personnel of pay grades E-4 and below are entitled to quarters. allowance for dependents only under temporary legislation. The existing authority for such allowance expires July 1, 1959. And we cannot, except in isolated areas, program public quarters for these men and their families. Nevertheless, many of these men do have dependents. Also, many of our men must be stationed in areas where insufficient community support or military rental housing is available, and it would appear improper to dispose of good but tiny, quarters. The rentention of small housing units which could be leased to our people at a fair rental would be a substantial boon.

There are two minor perfecting amendments which I should like to recommend. On page 1, line 6 of the bill change the words "and their" to "with". This will clarify the intent that the bill will apply only to family-type housing. On page 3, line 16, delete the word "President" and substitute therefor the words "Head of the Executive Department concerned". This will avoid encumbering the President with administrative details which should more properly be the concern of responsible officials within the Department involved.

In summation, Mr. Chairman, I earnestly and respectfully commend this bill to the consideration of this committee as an important and timely measure for the morale and welfare of our servicemen and their dependents.

Mr. Chairman, I am very grateful for the attention of you and the members of the committee.

Before I close, may I mention to you that the Army is represented here today by Brig. Gen. George Mather and Mr. George Robinson of the Department of the Air Force is also here to help the committee in any way you may desire. I also have Admiral Stephan, who is the Navy's legislative officer, with us.

Mr. DURHAM. If you have the figures convenient, can you give to the committee the exact number of personnel housed at the present time in the substandard housing?

Admiral HOLLOWAY. For the Navy, that is 6,362.

Mr. DURHAM. What is the total number? Can the Army also present figures?

Admiral HOLLOWAY. Captain McFarland can give them to you. Mr. COLE. When you say 6,362, are you speaking of that number of families including dependents, or that number of service people? Captain MCFARLAND. 6,362 quarters which servicemen occupy. Mr. COLE. Quarters, irrespective of number of occupants?

Captain MCFARLAND. That is right. The Army has 21,300 substandard quarters, the Air Force has 8,625, the Coast Guard has 130, and the Public Health Service has 100.

Mr. DURHAM. That is a total of

Mr. KELLEHER. About 36,000.

Mr. PRICE. Have there been any changes?

Mr. KELLEHER. It is identical to last year, sir.

Captain MCFARLAND. These are last year's figures. We can furnish the figures for this year if necessary. The changes have been rather minor and are downward in general.

Mr. DURHAM. Of course, that does not include your public support off base of the personnel, no connection with it at all?

Captain MCFARLAND. No, sir, no connection at all. This is purely substandard quarters being occupied by service personnel.

Mr. DURHAM. Can you give us the rental they are paying at the present time on these substandard quarters? Does it vary in dinerent sections, the rental for this substandard housing?

Captain MCFARLAND. Yes, sir. There are other figures for the rental housing, all of which by quarters standards are substandard, but as rental housing, are not entirely substandard.

The rental housing figures for the Army were $1,827, for the Navy and Marine Corps, $31,941, for the Air Force, $9,300, for the Coast Guard, $50.

Mr. KELLEHER. The 36,000 units, the subject of this bill, are not rented at all. This bill would permit them to be rented. Today the serviceman loses his total housing allowance when he occupies one of these units.

Mr. DURHAM. Because at the present time he is living in publicsupported housing.

Mr. KELLEHER. Yes, sir, because he is living in these houses built from housing funds, and under an artificiality, shall we say, of the law, he must surrender his housing allowance.

The other quarters Captain McFarland mentions, 43,000 of them, are now rented, they are not public quarters, and they are rented at various rentals, depending on the unit and the area in which it is located.

Mr. DURHAM. Can you give us the number of trailers involved in this number of substandard housing?

Captain MCFARLAND. I do not have a breakdown of the number of trailers involved. In the instance of the Navy, it is probably in the neighborhood of five or six thousand. The Army has about 3,000 and there are about 3,000 for the Air Force.

Mr. DURHAM. Making a total of about 12,000 trailers.
Captain MCFARLAND. Yes, sir.

Mr. COLE. Out of the Navy's 6,000 substandard houses, 5,000 of them are trailers?

Captain MCFARLAND. No, sir. The 6,362 substandard quarters, of which I spoke, include a few trailers, in the neighborhood of perhaps several hundred. But the trailers of which I was speaking are in the rental housing category, with which this bill at the present time may not be concerned.

Mr. COLE. It is not entirely clear to my mind what determines rental housing and service housing.

Captain MCFARLAND. The public quarters, of course, are quarters that were built with appropriated funds or were converted with substantial use of appropriated funds and require giving up the quarters allowance.

The rental housing was built either under acts which specifically authorized the construction of housing to be rented to service personnel or were built with no appreciable use of public funds for the purpose. They can be rented at rates comparable to the going rates for similar housing in the community.

Mr. DURHAM. Can you give us the average age of these quarters, just a guess?

Captain MCFARLAND. The largest proportion of these substandard quarters were built during the wartime period. So their average age is probably 12 to 15 years.

Mr. HESS. Captain, do I understand correctly that the Congress passed legislation authorizing the purchase of trailers for rental housing?

Captain MCFARLAND. They were purchased under the authority of existing legislation.

Mr. HESS. Trailers were not mentioned in any legislation, were they?

Mr. KELLEHER. The National Housing Act, title III of it, involved only trailers. The trailers, however, to make it more clear, are not the trailers you normally move from place to place. They are more or less mobile, but they were placed on foundations and left where they were.

Mr. LANKFORD. I think I have this right but I want to be sure. Of the 6,362 units you mentioned, they are presently occupied, but the occupant loses all his rental allowance; is that right?

Captain MCFARLAND. That is correct, sir. That is, the Navy's portion of it.

Mr. LANKFORD. The same applies to the others?
Captain MCFARLAND. That is correct, sir.

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you.

Mr. BRAY. The Army has 21,000. Do you know, roughly, how many quarters the Army does have, quarters for their people? Captain MCFARLAND. 92,234.

Mr. BRAY. Roughly, between one-fourth and one-fifth of those are substandard?

Captain MCFARLAND. That is correct.

Mr. BRAY. I notice we have two copies here of bill No. 1056. One of the copies is lined, some changes made. I do not know who to address this question to.

Mr. PRICE. That was the action of our subcommittee last year. Mr. BRAY. I was on the subcommittee. Was the red the amendments we made?

Mr. PRICE. That is correct.

Mr. BRAY. Now you want this bill passed. Is this undoing what we did last year?

Mr. BENNETT. I already testified to the contrary before the committee, that these amendments are agreeable and heartily endorsed by me.

Mr. BRAY. It changes it to read, "prior to July 1, 1959." Are you willing that that stay in?

Mr. BENNETT. I am willing to have all the amendments the committee had last year. I think that particular amendment is addressed to a particular calendar year and should have adjustment by calendar

year.

Mr. BRAY. I was very interested in this legislation. It is designed to right a very great injustice that has caused a lot of bitterness. But I do want to bring this to your attention. Improperly run, it can bring about just as much bitterness, because now you have small dividing line between those that are substandard and those that

are not.

Any of us know who have ever lived in military posts that that is true. One fellow will get it for about $50 and another will pay about $120 per month.

Unless you get rid of those substandard houses, that will cause as much bitterness as before.

Mr. BENNETT. That is the purpose of the amendments.

Mr. BRAY. I would not support it otherwise. The services do not show much interest in getting housing. The last 2 years, if you recall, the last fiscal year, you have constructed less than 50 percent of the housing authorized and appropriated for. I know you are relying on the Capehart housing.

We understand that, and it is the same for all of us. If we can buy something on time, we use our available money for something else. If you wait 4 years to get rid of these, I do not think the bill will be of any value. We have to get the services interested in getting this proper housing for personnel. Congress is getting tired of being the whipping boy for the services' not having adequate quarters when you are not using half of what they give you.

If I did not believe immediate effort would be taken to get rid of these houses, I would oppose the bill in committee and on the floor, because if you delay 4 years, you will come back and ask for 4 years more. Unless we can show action, I will oppose the bill and a lot of others will feel the same way, I am sure.

Mr. BENNETT. The reason this was introduced in this form was to keep it from having to go through all of the departmental reports again. This way we can consider it promptly. It was introduced just in the way the departmental reports were incorporated. I agree with the amendments of last year.

Mr. PRICE. Mr. Bray brought out something that had the attention of the subcommittee last year. The subcommittee would not have approved the original bill unless we had amended it as we did. However, at the time, I remember the Department was not too enthusiastic about the amendments. I wonder what the position of the Department is this year on these amendments.

Admiral HOLLOWAY. Mr. Price, I will speak for myself and I think that, although I have not had precise consultations in this field, I think that the important thing is to get this law passed as it has been proposed here.

Whether it is to be 2 or 4 years is up to the committee and the Congress in its wisdom. The advantage of 2 years is if we are in a very tight spot and have to go beyond 2 years, we are always subject to being monitored and reviewed by the committee.

Therefore, I say that I recommend this bill go through and not founder on whether it is 2 or 4 years.

Mr. DURHAM. I think the 2-year limitation is good because, as Mr. Bray has already pointed out, this committee has been deeply concerned about this housing problem for quite a while. We hope to solve it and get rid of this substandard housing as soon as possible.

I realize there has been a great injustice done. I do not think we should deprive an individual of his allowances just because he has to be placed there by some commanding officer and made to stay in some house in which he does not want to stay.

That exists; it exists in my State and has been a problem and still is a problem.

Mr. DOYLE. May I make this observation. I notice Admiral Holloway's statement, the third paragraph on page 2, he says:

I know it has a serious and deteriorating impact upon the morale of our servicemen and their families.

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It just seems to me that with the military departments admitting that and stating that so positively, that the quicker this inequitable and deteriorating condition is corrected, the better.

I certainly also would oppose a 4-year period to correct that. While I am taking this time, Mr. Chairman and colleagues, I am sure we all have noticed with a good deal of pleasure and admiration, the tenacity of purpose and diligent work that our own colleague, Mr. Bennett of Florida, has manifested in connection with this bill.

I am sure that you all join with me in complimenting him on his accomplishment in finally getting it where this deteriorating impact on morale of our forces will be removed.

Mr. COLE. Admiral, you have suggested that the authority to prescribe regulations instead of vesting in the President, as the bill calls for, that it should go to the head of the appropriate executive department.

Who would that be with respect to, we will say, units at Guantanamo? Does it mean the Secretary of Defense or separately the Secretary of each service department?

Admiral Holloway. My interpretation, I would be subject to administrative correction by the Secretary of Defense or by the Secretary of the Navy, would be that the Secretary of the Navy would do that pursuant to a well-conceived and firmly established guiding criterion, set up by the Secretary of Defense.

Mr. COLE. Would that limitation also apply to regulations that might be applied by the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to the Coast Guard? Is he bound by the overall regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense?

Admiral HOLLOWAY. Your point is well taken.

Mr. COLE. This is the time to clarify it and not wait until it gets to the Comptroller General's Office.

Admiral HOLLOWAY. I will fall back on your distinguished counsel for some advice on that one.

Mr. KELLEHER. Mr. Cole, I believe the way the bill would be modified would place the ultimate authority for the military departments in the Secretary of Defense, and for the Coast Guard in the Secretary of the Treasury.

He, the Secretary of the Treasury, could make his own decisions and would not be bound by anything the Secretary of Defense did. He would act as an independent agent for those houses under his jurisdiction.

Mr. COLE. Then for the purpose of the authority expressed in section 5, when it speaks of the executive department concerned, so far as the military services go, it intends to mean the Secretary of Defense; is that right?

Admiral HOLLOWAY. That is correct.

Mr. COLE. With respect to the other departments of the Government which are involved in this problem, it means the Secretary of whatever the department may be.

Admiral HOLLOWAY. That is my interpretation of the draft as presented to you, sir.

Mr. COLE. In your statement, Admiral, you said you would be guided by you, I mean the Department of Defense--would be guided by realistic values. What do you mean by realistic values? Either the law should prescribe some general rules to guide the determination