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and abrogated, there is recourse; while in the exercise of the alleged powers of the Executive in international relations, there is none.

The entire effort of the State Department has trended toward the complete elimination of any legislative voice in the regulation of our trade. Neither GATT nor its ill-fated forerunner, the International Trade Organization, contemplated responsiveness to the producers and workmen of this country and their interests by these governing international bodies. The elimination of this responsiveness, so specifically and elaborately guarded in the Constitution, was arranged through the one-vote mechanism (whereby the United States had the same vote as other countries in the international bodies), and through the complete domination of the field by the Executive.

It was on these grounds that I concluded that we should withdraw from GATT and thus bring the regulation of our foreign commerce back to this country, where it belongs, if the people of this country are to continue to exercise control over the acts of their Government.

Thank you for this opportunity to make a reply to the State Department's letter of comment on my attack on GATT.

Sincerely yours,

O. R. STRACKBEIN.

Senator HENDRICKSON. You have said very little about the treatymaking power, the treaty provisions. I assume from your concluding statement that you are in favor of the basic resolution that is before us both as to treaties and executive agreements?

Mr. STRACKBEIN. I am in favor of the principle of the resolution. I have largely confined myself to showing the need from practical experience of an amendment to the Constitution, or legislation, or both, which will clarify this field and prevent the occurrence of such things as I have described. I am not going into the mechanics of tne resolution itself, and I have not. I had thought that in the amount of time I had I would do better by confining myself to these practical examples of what has actually gone on as a basis and as a justification of the resolution.

Senator HENDRICKSON. Have you examined the resolution of the American Bar Association?

Mr. STRACKBEIN. No.

Senator HENDRICKSON. You would not be prepared to discuss that at all?

Mr. STRACKBEIN. I would be very glad to look it over.

Senator HENDRICKSON. I would appreciate it if you would look it over and let me have the benefits of your comments by a letter to the committee.

Mr. STRACKBEIN. I will do that.

Senator HENDRICKSON. Thank you very much. You have been very helpful.

(Whereupon, at 4: 50 p. m., the hearing was recessed, subject to call.)

TREATIES AND EXECUTIVE AGREEMENTS

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 1952

UNITED STATES SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

Washington, D. C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 2:25 p. m. in room 424, Senate Office Building, Hon. Robert C. Hendrickson presiding. Present: Senator Hendrickson.

Also present: Wayne H. Smithey, professional staff member.
Senator HENDRICKSON. The hearing will be in order.

I understand we have with us this afternoon Mr. McGrath, who is planning to make a trip very shortly, that is, within a few hours, to the Geneva Convention. He wants to get away. Is Mr. McGrath here?

Mr. McGRATH. Yes, sir.

Senator HENDRICKSON. We are glad to welcome you here. Will you state your name for the record, your address, and then proceed in your own way.

STATEMENT OF W. L. McGRATH, PRESIDENT, THE WILLIAMSON HEATER CO., CINCINNATI, OHIO

Mr. McGRATH. Thank you kindly, Senator. I appreciate the opportunity that the committee affords me to be present here today. My name is William L. McGrath. I am president of the Williamson Heater Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio.

For the last 4 years I have been a member of the United States employer delegation to the International Labor Conference, Geneva, Switzerland. I am about to leave again to attend the thirty-fifth conference of that organization.

Senator HENDRICKSON. Sometime today or tomorrow, I understand. Mr. McGRATH. I am having difficulty at the moment because they are canceling out the flights due to the oil shortage.

Senator, I have tried to boil down in a résumé form, as briefly as possible, 4 years experience as participant and as observer of the International Labor Conference. If I were to present the story it would take 38 pages to do it. I have brought the 38 pages along. I think these 38 pages are important from this standpoint.

Senator HENDRICKSON. Are they in such shape that they can be left with the committee for study rather than make a bulky record of them?

Mr. McGRATH. Yes, sir, they are in such form and they are bound together. What I thought was important was this:

I attended the thirty-second conference of the International Labor Organization in 1949. I thought that it was important to make a

record of my participation in that meeting, and also to set forth my observations because time sort of removes a lot of these things from memory. So, throughout each meeting, I set forth a record in sixthgrade English that I think is quite simple. When I got back from each conference I made it my business, because I was so seriously concerned with what I saw going on, that I thought it was important that some of my other friends know about what is going on in connection with some of these international conferences, so I sent 100 copies.

Senator HENDRICKSON. I presume you are directing your remarks primarily to these executive agreements which grow out of these conferences.

Mr. McGRATH. Yes, and I will get into that in my record. There is one thing that I would like to set forth. It may sound as though my remarks are critical of the International Labor Organization. I would like, for the purpose of the record, to read from this report, it is very brief, of my thirty-second report written in 1949.

Senator HENDRICKSON. You may proceed.

Mr. MCGRATH. I am still of the same opinion as of what I wrote at that time. So this is what I said:

Now certainly some action should be taken about this situation. As I see it, there are only two roads open.

One road is for the United States to withdraw entirely from the conference. Well, that, gentlemen, is isolationism pure and simple, and I think the results might be unfortunate.

In the first place, you know perfectly well that we can't live by ourselves any more. The world is growing too small. And besides, how can we go along with the United Nations and yet refuse to have anything to do with the International Labor Organization which is now a part of it?

In the second place--and this is even more important-the International Labor Organization is a two-way street. It's quite true that it brings strange ideas from abroad to bear on our own economy, but it likewise takes the story of our economy to the people of other countries. And I want to tell you that the American Federation of Labor delegates at the conference this summer were very effective in this direction. When the employers, because they were so much in the minority, could do little about stopping a communistic proposal, it often happened that the American Federation of Labor people threw their weight against it and succeeded in blocking it. Remember, they are at that conference as exponents of the highest living standards and the best working conditions enjoyed by workmen anywhere in the world. And what they say carries a great deal of weight. Now, if we want the United Nations, and if we want the Marshall plan, by which we hope to prove that our way of life is better than the other fellows', I say we ought to stick with the International Labor Organization.

But if we are going to stick with it, I think there are two things we ought to do. In the first place, we ought to strengthen our representation at the conference. The employers' representative from our country should have at his right hand a group of experts and specialists on the subjects on the agenda. In the conference this summer Mr. McCormick, our employer delegate, had seven advisers, of which I was one-and I'm certainly no expert. I found myself thrown head over heels into subjects on which I had done no previous research and for which my only background was that of the ordinary small manufacturer. Holding up the employers' side of an argument at that conference requires a thorough knowledge of facts and a full measure of ingenuity, and our employer delegate is entitled to the best help he can get.

I think, too, that a change might be made in the present method of appointing delegates. As matters stand now, delegates are appointed by the State Department largely upon recommendation of the Department of Labor. It would seem to me that the Department of Commerce might also participate in these recommendations, and that the four delegates from the United States might properly be one from the Department of Labor, one from the Department of Commerce, one representing employees, and one representing employers.

I think that is important.

Senator HENDRICKSON. When was that written?

Mr. McGRATH. This was written in 1949. And each year thereafter I prepared a report of observation covering each conference.

Senator HENDRICKSON. Have you made any substantial changes in your views since then?

Mr. McGRATH. These are exactly the same as written at that time. Senator HENDRICKSON. I understand that.

Mr. McGRATH. And my view on the subject has not changed in that respect because I consider, even though the International Labor Organization has dangers that I will point out in connection with these international treaties, I think it is highly important that we continue with the International Labor Organization, because it is the only international organization that has lived which was born out of the League of Nations. It is the only organization that is tripartite, where the governments of the world, most of which are not behind the iron curtain-there are some two that are behind the iron curtain-most of the employers, most of the labor unions, and most of the governments are represented at the labor organization conference. And there it gives us, if we are sufficiently articulate, the opportunity to tell the other people of the world about the American free enterprise system and about our way of life and about the privileges that we enjoy in America and that they might profit by our example.

There are things that we can give to the world other than our money which we are dumping into the world in such great abundance. It is today one of the only places in the world that is not completely dominated by government alone. It is a place where labor, where industry and business can tell its story to one another and to the governments of the world, and I think that is terrifically important. Senator HENDRICKSON. It is very important.

Mr. McGRATH. I will now get down to my statement, which represents a résumé. I happen to be the member of our delegation that represents the American delegation employers on Application of Convention committee. That is the committee that looks to the effect of these recommendations, resolutions, and conventions that are enacted and discussed. It is a sort of police organization of the international organization.

In other words, it is to check the countries of the world, to see the extent to which the actions by the International Labor Organization have been put into effect by the governments of the world. Of course, the appalling thing to me is to see the way our Government members vote for these conventions and vote for conventions and resolutions that are not at all compatible with our way of life.

Senator HENDRICKSON. What agency of our Government are you referring to there?

Mr. McGRATH. I am referring to where the Government is represented by a Member of Congress, usually. Last year it was Senator Murray, of Montana. I am also referring to the Government member from the Department of Labor, who usually comes from the Department of Labor. And, of course, there is usually almost entirely a coalition between the labor representation with the employers standing on the outside. We are the minority all of the time. We don't expect to win any victories. We expect to go down to defeat every

time on most of the issues that come up, because most of the issues are so completely socialistic that we just don't think they are compatible with the spirit of America.

Is there any further question there, sir?

Senator HENDRICKSON. I might ask, out of these issues come some of these proposals for executive agreements, is that right?

Mr. MCGRATH. That, I do not know. All I know is that there are conventions

Senator HENDRICKSON. I am trying to relate the situation you described to the pending resolution, the resolution before the committee. Mr. MCGRATH. I don't know whether executive agreements do come out of conventions. That, I don't know. All I know is that there have been conventions which, in effect, are international treaties, submitted to the Senate for ratification.

Senator HENDRICKSON. The germ of executive agreements could come out of these conventions, I assume.

Mr. McGRATH. That is correct. In other words, the thing that has mystified me for a long time is where do all of these ideas originate from that are so incompatible with our way of thinking over here. And the resentment that I feel about what is being proposed here is that we import these ideologies and ideas from other places of the world, apparently to improve our way of life. I don't think it improves our way of life from what I have seen of the executive agreements and some of the other proposals that have come through.

Senator HENDRICKSON. From what spheres do the dominating influences come in these conventions?

Mr. McGRATH. Primarily from the governments of the world. The government people of the world are the ones who initiate most of the ideas which in turn are turned over to the office which, of course, is the administration force of the International Labor Organization. Senator HENDRICKSON. I suppose the Secretariat.

Mr. McGRATH. That is right. In other words, it is quite clearly, as you will see, apparently a plan of governments of the world to plan the way of life for the people of the world on the theory that the people of the world are so dumb that they can't promote their own interest under our system of government.

May I proceed?

Senator HENDRICKSON. Yes.

Mr. McGRATH. I still have great faith in the people of this country making their own determination.

Senator HENDRICKSON. Now, proceed with your statement. I have faith, too.

Mr. McGRATH. I am sure that other witnesses before this committee have amply dealt with section 1 of the proposed amendment which is designed to prevent the ratification of treaties, the terms of which are contrary to the Constitution of the United States. This situation applies particularly, as you know, to certain clauses in the proposed United Nations Covenant on Human Rights, as has been repeatedly and ably pointed out by Senator Bricker.

I shall confine my discussion, therefore, to section 2, which, in the words of Senator Bricker, is intended to remove from the reach of the treaty-making power matters essentially within the domestic. jurisdiction of the United States; and section 3, which is designed

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