Mr. ANDERSON. That is what I understand. I don't know how much longer it has been, but since I found out about it, and tried to do something about it, why, it has only been in the last couple of years; and I have been trying to do something about it, since then.

Senator BARTLETT. Mr. Barton, do you care to ask any questions on this subject?

Mr. BARTON. I wonder what answer the steamship companies gave when they were requested to give parity in rates with Seattle?

Mr. ANDERSON. Well, we didn't contact the steamship companies, as far as I know, as yet. We have contacted Senator Bartlett, and also the Department of Commerce, but so far, we haven't been able to get anything out of them.

Mr. BARTON. I take it the shippers are the ones that are responsible for the rate, or obtaining the rate, are they not? Has the shipper made any effort to get the rate lowered?

Mr. ANDERSON. They are trying to do something; and they have suggested a larger volume of business, the steamship companies did; however, when the spruce mill tried to bid on a larger volume, there was no decrease in the freight rate.

Mr. BARTON. I see. Are there any present plans for attempting to obtain a lower rate?

Mr. ANDERSON. We are trying to do something with the Army Engineers; how far they will be able to go, though, I don't know. Mr. BARTON. Thank you, sir.

Senator BARTLETT. Do you have anything else that you would like to relate to the committee, Mr. Anderson?

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes; I would like to have declared as a free port, the State of Alaska. My reasoning behind this is that we are locally here, close to Canada, and if such a free port were established, I believe that we would be able to more freely buy Canadian fish, and process them here locally; thereby not causing the processor to pay a whole lot of duty that he now pays upon waste material; and the waste material could go by the wayside, as I understand that that is part of the function of a free port, that you bring goods in and remanufacture them there, and the waste material you do not have to pay duty on.

Senator BARTLETT. How many members are there in your local? Mr. ANDERSON. We have 50 members, in our longshore division; and we have over 100 members in the cold storage division, who do the work, as far as cold storage is concerned.

Senator BARTLETT. These are two separate categories?

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes.

Senator BARTLETT. And what is the employment situation with respect to each group now?

Mr. ANDERSON. The employment situation as far as the longshore division, is steady, I would say; but the cold storage workers is a seasonal operation, which is normally employed about 5 months out of the year, but this would extend the employment possibly to 9 to 10 months of the year.

Senator BARTLETT. What do these men do during the other 7 months of the year?

Mr. ANDERSON. They longshore extra, and pick up whatever extra work that they can get.

Senator BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Anything else?

Mr. ANDERSON. It is my understanding that Senator Magnuson introduced a bill similar to FHA to insure port facilities; in other words, if a community or a State wanted to put in a port facility, that the governing body of that port facility would petition the Government for an insured FHA or port facility loan. I haven't been able to get a copy of the bill, or any information on it, other than what came out of our International Longshoremen's paper, which came out in the hearings before the Seattle Port Commission, when they put on such a big day down there to improve their port facilities.

Senator BARTLETT. In principle, what is your attitude toward such legislation?

Mr. ANDERSON. We need it very badly in Alaska, because we don't have a port facility that is adequate for the modern transportation that we have today; and that is one reason for the need of the smaller boats, is because of the fact that a lot of our smaller ports don't have any port facilities; and even in our larger towns, the loading facilities at the individual plants, you can't get anything but a small boat in

there.

Senator BARTLETT. Do you have anything else, Mr. Anderson?
Mr. ANDERSON. No; that's all.

Senator BARTLETT. We are most appreciative for your contribution, and thank you for having appeared.

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you.

(Witness excused.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Senator BARTLETT. The committee will come to order.

The chairman is very pleased to announce that we have been joined by the legislative counsel for the House of Representatives, who, on this Alaska trip is acting as counsel for the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, a counterpart, of course, to the Senate Committee; and he is Mr. Allen H. Perley, and I would like to introduce Mr. Perley now to the group, and I invite you, Mr. Perley, to join us at the table, to participate in whatever questioning you care to. And that invitation to join us here at the hearing table is likewise extended to Commissioner Romick of the State of Alaska. Would you care to come forward and be of the group, Mr. Romick?

Mr. ROMICK. Thank you, Senator.

Senator BARTLETT. The hearing at the outset this afternoon, at least, will be on S. 2669, and the first witness will be Representative J. Ray Roady of the first State Legislature of the 49th State of Alaska. Representative Roady.

STATEMENT OF HON. J. RAY ROADY, MEMBER, STATE

LEGISLATURE, KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

Mr. ROADY. Thank you, Senator Bartlett. My name is J. Ray Roady, representative in the house of the State of Alaska, and my mailing address is 605 Main Street, Ketchikan.

My appearance will be quite brief. I am introducing this hearing on S. 2669 from the State's angle, and my broad introduction will be borne out by further testimony-and there is quite a bit of testimony, so my questioning and time should not be of very great duration.

I shall read from my prepared statedment, of which I have copies here.

(J. Ray Roady then read exhibit 6, as follows:)

THE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE, RE S. 2669: House Joint Memorial 13, which unanimously passed the Alaska Legislature in their first session, urges the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee to promulgate amendments to the I.C.C. Act that will alleviate inequities and discriminations in the broad problems of the shipping rates and regulations existing in the State of Alaska.

Whereas Southeast Alaska, due to its unique position of being located on coastal islands and geographically situated in areas inaccessible to other means than waterborne transportation; and

Whereas we are now served by only one commercial steamship line for the entire coast of Alaska, and are at the mercy of their schedule; and

Whereas there is a group of small ships at present supplying a much needed service to many communities of southeast Alaska that would not otherwise have a direct service, and a transshipping service to them would not only create delay in shipments but would result in considerable extra and unnecessary costs; and Whereas the strict enforcement of Coast Guard restrictions concerning the manning of these small boats and certain other space and personnel requirements would work an extreme hardship on the economy of their operation and would, according to sound business economics, be either undesirable or impractical.

I, therefore, submit that it would be in the best interest of the people of the United States and of the State of Alaska, should S. 2669 extending until 1964 the exemption from certain Coast Guard restrictions to small boat operators in southeast Alaska, be enacted into law. Respectfully submitted.

J. RAY ROADY, House of Representatives, State of Alaska. Chairman BARTLETT. Mr. Roady, now is that which you have read the exact text of the house joint memorial, or

Mr. ROADY. No; this is not the text of the house joint memorial. The text of the house joint memorial concerning this is confined to one paragraph only. The text of the house joint memorial goes into quite a bit, quite a lot more detail concerning different aspects of the transportation situation, the Alaska Railroad included.

Senator BARTLETT. Would it be possible for you to have that one paragraph copied, and make the text available to the committee? Mr. ROADY. I Would be happy to do that.

Senator BARTLETT. And I presume in light of the circumstances, that you would want to amend the opening paragraph of your statement, in view of the fact that it is not the Interstate Commerce Act which applies in this matter?

Mr. ROADY. How would you-how would you suggest that change be made?

Senator BARTLETT. I would say promulgate amendments to law— Mr. ROADY. To the law?

Senator BARTLETT. To existing law, make it that way.

Mr. ROADY. All right.

Senator BARTLETT. Would you, Mr. Roady, care to amplify upon your written statement?

Mr. ROADY. I think in my introductory remarks, Senator, I did state that this statement would be amplified upon quite fully by the testimony that follows and I would not care to take up more of your time than necessary this afternoon. There is lots of testimony following

me.

Senator BARTLETT. Well, we are especially pleased that a representative of the State legislature appeared before the committee to introduce, as it were, the witnesses who are to follow on this subject. Mr. Barton, do you have any questions?

Mr. BARTON. No questions.

Mr. ROADY. That in effect has been my function.

Chairman BARTLETT. Thank you, Representative Roady.

(Witness excused.)

Senator BARTLETT. The next witness is Cy W. Steers.

We welcome you, Mr. Steers, and will you please furnish to the committee your full name and your mailing address?

STATEMENT OF CY W. STEERS, STEERS WHOLESALE AGENCY, KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

Mr. STEERS. Yes. Cy W. Steers, Box 569, Ketchikan. I represent Steers Wholesale Agency.

Senator BARTLETT. You are privileged to proceed in your own

manner.

Mr. STEERS. I just wanted to give a brief history of how this charter boat situation got started. It goes back to 1943, 1944 and 1945, which were the war years, and there was a hard-it was very difficult to get cool room space on the ships that were serving here at that time, particularly for many of the fruit items; and, in order to get those items, during those years, we had to charter small boats, fish boats or whatever was available, and periodically, during the year, we would make a few trips to supply the people of Ketchikan, and the west coast, with those items.

Then, about 1946, there were still 3 steamship companies serving the area, and the situation hadn't improved any, as far as cool room space was concerned, so I made arrangements, at that time, to charter a boat on a year-round basis, making trips perhaps every 2 or 3 weeks, to bring perishable produce to Ketchikan, and a lot of it was then also shipped to the west coast, Hydaburg, Craig and Klawock; and that went on for several years, and then, well, I think it was 1947 when we actually got the operation going, on a regular basis, and that worked out quite well; and by 1952, we had another boat serving us on the same basis, in order to get a little more frequent service; and now, it has developed to the point where we have three boats that are making quite regular runs, and they go to Ketchikan, Hydaburg, Craig, Klawock, Kake, Hoonah, Pelican, and Sitka.

Senator BARTLETT. Mr. Steers, may I interrupt you to ask what group this is?

Mr. STEERS. Currently, it is called the Alaska Outport Transportation Association. We operated it without any name of any kind for a good many years, but it is more of a formal association now. Senator BARTLETT. Is this the only charter arrangement serving southeast Alaska?

Mr. STEERS. No, there is another one that has been known as the Ketchikan Merchants' Charter Association, on a similar type of operation.

Senator BARTLETT. And that is still in operation?
Mr. STEERS. That is still in operation.

Senator BARTLETT. Thank you.

Mr. STEERS. That is about all that I have to offer. There will be further testimony that will give more detail, but that gives just a brief history of the organization.

Senator BARTLETT. And you want to confine your testimony to the history of the particular organization and you would prefer, as I infer, that subsequent witnesses go into the remainder of the matters that will command the attention of the committee?

Mr. STEERS. That is right.

Senator BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Steers.

Mr. Barton?

Mr. BARTON. Yes, just one or two questions.

You ship only for members of the organization?

Mr. STEERS. Yes, that is right, just the members of the association that are signed on the charter.

Mr. BARTON. You don't hold yourself out to the public, generally? Mr. STEERS. No, definitely not. We run into a problem that way at times; a lot of people assume that we are, and want to ship merchandise to both northbound and southbound, but that is all turned down, because they are not members of the association.

Mr. BARTON. What legal form does it take; is it a corporation? Mr. STEERS. No. It is just a nonprofit association.

Mr. BARTON. Do you have a tariff?

Mr. STEERS. No, no tariff.

Mr. BARTON. In other words, it is a great deal similar, I take it, to these cooperative organizations under the Interstate Commerce Act where they pool their freight and ship it, and serve only members?

Mr. STEERS. Yes, I would presume it would be quite similar to that. Mr. BARTON. Thank you, sir.

Senator BARTLETT. How many members do you have, Mr. Steers? Mr. STEERS. Oh, maybe 30, I wouldn't say for sure; there are quite a number of them.

Senator BARTLETT. And you serve all these different ports that you mentioned?

Mr. STEERS. That's right.

Senator BARTLETT. And how is the group operated? Do you have a manager?

Mr. STEERS. We have an agent in Seattle where the loading is done that handles the detail work, and the assessments on the basis of who has the cargo aboard the vessels, and so on.

Senator BARTLETT. Does he give the assessment for each voyage, to each user of the ship's space?

Mr. STEERS. That is right.

Senator BARTLETT. On a particular voyage?

Mr. STEERS. That's right.

Senator BARTLETT. There is no prorating on an annual basis, or anything of that kind?

Mr. STEERS. Well, at times, yes; it can go both ways, depending on how things work out at the end of the year; it depends on how good we have guessed; if the guess is right, why maybe there's a rebate; and perhaps there would be an additional assessment if there hasn't been enough to pay the operating expenses.