STOCK PILES AND PREMIUMS That the stock-piling program of the Federal Government for strategic and critical materials, particularly minerals, should be conducted in a manner which will not disturb or unbalance the industrial situation. Such materials should be purchased so as not to interfere with the economic uses of such materials as far as possible and to that end it is recommended that the purchasing agent of the Federal Government follow a policy of purchasing such materials, especially minerals, at times when there is either a balance of production and consumption or a surplus of production rather than during periods when industrial demands are such as to utilize the entire production. The present situation as regards production and prices, especially of minerals, is an advantageous time for the Government to acquire such materials for the stock pile and at the same time assist in employment and in a steady and economical production of such materials. HOOVER REPORT For the first time in our national history a comprehensive and far-reaching study has been made of the structure of our Government and its far-flung activities. The Hoover Report has now been submitted to Congress. It is not only essential for the welfare of the Nation and its future stability that these recommendations be put into effect, but it is also of far-reaching importance to every citizen, no matter what his position in our society may be. The growth of government, the extent of its influence upon private business and private lives, and the stupendous cost of its maintenance must serve as a warning that this tendency must be checked if we are not to enter into a state of socialism which inevitably will lead to communism. We urge upon the members of this industry participation in any effort to bring about the remedies proposed in the Hoover Report. It is upon the reaction of the individual citizens that these recommendations will stand or fall. The responsibility for good government is ours. "It is the consensus of the committee :' "(1) That in times of peace, incentive production payments for metals in excess of market prices are not economically justified. "(2) Under emergency conditions, if defense authorities now require additional metals and minerals for stock piles, production incentives, including but not limited to maintenance of manpower, tax reform, payments of premium prices, and subsidies may be advisable. "(3) That defense authorities should immediately decide this question so that, if necessary, legislation can be obtained to authorize production incentives in this session of Congress." PRIVATE ENTERPRISE AND PEACE Free, private, competition enterprise is the rock upon which the mining industry is founded. Upon this solid foundation the prospector with his faith, courage, and industry, the engineer and geologist with his genius, the metallurgist with his research, and the business executive with his infinite capacity for taking pains have built a mighty fortress of mineral production which supports our national economy and security as a free nation. The miners of Idaho call upon the statesmen and rulers of the world to bring about the peaceful climate in which this great enterprise can add to the happiness and well-being of all earth's peonles and will not be called upon again to break into the treasure vaults of a bountiful Creator to bring forth treasures to be fashioned into weapons of destruction. DECLARATION OF POLICY, WESTERN DIVISION, AMERICAN MINING CONGRESS, ADOPTED AT SPOKANE, WASH., SEPTEMBER 26–28, 1949 Never in the history of our Nation have the American people been faced with more serious fundamental problems than those now immediately before them. Both foreign and domestic ideologies are being advanced, the adoption of which may well destroy our Government politically, socially, and economically. To meet this challenge the mining industry urges a return to the concepts which have guided our Nation through its years of development to its present preeminent position among the nations of the world. We must 1. End Government extravagance and the growth of Federal authority over the lives and fortunes of our people. This policy is leading us, step by step, toward national insolvency and the establishment of totalitarian control. 2. Resolutely oppose the advance of communism in any of our social, economic, and governmental affairs. 3. Reestablish the time-tested and always effective principles of self-reliance, industry, productivity, and thrift, and overcome the weak-kneed reliance upon Government support which is growing among our people to an alarming extent. The mining industry has an essential role to play in the preservation of a free America. The production of minerals is preeminent in insuring our national safety and the well-being of our people. We urge a better understanding on the part of those who enact and administer our laws that the economy of our Nation, the happiness and welfare of our people, and the safety of the Republic itself depend in large measure upon continued mineral discovery, development, and production. Government policies as to public lands, taxes, and venture capital should be so formulated and administered as to encourage exploration and development of mineral deposits by private capital and free enterprise. TAXATION Our present Federal taxes remove practically all incentive for effort and investment in risk enterprises, including the discovery and development of additional mineral reserves. They should be promptly revised if our system of free enterprise is to function and to yield adequate production, employment, and long-term Government revenues. Tax laws should be framed and administered to safeguard the interest of taxpayers as well as to obtain revenue for the Government. Taxes should be imposed only by clear mandate of law understandable by taxpayers, not to be distorted by hypertechnical administrative interpretations. Doubtful questions should be resolved in favor of the taxpayer. Corporate and individual taxes, and their combined effect, should not be such as to leave inadequate incentive for incurring risk and producing income. In taxing dividends to individuals, due allowance should be made for the corporate tax. Intercorporate dividends should not be taxed. Nothing in the nature of undistributed profits tax should be imposed. The maximum tax on individual income should in no event exceed 50 percent. Taxable income for corporations or for individuals should represent only what remains after allowance for all costs, expenses and losses, and allowances adequate to yield full capital recovery. Stockholders should have the benefit of tax-free depletion allowances in determining taxable income to them from dividends. Losses of loss years should be fully deductible in determining income of years of income, with the same effect as if the income year and the loss year constituted a single taxable period. Depreciation and depletion claimed by the taxpayer should be allowed except to such extent, if any, as it is clearly established that they exceed reasonable allowances. The tax-benefit principle should be applied so that amounts will be considered as allowed only to the extent they resulted in a tax benefit. Costs of development, exploration, and research should be allowed as part of the operating expenses of mines. In determining taxable income, time and nature of accruals should conform as nearly as possible to good accounting practice. The excise tax on freight, which was adopted as a war-revenue measure, should be promptly repealed. It is an especially burdensome cost on the mining industry. Taxes, whether Federal, State or local, directly affect the quantities of minerals which can be mined, processed, and marketed at a profit. They can change marginal ores into waste. Existing taxes seriously diminish or destroy incentive for prospecting, exploration, and development and as a consequence fewer discoveries of mineral resources are made. Severance taxes, or taxes on gross proceeds, are particularly burdensome. SOCIAL SECURITY We do not believe in a social-welfare state. Excessive welfare activities by Government inevitably compel Government to undertake control of the entire national economy. Imposition of such control requires coercion by Government. The creative abilities and initiative of individuals are lost. Private decision is supplanted by Government dictation. This is the end of freedom. In particular we are deeply concerned about legislative proposals for an expanded social-security program. The strongest emphasis should be placed on self-help and ambition to produce. Any social-security program must take into consideration its effect upon our economy and the maintenance of free enterprise. A system too burdensome to industry will destroy the very source of security for the future. This is especially true of the mining industry, which is inherently dependent upon development of new mineral resources to provide employment in future years. We strongly oppose such changes in the definition of "employee" as are contained in H. R. 6000 of the Eighty-first Congress, or any departure from the common-law criteria for determining employee-employer relationship. We adhere to the language of the Gearhart resolution, adopted in 1948, as being a fair and adequate definition of the employment relationship. Unemployment-benefit payments should not be increased to the level where employment is unattractive to the recipient. We oppose any form of compulsory health insurance or any system of socialized medicine designed for national bureaucratic control. GOVERNMENTAL EXPENDITURES The American people cannot afford excessive or unnecessary expenditures, at home or abroad. All governmental expenditures, Federal, State, and local, must be kept to the minimum necessary to meet essential requirements. Military expenditures and foreign aid should be most critically scrutinized and carefully administered to avoid waste. In no other way can our economy and our Government be maintained and our people be relieved from unbearable tax burdens. GOVERNMENTAL REORGANIZATION The comprehensive study of our Government and its widespread activities which has been made by the Hoover Commission is timely and far-reaching. This study points out the growth of government, the extent of its influence upon private business and individuals, and the stupendous cost of its maintenance, We urge upon the members of this industry full support of the objectives sought by the Commission. The responsibility for good government is ours. We express our approbation of the action of the Secretary of Defense in attempting to reduce civilian personnel and unnecessary expense, and commend this example to other departments of our Federal Government. LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS ACT The Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947 was enacted by the Eightieth Congress for the benefit of employees, employers, and the public. The Eightyfirst Congress has turned back efforts to repeal this constructive legislation and to retreat to the one-sided, inadequate Wagner Act. For these actions both Congresses are to be commended. Although many abuses which flourished under the Wagner Act have been ended, there still remain uncurbed certain practices of some labor leaders and unions which interfere on an increasing scale with civil liberties and the free flow of commerce. Particularly objectionable are: control of whole industries by powerful labor leaders; the power of minority groups to force workers to strike unwillingly; picketing abuses against which the remedies provided by law are inadequate; and the disruptions and strife resulting from communistic influences within unions. Labor monopoly plus industry-wide bargaining plus Government seizure, as has been experienced in coal-or labor monopoly plus industry-wide bargaining plus recommendations from politically appointed and inspired fact-finding bodies, as experienced in steel-deprive individual employers and unions of their rights to bargain. Either procedure leads to the industry-wide strike which exerts pressure on a helpless public. The breaking down of industry-wide labor monopoly by again subjecting unions to the antitrust laws would curb industrywide bargaining and eliminate national-crisis strikes. At some of our mines the working force is still subject to the false teachings of radical leaders who seem to have followed the Communist line in seeking to influence the policies of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. Such leadership has sought to teach labor to hate and harass management, and has sought to cultivate class strife, to sabotage production, to terrorize employees and communities, and to intimidate public officials-maintaining the appearance of peaceful relationship between labor and management only when temporarily expedient, Even though a congressional committee and the top. CIO officers have named and denounced some of such leaders, the Labor-Management Relations Act lacks effective provisions to dislodge them and their continuing menace; and that act should be appropriately corrected. Recent administrative interpretation of the act threatens to impose the requirement to bargain at any time-even during the existence of a signed contract-and necessitates positive correction. In the following list of needed reforms we reiterate and augment our previously stated recommendations to the Congress of the United States for bringing to completion a fair Federal labor code: To eliminate labor monopolies 1. Require that collective bargaining be done on a plant or bargaining unit basis, and prohibit the concerted industry-wide strike by a combination of locals or by an international union. 2. Make the prohibitions of the antitrust laws again applicable to unions. To throttle communistic control of unions 3. Complete the program of purging the labor-management relationship of communistic influences by providing that the National Labor Relations Board shall immediately take away the right of representation from any local or international union, and deny protection of the law to the membership, if an officer thereof is a Communist or has been a Communist within the preceding 5 years; and that the Board shall not thereafter certify such union until the union can prove that it has cleared its house of such influence. Prohibit any employer from affording such union the privilege of dues check-off. 4. Forbid, and provide effective means to stop, a strike to compel an employer to recognize and bargain with a union which has not complied with section 9 of the National Labor Relations Act and which has not used the processes of the Board, or which maintains an officer who is a Communist or has been a Communist within the preceding 5 years. To safeguard management rights 5. Exclude, as improper subjects of collective bargaining, union proposals encroaching on the employer's right to manage his business. To safeguard workers' rights 6. Prohibit compulsory union membership in any form as a condition of employment. 7. Illegalize a strike which is called without the prior authorization of a majority of all the employees in the affected plant, voted at an election conducted by the parties involved, by secret ballot, at the conclusion of bargaining and conciliation. To prevent terrorism and other unfair labor practices 8. Provide for Federal injunctions upon application by private citizens to prohibit the restraining of the free flow of commerce by illegal strikes, mass picketing, violence and intimidation, or similar terroristic devices. 9. Declare it to be an unfair labor practice for employees of one employer to refuse to enter upon the strike-bound premises of another employer. 10. Declare it an unfair labor practice for any union or individual to interfere by force or intimidation with the right of an employee to lawfully enter or leave the premises of an employer. 11. Declare it an unfair labor practice to strike over a grievance where the existing collective bargaining agreement includes an adequate grievance pro⚫cedure. 12. Provide that any employee who engages in any unfair labor practice shall lose his status as an employee. 13. Enlarge section 8 (b) 6 of the Labor-Management Relations Act to bar all types of feather-bedding practices in industry. To insure just decisions of the National Labor Relations Board 14. Make fully effective the principle that findings of the Board shall rest upon proponderance of evidence. To require the use of procedures established by law 15. Amend the national emergency section of the Labor-Management Relations Act so as to give the President of the United States no choice but to utilize a board of inquiry as therein provided for, and the injunction provision thereof, if necessary to prevent a paralyzing work stoppage in a whole interstate industry or substantial part thereof, which if allowed to occur and continue would imperil the national health, safety, or economy. To restore stability to labor agreements 16. Amend section 8 (d) of the Labor-Management Relations Act so as to make it clear that there is no obligation to bargain collectively on any subject during the period covered by a duly executed labor agreement, whether or not the subject is covered by the agreement, except and to the extent that the agreement affirmatively provides such obligation. OTHER LABOR LEGISLATION We recommend that it be made a Federal criminal offense for either labor or management to engage in violence in connection with a labor dispute. We again recommend that the Walsh-Healey Act be repealed as obsolete and in conflict with the Fair Labor Standards Act. We reiterate the desirability of statutory rather than administrative definitions in the Fair Labor Standards Act. We are opposed to further interference by Government in industry which would follow from the passage of legislation such as the Industrial Safety Act and the Economic Expansion Act as introduced in the current session of Congress. TARIFF The Nation must see to it that the mineral industries, as among the greatest of national assets and safeguards for the protection of its people, are maintained in sound and healthy condition. Tariff reductions that jeopardize productive ability and are detrimental to mine development weaken our economy, and are not in the best interest of the country. Recent reductions have eliminated production of at least one of our strategic metals. We recommend that Congress exercise its constitutional authority over tariffs through the Tariff Commission, to be administered for the welfare of the American people, with suitable safeguards and strict accountability to the Congress. Proper consideration should be given to the effect of foreign wage differentials in cleap labor areas on the American worker, and also to the effect on the domestic mining industry of loans and grants for the development and expansion of foreign raw material production to be imported into this country to the detriment of American producers and workers. Ore reserves in foreign countries cannot be depended upon to meet the emergencies of an atomic age. We oppose intergovernmental commodity agreements and cartels that call for State control over industry, or involve the regulation of production, trade, and prices in conflict with the traditional liberal, individualistic principles of western civilization. STOCK PILES A large stock pile of metals and minerals is essential for preparedness against a war emergency. But national security must also be supported by producing mines, mills, and smelters, with organized working forces and capacity for sustained and adequate production of materials important for military and civilian needs. This is the real and fundemental backbone of national defense. We recommend the building up of stock piles. The best time to build up stock piles is when world output exceeds demand. We recommend that Congress authorizes the extending of ore commitments over a long period of time in order to justify investment in mine development and equipment. We recommend that greater consideration be given to the maintenance of sources of production of stategic and critical metals and minerals within the United States where, otherwise, these vital mineral resources may be lost or become unavailable for national security. We favor consideration of the problems of the strategic metals separately from those of the essential and critical metals. A national policy regarding these strategic metals must be adopted promptly lest production of these metals cease within the United States. INCENTIVES Because of the great need for production of metal for defense, price controls, and manpower shortages during the war years, many mines had not opportunity to maintain or extend ore reserves, and some ore reserves were depleted without adequate returns. Tariff reductions, high postwar costs, heavy taxes, and un |