desired, to continue on their work by added State appropriations or by putting on further charges to the students who go there. This would simply eliminate the possibility in that case of a lot of these promising young men to further their education and go into the field that they want. That is what we are trying to stop now.

Captain LANDREY. I also understand the annual turnover of officers among the merchant marine is such that the combined total of boys graduated from the State and Kings Point is barely able to keep the turnover supplied. There is no surplus of officers coming out of the five schools now.

The CHAIRMAN. That is correct. I believe the figures show there is a need annually of somewhere near 1,100 to 1,500 new officers a year and that is in peacetime. That is during this particular period, and if we are going to consider this matter we should hit a happy medium for peacetime and make sure we have facilities of staff and personnel to be able to carry out what we are going to need if we ever get into another emergency situation. So it is a case of working the two things together.

Captain WEAVER. I don't know if I have anything more except I hope you can achieve your objective and keep the schools in active operation.

Mr. WEBSTER. May I say this, Captain Landrey, in line with what Senator Payne has said. I am sure the fundamental reason the State schools should be continued, is that they have earned the right to be continued by reason of the service that they have performed for the Federal Government during the last war and the Korean emergency in maintaining the able kind of merchant marine officer which we have today. So, in a very real sense, if the State academies continue to receive Federal aid the States are not receiving any favor, are they?

Captain LANDREY. That is right. I very heartily agree with you. Mr. WEBSTER. I was interested in what you had to say about the comparability of the training these officers receive on the commercial vessels as compared with the State training ships. I am wondering if you would care to express an opinion as to the advantage or disadvantage of the 3-year course as given by the State maritime academy in Maine as compared with the 4-year course given at Kings Point and at the New York State school, Fort Schuyler.

Captain LANDREY. I think the 4-year course at Fort Schuyler probably covers more ground or allows the men to cover more ground because they get a yearly cruise as well as 4 years study but I think the men at Castine with 3 years and an annual cruise get as much maritime training as New York gets. I would prefer it decidedly to the 4 years Kings Point provides, with the year as a cadet which I think is almost a year wasted. As far as New York State with the 4-year course and 3 annual cruises, that is good, but I think the same thing is accomplished in the 3 years at Castine.

Mr. WEBSTER. Do you have any fear that in 4 years you might train a man out of the merchant marine officer field?

Captain LANDREY. That is so, you could, and that is what the schools are meant primarily for, to train officers for the merchant marine. If they go beyond it, all well and good but they can get 4 years' education in other schools. Take an engineering man who

takes the engineering course in the State academies, he could get that land education in a land-based school.

Mr. WEBSTER. Captain, at the present time there is no Federal training of unlicensed personnel other than training them to become officers. As you know we had upgrade and refresher training at Alameda and Sheepshead Bay up to 1953, and we had correspondence courses at the Maritime Institute. These training functions have been terminated and I am wondering whether you would care to express an opinion as to whether the Federal Government should, in some degree or other, be helping unlicensed personnel to obtain such training.

Captain LANDREY. I think it should. With the complicated machinery that you have aboard ship now, much of the actual handling and repair work falls within the scope of this unlicensed personnel above the grade of fireman and seamen and those men should receive some training in order to be able to handle that work properly.

Mr. WEBSTER. My last question is this: Do you feel that the men who get the benefit of going to the Maine Maritime Academy appreci ate the needs of the unlicensed men? Are they sympathetic with the problems of the men in the ranks, or do you feel, perhaps, that they are made too much into an officer clique?

Captain LANDREY. No; I don't think they are too far apart. You can't say that they have the same viewpoint as the seaman or firemar because they are above that, but they have had to do the very same work as the fireman and seaman and unlicensed personnel do and they are closer to them than they would be otherwise.

Mr. WEBSTER. Thank you.

Mr. BOURBON. Have you served as master mariner on ships where cadets of the Federal academy were serving?

Captain LANDREY. No; I served as junior officer on a mail ship of the American Line and the Red Star Line.

Mr. BOURBON. At that time were Federal cadets serving on those ships?

Captain LANDREY. No, sir. It was simply a requirement in the subsidy that the lines carry cadets and the cadets of those days aren't comparable to the Kings Point cadets of today. They were yourssters that would go along mainly for the ride but when they wer aboard they had to agree to study and try to learn to become officer candidates. That was the theory of the thing, that training plus the State school ship was the only source of officer training outside of the men that came up through the hawsepipe, but we had a difficult time. Occasionally you would get a boy ambitious enough that he would study but most of them wouldn't and one of the reasons for it was lack of supervision. If they were there with the proper supervision, bearing down on them all the time, they would accomplish something. but their time was their own. They were free to do as they pleased. The principal work that they did was to polish the brass on the bridge. Mr. BOURBON. I understood you to say the second year training st Kings Point where the men serve aboard ship was more or less wasted Did you say that?

Captain LANDREY. That is right.

Mr. BOURBON. Why do you say that? Are there union regulations that prevent those men going actually into the work or is it lack of supervision?

Captain LANDREY. Lack of supervision. I don't believe there are any union limitations placed on them. They would be happy to work doing anything abroad the ship but there is no one there to supervise their training and see that they do learn anything.

The CHAIRMAN. Who would like to be the next witness?

Mr. LEAVITT. I have Howard O. Hough, pastor of the First Radio Parish Church of America.

STATEMENT OF REV. HOWARD 0. HOUGH

Reverend HOUGH. Gentleman of the committee. I have been very much interested in the education of our youth in the State of Maine through my public ministry reaching over the entire State. I have been particularly interested in the Maine Maritime Academy. As you know, my son is excutive secretary of the board and I have been interested in it very personally and from the interest of my work.

The boys, I have known many of them, and I have been the means of getting some admitted into the academy and the character and the morale and background of the school and the boys has been excellent. I believe from the Federal point of view that it is cheaper to educate the boys in Castine than it is in Kings Point and, of course, I am very much interested in the overall picture of our whole Government. We must be careful and not get too much Federal control in everything and in every place. That is one of the modern dangers in the philosophy of our whole Government.

I am interested in seeing this school continue. It has a very definite place. When you have the loyalties of the local people, you can promote interest in the academy here that you can't in a national academy. The national academy boys would be boys from Kansas and these other places-very interesting-but this is the seaboard. This is the place where men know the sea and love the sea and are interested in it and this type of thing should be supported in the place where it is best.

As far as the background and the morale of the school, I can say I am well satisfied with it.

The CHAIRMAN. You have had a lot of opportunities to observe it. Reverend HOUGH. I think I have, Governor.

Mr. WEBSTER. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Anyone else wish to speak now?

Mr. LEAVITT. We have Commander Nesbitt.

STATEMENT OF COMDR. ARTHUR NESBITT

Commander NESBIT. Comdr. Arthur Nesbitt, United States Coast Guard. My present occupation is officer in charge of marine inspection, Portland, Maine. I have held that position since 1942. I am not here to speak for the Coast Guard but as a private individual, as president of the Portland Propeller Club and also one that is more or less familiar with maritime training schools since 1914.

In 1914-16 I served on board the New York State Nautical Training School ship, the Newport as it was then known. Upon graduation I served in merchant service for a short duration and then entered the Navy during World War I. I may state that the whole graduating

class entered the Navy at that time as reservists and served through that wartime period on active duty and later on, on inactive duty. Through the training I received in this maritime school I was enabled to continue on in merchant service and finally reach the top grade of chief engineer, the position I held for 10 years prior to entering the Government service in the Bureau of Marine Inspection. That service was taken over or given to the Coast Guard by Presidential proclamation in 1942 and has since become a permanent part of the Coast Guard.

In 1935, upon becoming attached to the Boston office of the Marine Inspection Service, I had opportunity to continue to aid and assist in the training programs of the Massachusetts Nautical School. I believe they elected me an associate member. That is one academy. While I am on that I might say I am a lifetime member of the Maine Academy, so I belong to three of them. Naturally I am not prejudiced much in favor of the academies!

I believe that the training these boys get in academies cannot be surpassed anywhere so far as equipping them for their future in the merchant service.

Now, the Propeller Club primary motto is to further aid in the development of a better merchant marine and in that capacity the Propeller Club of Portland was instrumental in helping to establish the Maine Maritime Academy.

In my present position with the Coast Guard I have had the pleasure of signing every license of every graduate that has attended that school. The boys have all been of excellent character and morale insofar as reports have been received by me from the different superintendents and heads of the various steamship companies, and while I am not prejudiced for or against any one maritime academy, I will say that since I have been in Maine that the steamship operators seem to have a preference for the Maine graduates. Personally, I would say we take pride in Massachusetts. I should take pride in New York, but today we are getting the preference for the Maine graduates, and I inquired into that, and I heard someone else express an opinion on the reference that has been made that the more you educate some of these boys as college graduates, they turn out to be kid-glove engineers rather than the working-type man that is necessary aboard merchant vessels.

The Propeller Club of Portland, Maine, is only one unit of a national organization and they approved the resolution last year, the national organization did, in favor of the continuance of the present State academy and Kings Point. They are not against any training anywhere, any training that will further or aid the merchant marine. And further, the Propeller Club, being an educational nonprofit club, helps the youth in the various States and ports in which they are located to the extent of conducting essay contests each year in our secondary schools in the area, all on the subject of merchant marine activities. Last year I believe it was "American Merchant Marine for Travel, Trade, and Defense." Here in Maine we were quite successful. Of the whole United States we produced the best winner in the United States. He came from Deering High School. He won a round trip to Australia which was provided by the United States

Insofar as my private opinion is concerned with respect to financial assistance to maintain these schools, I would like to go on record as stating we had the same problem in 1941 in the New York State scholarship and it does tend to make the uncertainty of the cadet such as they sometimes don't know whether they can afford to continue or not, but we were provided with assistance in 1914. The Federal Government gave us that vessel and maintained it. Even New York State couldn't afford it at that time. There is the uncertainty of the State legislature making an appropriation each year and if it is not made, the school is discontinued.

We had those difficulties in Pennsylvania and Louisiana in the past. The States as a rule never furnish sufficient funds to maintain the floating equipment necessary to go with the buildings ashore and that is the part the Federal Government has always played in aiding and assisting the training of these young men as merchant officers. With this Federal aid, of course, it was included that they receive training in naval science and that has been incorporated in the State academies, that didn't exist prior to the last World War.

I believe that is all, gentlemen.

Mr. BOURBON. Commander, you said that in your contact with people in the industry they seemed to indicate a preference for Maine Academy people. Have you had occasion to observe in talking to those people whether they had any preference between academy graduates in general as against the men who come up through the hawsepipe?

Commander NESBITT. They prefer the men who graduate from the academy. No question of doubt, because it does turn out better caliber men, better educated men than those who come up through the hawsepipe and fight for their education through correspondence school and such. It does enable any man who is interested in going to sea to obtain a better education.

Mr. BOURBON. Have you heard people say that they thought the academies were producing more men than the industry could absorb? Commander NESBITT. No; I haven't. So far as I know they are practically all spoken for at each graduation. Steamship owners in New York always request some of your Maine graduates. How many they take from their own New York School, Fort Schuyler, or Massachusetts, I am not familiar with.. If shipping is at a low ebb, naturally they can't push some one out just to take a graduate, but I do know of occasions when they have taken them on as AB's and had them stand by until there was a position open as third mate or engineer. Mr. BOURBON. Then they can promote them without reference to the union?

Commander NESBITT. I am not familiar with the union angle. Mr. WEBSTER. In your official capacity, Commander, have you inspected the State of Maine?

Commander NESBITT. Oh, yes, I have been on the State of Maine. Mr. WEBSTER. And am I correct in assuming that that vessel is in excellent condition insofar as Coast Guard requirements are concerned?

Commander NESBITT. She is in excellent, seaworthy condition. She has a certificate of inspection in force I believe until January 1956 at which time she will have another annual inspection.