today. It would be impossible for another civil war to break out in the United States, because, for one reason, the automobile has made possible communication, traffic, and trade between the different States, so that the people of one State know the people of another. We think that the airplane will do that between nations in the future. With those preliminary remarks, I would like to divide my further comments into a preamble and a general discussion of the principles of the bill and take up the high spots of the bill one at a time. NEED FOR LEGISLATIVE RESPITE This committee is aware, as fully as is the air transport industry, of the period of chaos and confusion which prevailed prior to 1938 so far as civil aeronautics is concerned. We have many times had occasion to point out before the Congress and elsewhere that between 1925 and 1938 there had been so many legislative changes affecting the industry, so many shifts in Federal policy, that investors and management alike were on the point of despair and ruin. Because of this committee's exhaustive study of that history in the course of its formulation of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, I know you will understand how we have welcomed the legislative respite since the Congress adopted a new charter for air transportation in 1938. The fact of the matter is that even a short while ago, had we been asked whether the time was ripe for considering further legislation affecting our industry, we would have replied in the negative. For hardly had we begun to adjust to the new conditions provided in the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 when the war in Europe thrust upon our industry operating and economic problems so novel and severe that for over 2 years we have been completely preoccupied with day-to-day concerns. And since our own Nation took up arms in the crusade to destroy world-wide aggression, this industry has been more than ever deeply involved in the immediate problems of serving our country from day to day. AIR LINES WAR PLANS It may interest you to know that the war plans for the use of the air transport industry in war were formulated originally in 1936. Those plans were revised in 1937, and when the gong rang in this war, there was nothing to do but go to work and we did not have to wait a moment to do so. It also may interest you to know that the 1st of September 1939 I was in Canada and was so far north that I thought no one could find me. With me were my wife and a guide. One day a Canadian airplane circled around. I thought that the forest rangers were after us. It landed and the pilot said, "Is your name Gorrell?" I said, "Yes," and he replied, "I came to get you. The Germans have entered Poland this morning." I got into that Canadian plane. They flew me to the Soo and then I flew from the Soo to Chicago. I at once conferred with General Marshall by telephone and our office in Chicago stayed open as long as his did in Washington. Then on December 7, at Pearl Harbor, we were in touch with General Marshall, the head of the Army Air Corps, and the head of the Navy Air Corps, immediately after the attack. It was our office that was used by various departments of the Government even outside of the War and Navy Departments to ground the Japs in Alaska, in Puerto Rico, and so forth. The plans of our industry were all laid and ready. TIME FOR NEW LEGISLATION With the turn of the year, your chairman announced that the time had arrived when Congress should consider further legislative proposals affecting civil aeronautics, setting forth a number of very important questions which have far-reaching significance to the future development of the aeronautical industry. And at about the same time there appeared an exhaustive report from the Select Committee to Investigate Air Accidents, which is printed as House Report No. 1 of this Congress. This report likewise raises very important questions and set forth a wealth of data which, I am sure, has arrested the attention of the Congress as it has of our industry. It is an excellent report. We are, therefore, happy to look forward to, and to give you our best advice concerning, the problems of the future which may us almost before we know it. MR. LEA'S SERVICES TO MILITARY AVIATION be upon But before turning to the future peacetime problems affecting the industry, I would like to make one reference to an early event in the history of our military aeronautics to which I had the pleasure of referring when I appeared before your committee to testify on the Civil Aeronautics bill in 1937. You may recall that I took that oc casion to point out that your chairman had in 1919 and 1920 per: formed an incalculable service by insisting that the truth be told concerning our military aviation in the First World War. At that time your committee kindly agreed that, when the hearings on the bill then pending were published, there should be reprinted, as an appendix, the essential portion of the report written by your chairman in 1920 on our wartime aviation. Thus that report is available today in the printed hearings of this committee as one of the great historical documents relating to our military air service. Events since 1937 have confirmed again and again the service which your chairman performed to his country so many years ago. Mr. Chairman, it may interest you to know that that report has been used, since it was reprinted 6 years ago, by both our War College and our General Staff. Your report of 20 years ago was the basis of much that we have done. FORESIGHT IN CONSIDERATION OF CIVIL AERONAUTICS ACT Recently while glancing through the hearings before your committee in 1937, I was reminded of another occurrence which, although 5 or 6 years ago it may have seemed visionary, is of much moment at this time. The first question asked me during my testimony in 1937 was by Congressman Reese. He raised the question whether our Government had given consideration to the status of Wrangell Island, and observed that our Nation might possibly have very valuable rights in that island. He then went on to note the strategic location of Wrangell Island from the standpoint of the future of air transportation. No more prophetic remark could have been made. For within the last 12 or 18 months there have been many instances which demonstrate the critical importance to our Nation of the great Arctic region and the vital place that region will play in our future national defense and our future air transportation when at last the Arctic Ocean becomes a chilly Mediterranean. As Congressman Reece indicated, in dealing with aerial navigation, we have to revise completely our thinking concerning the great trade routes of the world. It was a happy portent that almost at the outset of this committee's consideration of the Civil Aeronautics bill in 1937 one of its members brought out so forcefully that aviation is indeed a special problem requiring special treatment, the destiny of which is limited only by the bounds of man's imagination. NEW TRADE ROUTES Mr. Reece, if you will note the map behind you, the higher one on the left, you will see that it is a map of routes in existence before Pearl Harbor. One is an indication of the point you raised some 6 years ago in connection with Wrangell Island. You will notice that the shortest route from New York to Manila runs from New York, passes near Wrangell Island, thence over Vladivostok to Manila. Mr. REECE. If I may say off the record. (After informal discussion off the record:) Colonel GORRELL. Your line of thinking indicates that you are conscious of the fact and that you realize that some trade routes which we always thought of in the terms of going east and west, |