any manner different from the telephone or telegraph, in so far as it includes point-to-point communication. I do not see any reason why it should not all be handled from one headquarters.

Senator WATSON. Well, inasmuch as radio and telegraphy and telephony are inextricably intertwined, do you not think it would operate, both to economy and efficiency, to have them under one head?

Mr. CALDWELL. If putting them under one head prematurely would not prejudice the satisfactory handling of the immediate and pressing needs of radio.

Senator WATSON. What is your reason for that? I have great respect for your opinion, and I would like to know what you base

that on.

Mr. CALDWELL. Because the Radio Commission has not yet come to the stage that, for example, the Interstate Commerce Commission has in the matter of administration, and yet already has fully as difficult problems in radio alone. The Radio Commission has not yet even adopted any formal rules of procedure. It is still operating somewhat on the basis of dealing with individuals; the individual commissioners dealing with individual claimants, but less and less. I do not mean that that is done unfairly, but it takes time and stands in the way of the rapid handling of important problems that require quick action. I fear for such problems if you add right now such duties as the appraisal of telephone and telegraph lines. In a word, the Interstate Commerce Commission sits as a court and has its departments and bureaus working, while the Federal Radio Commission has not quite reached that point.

Senator WATSON. How much attention does the Interstate Commerce Commission give to the telephone regulations?

Mr. CALDWELL. I have heard that it gives none.

Senator WATSON. Or telegraphy, except as it affects the operation of the railroads?

Mr. CALDWELL. It is only fair to point out this, Senator, as an omen of a future and perhaps a present need for such a commission as this bill provides. In hearings last fall before the commission the Radio Corporation of America was asking for short-wave channels for use within this country; one reason that was stated in support of its claim was that it was getting unfair treatment from the Western Union and the Postal Telegraph in collecting and distributing its transoceanic messages in this country. Of course, if that claim were well founded and were to continue it would strongly argue a necessity for a unified control of communication to prevent a repetition of such practices.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to say, since you admit that the Interstate Commerce Commission is not doing anything with the telephone and telegraph, we would be no worse off under the jurisdiction of a communications commission than we are now.

Mr. CALDWELL. I do not think they would be any worse off. I am not worrying about the telegraph and telephone companies. I am thinking only of the immediate needs of radio. Until they are met I should not like to see any more duties delegated to the commission other than those now performed by the Department of Commerce in radio.

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The CHAIRMAN. If no more work is done in the communications commission than in the Interstate Commerce Commission, certainly it would not burden the communications commission.

Mr. CALDWELL. I do not know about the Interstate Commerce Commission, but I know that in the Radio Commission you are dealing with five conscientious individuals who would try to work out the problems committed to them and who are already performing too much detail work. I have seen them work and have worked with them for eight months. I do not believe there is a tribunal in the Government service that works any harder than they do, and I do not see how they could do much more than radio for a few years. Senator WATSON. That shows you have not associated much with Senators.

Mr. CALDWELL. I was referring to tribunals.

The CHAIRMAN. Would the size of the commission have any effect? Do you think it would be better if there were two or three more commissioners?

Mr. CALDWELL. I think not. The trouble is that the individual commissioners are trying to do too much detail work. They need at least three subordinate bureaus, each to handle the people that come there with reference to minor matters, to save the time of the indi'vidual commissioners.

Senator WATSON. Let me ask you this then: The radio really includes telephonic communications?

Mr. CALDWELL. It includes wireless telephonic communication; yes. Senator WATSON. Right now?

Mr. CALDWELL. Yes, sir.

Senator WATSON. Now, in dealing with that question, is it not necessary for them more or less to deal with the telephone?

Mr. CALDWELL. In handling broadcasting problems, if I understand you correctly, telephone-line problems have not entered in to any great degree.

The CHAIRMAN. We have had complaints that the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. did not treat them all alike.

Mr. CALDWELL. I know of one such case. I think I heard it in testimony before this committee last February. I think that is the only one I ever heard of. I am not sure that that is a very alarming situation.

Senator WATSON. Take the programs that come, for instance, over WRC over our radios. That comes from New York City? All of those good programs come from New York City?

Mr. CALDWELL. Many of the very finest ones come from Chicago, Senator.

Senator WATSON. Of course, that depends on the matter of taste. Mr. CALDWELL. We furnish the grand opera and New York furnishes the jazz.

Senator WATSON. New York furnishes the only grand opera, really. You have some at the Riveria, or the Ravenna, whatever you call the thing, very fine in the summer time.

Senator GLENN. And in the winter, too.

Senator WATSON. That is a question of taste.

When I am in Chi

cago I like that, and when I am in New York I like that. Now, that

comes over the telephone?

Mr. CALDWELL. It does.

Senator WATSON. Now, who makes that arrangement? Does this commission now in existence have anything to do with that?

Mr. CALDWELL. It does not.

Senator WATSON. Or is it all arranged by Mr. Aylesworth and his company?

Mr. CALDWELL. Right now it is entirely a matter of private negotiation, and I am inclined to think that the Federal Radio Commission has no direct legal power over it.

Senator WATSON. Ought not the commission to have power over them, when they are interrelated and essentially so?

Mr. CALDWELL. I think there should be a governmental authority of some kind having jurisdiction in the matter.

Senator WAGNER. In case of discrimination involving telephone companies, would not the Interstate Commerce Commission have jurisdiction to hear any complaints?

Senator WATSON. Yes; it would.

.

Senator WAGNER. So there is regulatory power somewhere may not be exercised, but it exists.

It

Senator WATSON. The Interstate Commerce Commission has that authority if it chooses to exercise it.

Senator DILL. They have never chosen, so far, to exercise it. Senator WATSON. My own conclusion is that it is necessary for all of these interrelated powers to be controlled by one organization. Mr. CALDWELL. I think it is, undoubtedly, Senator, as far as they are engaged in the communication business, including radio. If you achieve that by one unified organization you will want to be careful with the purely administrative work, such as the 16,000 amateurs and 2,000 ships and I do not know how many thousand aeroplanes, to see that they are somehow segregated from the quasi-judicial work of the commission; and, second, that a very great leeway is left for international negotiations. Submarine cables are handled by licenses from the President, and he is given broad powers to see to it that the delicate questions that arise in connection with landing places on the other side are all handled properly and can be handled through diplomatic channels and the Department of State. Similarly in transoceanic wireless communication, you have to have landing places on the other side, and stations in England and France are either run by those governments or by corporations owned by them. Arrangements with them must largely be a matter of international negotiation and agreement, which is hard to handle speedily and efficiently, unless you have a special department of your commission or your tribunal devoted to that purpose. There should be a considerable latitude and discretion left with it in such a matter.

Mr. CHAIRMAN. I have taken longer this morning, again, than I anticipated. I spent some time last evening trying to boil this down, but apparently have not succeeded to the extent that I intended. Í wish you would be frank in stating to me whether you expect me to get through this morning.

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, no; I mean that you shall have all the time you desire. We are very much interested. Of course you can not prevent the interruptions by Senators, and we will allow for that. Mr. CALDWELL. I am glad to have the questions; they have helped

me.

Will there be a session to-morrow morning?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. CALDWELL. Then I will not skip over two or three items that I might possibly skip over otherwise.

Another difficult question that the commission has to deal with is the variety of questions of evidence. They might strike you as comparatively unimportant, but in a hearing that happened about a month or two ago between two broadcasting stations one station filed 170,000 affidavits in evidence which had been obtained from listeners. Without trying to pass on the questions of admissibility of evidence that come up in that type of case, the mere question of filing and taking care of those documents is bewildering. The only remedy I can suggest is to require every station to appeal so that we can cart all these documents over to the clerk of the Court of Appeals and let him file them. Otherwise the commission must carefully preserve them under the law.

Senator WAGNER. Were they read?

Mr. CALDWELL. As former attorney for the commission, I must stand on my constitutional rights.

Senator WAGNER. All right. I will withdraw the question.

Mr. CALDWELL. They came in in packing boxes. I think they were brought in by airplane from the station.

The present organization of the commission consists of the secretary's office, a legal division, and an engineering division. I believe that the future organization of the commission should have those three departments and perhaps more to handle all small matters, and let the commission be free for the important and the controverted ones. That is not exactly true at the present time.

The only one of those departments that is on a fair way to real development and I say this out of regard to my successor and not to myself is the legal division, which, under the generous appropriation made by Congress last March has been able to get capable assistants and is going along and handling this work to the satisfaction of every one.

The engineering division has to rely on the charity of the Army and the Navy in furnishing good men for temporary use. Commander Craven who was in charge of one important branch of engineering, the short waves, was withdrawn by the Navy a month or two ago. Captain Hill, in charge of broadcasting, was loaned by the Army and is to be withdrawn on June 1. Both men have rendered

service of inestimable value. The very able chief engineer, Dr. J. H. Dellinger, was loaned by the Bureau of Standards and he had to return several months ago. That sort of thing is manifestly not sound.

Senator DILL. Do you understand that the law makes it impossible for the commission to appoint its own engineers?

Mr. CALDWELL. I do not; but every effort has been made to get good men on a permanent basis. Salary limitations stand in the way, as does also the temporary character of the commission. The commissioners have communicated, I think, with every likely source of information as to available men in the country and have not yet been able to get the type of men they need. The assistance they have had from the Army and Navy has been of the very best sort, but the temporary character of such arrangements stands in the way of progressive development in this important department of the commission's work.

Senator DILL. You mean, under the classification act they can not pay enough to attract engineers from the outside?

Mr. CALDWELL. Yes. I urge that the same generous provision be made for the engineering division as was made for the legal division.

I shall leave it to the commission to speak about the secretary's office. It may or may not desire to recommend that that office be taken out of the classification act.

The commission so far has gotten out its regulations in the form of what it calls general orders from time to time. These are sometimes regulations and sometimes other matters. It is holding hearings practically every day. I do not know the total number of hearings, but before last July I think there were a total of 51, and since that time there have been around 400.

You may be interested in knowing the present number of stations of each kind.

What are called limited public stations total 309. That includes stations of the type operated by the Radio Corporation of America, the Mackay interests and the Universal Wireless Communication Co. They are limited in that they can only communicate between certain points, but they are under the public-service obligation.

Then there are 328 limited commercial stations which include the Alaska canneries, geophysical stations, and that sort of thing. There are 70 general public stations, which means for the most part stations engaged in communication with ships.

There are 193 experimental stations, which include 26 television stations in the short-wave bands, and 16 stations engaged in relay broadcasting, sending programs over long distances to be disseminated by a broadcasting station in foreign parts or at distant points. There are 16,928 amateur stations, 28 technical and training-school stations, 1,934 ship stations, and 615 broadcasting stations, making a total of 20,405.

There are any number of applications pending now for additional stations on the part of both present licensees and new applicants.

The commission does not have to state the grounds for its decision in any case unless a case is appealed to the Court of Appeals. If the appellate procedure now provided by the act were taken away or severely limited I should think it might be a wise thing to require, in at least certain types of cases, that a minute be made of the reasons for decision. Otherwise I think its present procedure is working satisfactorily. Because of its being a commission every act has to be shown by its minutes, and is shown in the way that I illustrated by the document I handed to you this morning.

One tremendous problem now is due to the short period of licensing. I feel that while I sympathize with the purpose of Congress in preventing the creation of vested rights, I think the present system is working against that. It means that the courts, in order to give effect to the appeal provisions, are likely to find some greater continuing right, although they do not call it a property right, than they would otherwise. I feel that the present act gives the commission power, after hearing, to change the terms of any license or to revoke a license for cause during its period, and therefore the vested right danger is thoroughly met. The present situation is that the commission has to pass on all applications from all of these stations in the