Sewer and water-Continued

Group D. Projects which can be started within 6 inonths:
Act 312:

1. Sewers.

2. Water--Department of public works:

1. Downriver. Other :

1. Drainage

6,000,000

13,000,000

Total.-

26, 400,000

Group E. Projects which can be started within 1 year :
Act 342:

1. Sewers.

2. Refuse disposal Other :

1. Water
2. Sewer
3. Drainage

11,500,000 7,000,000

3, 100, 000 2, 000, 000 9, 200, 000

Building construction and improvement Group D. Projects which can be started within 6 months :

:

Juvenile courel ingiland additio

Mr. BLATNIK. I have no questions except to express the Chair's appreciation for your personal appearance here, Mr. Davey. I hope you will convey the Chair's personal appreciation to Mr. Ed Carey, chairman of the Wayne County Board of Supervisors. I am familiar with the situation in Detroit. It is a very serious one. We do hope he shall be successful in getting sound, effective, working legislation, and as you point out that we can cover the current construction. With that, thank you very much for your appearance and your testimony. If there are no further questions, and no further witnesses, the hearings for today are adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

(Whereupon at 2:30 p.m. the hearing was recessed until 10 a.m. the following day, Friday, April 6, 1962.)

STANDBY CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 1962

FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1962

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WORKS,

Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 1302, New House Office Building, Hon. John A. Blatnik presiding:

Mr. BLATNIK. The House Public Works Committee will please come to order. We are resuming public hearings on Standby Capital Improvements legislation.

As the first witness this morning, we welcome Mr. Widman, who will speak on behalf of a great organization. This is Mr. Michael Widman, assistant to the president of the United Mine Workers of America, Thomas Kennedy.

You have Mr. Kennedy's statement, I believe, Mr. Widman. I would like the committee to know and the record to show that Mr. Kennedy himself personally had hoped to be here. Of course, we are fully aware of his very heavy schedule and his previous commitment which keeps him away at this time. Mr. Widman, we welcome you.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL F. WIDMAN, JR., ASSISTANT TO THE

PRESIDENT, AND DIRECTOR OF THE RESEARCH AND MARKETING DEPARTMENT, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA Mr. WIDMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Michael F. Widman, Jr. I am an assistant to the president and director of the Research and Marketing Department of the United Mine Workers of America. I am appearing here today on behalf of President Thomas Kennedy, whose statement I shall read. Mr. Kennedy had planned to appear before the committee on behalf of the organization but was prevented from doing so by other pressing matters. His statement reads as follows:

The United Mine Workers of America endorses the legislation before this committee. We believe it to be in the public interest and an effective weapon against the ravages of unemployment and economic stagnation.

America needs an effective public works program. Such activity, soundly conceived and vigorously promoted, has many beneficial results.

One, public works acts as a counter-cyclical force in our economic activity.

This committee is well aware of the cyclical nature of a free enterprise economy. We all have witnessed the natural sequence of good times followed by bad, of boom and bust, of prosperity and stagnation.

This has been the history of America. Indeed, it is one of the characteristics: of a society such as ours, when business conditions are determined by literally millions of people acting more or less independently of each other.

But if the business cycle is a part of our society, it is also a danger to it. The cycle may be interesting to the economist, a burden to the businessman, and a

rallying cry for the politician. But to the worker it is a catastrophe. It is a long period of idleness, of shrinking income, of public charity, and of despair.

Recently the business cycle has taken on a new and ominous note for the worker. Many of the men and women who are temporarily displaced by business conditions are in reality permanently replaced, for when production increases again new and improved techniques, new and better machines have obviated the need for the number of workers heretofore employed.

Thus, for many thousands of workers the end of a recession does not mean employment, or even a chance of employment. Today in America there are millions of such men, men who are cast aside as unnecessary, even though the majority of their countrymen are enjoying the highest rate of prosperity in history.

It is thus with grave apprehension that we view the recurring business cycles. In the wake of each downturn there is always a segment of our economy who are left behind and must rely on the relief rolls for their future sustenance.

Therefore, we believe that some steps must be taken to mitigate the effects of a recession and stop any downturn before it reaches crisis proportions. We simply cannot afford any deep recessions, not to mention depressions. The price is too high, the results too serious.

A public works program, which takes up the slack and which pumps money and resources into the sagging economy, is one way to do this. It has been so historically. It is true today.

Two, a public works program is able to utilize that part of the labor force that is superfluous.

The hallmark of cyclical swings is unemployment and the underutilization of men and material. People who want to work are denied the opportunity to do so. Factories and capital equipment lay idle. Construction is dormant. Money stagnates as banks, other lending institutions, and individuals prepare to weather the storm by contracting purchases and lending.

An adequate public works program facilitates the reemployment of our human and economic resources.

First, it pumps money into the economy of certain areas, or of the Nation as a whole. Public works programs are of necessity expensive. They require expensive machinery and have a high labor content. This requires capital, a great deal of capital.

Second, it tends to utilize the idle machinery that is not in use. struction industry is a good example of this. In slack periods public works are a great help, because there is use for machinery and for the other costly and complex machines.

But the benefits do not end there. Machinery must be maintained, fueled, repaired and replaced when in use. This means that other businessmen, the suppliers, the manufacturers, the sales personnel, the repair shops, and a whole host of others stand to gain.

Indeed, any money spent for public works filters down to the entire economic sphere in one fashion or another.

But the principal reason for public works is that it will utilize those human resources that would otherwise be out of work.

These human resources, men and women, are the most necessary and the most important part of our strength. It is to them, to their skills, to their pride, and to their belief in our system, that we entrust our future.

With this background, it is inconceivable that we would allow them to wallow in the depths of unemployment and economic stagnation when it is possible to employ them for a constructive purpose.

If a man is allowed to lose his self-respect because of society's rejection, both society and the man suffer. Society is the loser because it must now support the man in one fashion or another and because it has acquired a liability for many years. The man suffers because he can never fulfill that destiny that is an integral part of this Nation--to live in a manner that will befit his dignity as a man.

Therefore, we contend that if industry has no need for the services of vast sections of the working force, it is well to put that part of the labor force to strengthening the common welfare by public works until such time as they can again find employment in the private sector.

Third, public works tend to employ those men who would otherwise be unemployable.

We have referred briefly to this in an earlier part of this statement.