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Mr. O'HARA. Mr. Greenberg, you say of your association three oppose your position that you have expressed today. Have you expressed in your statement their position with reference to this legislation?

Mr. GREENBERG. No; I have not.

Mr. O'HARA. Do you not think you had a duty to present their views as well as the views of the majority?

Mr. GREENBERG. I will tell you why. The biggest one is Motor Cargo, of Akron, Ohio, and they were represented here by Mr. Ellis, and their view was well presented here.

Mr. O'HARA. How many of the carriers in your group have rates and tariffs on file with the Commission?

Mr. GREENBERG. All of us.

Mr. O'HARA. Your operations are specifically exempt under the rules of MC-43 and therefore I would like to ask you this question: How does this legislation affect you?

Mr. GREENBERG. You say our operation was exempt?

Mr. O'HARA. Yes. Is that not true?

Mr. GREENBERG. No. You are talking about the hauling of exempt commodities.

Mr. O'HARA. Yes.

Mr. GREENBERG. The only exempt commodities that we would be able to haul in our operation would be eggs. We might be able to haul fresh fruits and vegetables, but, as you know, there is very little of that out of Minnesota. The only thing that moves in any quantity from the Minnesota area is eggs in the shell.

Mr. O'HARA. There is poultry, of course.

Mr. GREENBERG. Poultry is not exempt unless it is shipped alive, and there is no movement of live poultry.

Mr. O'HARA. Do you propose that agricultural exemptions be eliminated?

Mr. GREENBERG. I think I brought it out in my statement.

Mr. O'HARA. I am sorry. I was late getting here, Mr. Greenberg. If you covered it, disregard my question.

Mr. GREENBERG. It is pretty much in my statement if you will read the statement.

Mr. O'HARA. Before I get to read it, I would like to know the answer. Mr. GREENBERG. I hope you read it. I will give you the answer. Your question was whether or not we are in favor of removing the exemption?

Mr. O'HARA. Yes.

Mr. GREENBERG. To this extent we would be in favor of removing the exemption. We do not think that the exemption was intended to apply to anybody but a producer. As a matter of fact, for approximately 5 years after the act went into effect, very few people though about it in any other manner except that it applied to the producer. There were very, very few haulers of exempted commodities until about 1940 or 1941, when the Interstate Commerce Commission first noticed what was going on and started their investigation. So my answer is that if the movement is by an owner of the merchandise of an exempt commodity, if he has his own truck, I say to him he can go any place in the country he wants to go.

Mr. O'HARA. Let me ask you this: You are familiar with the farm country out there in Minnesota and Wisconsin for many years. I am very curious about the operations of the certified carriers.

Mr. GREENBERG. I grew up in that country, sir.

Mr. O'HARA. You are hauling, we will say, from Chicago, not farm products, but merchandise, and you have a load for a little town 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 mles off the highway on a rather poor road. Do you haul that over there?

Mr. GREENBERG. We have an operation that takes us over mostly main routes. As you probably know, in Minnesota you do not have too many backward roads until you get clear up into northern Minnesota, and western. We operate in the southern portion of Minnesota. Mr. O'HARA. I have seen hundreds of your trucks in operation. Mr. GREENBERG. We service practically every point along the main routes. We serve three routes in Minnesota every day. We hit every little point regardless of the size of the shipment that might go to that point. We do not stop to deliver to every one of those consignees. Mr. O'HARA. That is what I am getting at. How do you deliver? Mr. GREENBERG. We drop it off at an agent. That agent probably years ago used to have to depend on the railroads for his livelihood in that he would go to the railroad depot, pick up the shipments, and deliver them to the local people. Now we deliver those shipments to him at his platform and he makes the deliveries for us. Mr. O'HARA. Is he a certified carrier?

Mr. GREENBERG. No; he does not have to be. He is our agent.
Mr. O'HARA. He is a gypsy, then?

Mr. GREENBERG. No; he stays right in his hometown. He works not only for us, but he also makes local pickup and delivery right in his city.

Mr. O'HARA. How can he do that. If you carry interstate commerce out there, is he not carrying interstate commerce then? Mr. GREENBEG. As our agent he can do that.

Mr. O'HARA. Just what is the agency?

Mr. GREENBERG. We can appoint any agent to do anything for us that we cannot do for ourselves.

Mr. O'HARA. That does not give him permission to operate an unlicensed truck, does it?

Mr. GREENBERG. That is right; for instance, we have an agent in Rochester, Minn. That agent not only handles our deliveries and pickups, but will also pick up and make deliveries for local people in that town, or maybe he will take a carload of traffic and distribute it to the local people. While he is working for us and making deliveries for us, he is our agent. He is doing exactly what we could do. We simply are letting him do that. That is perfectly legal. Mr. O'HARA. That is what the gypsy does, is it not?

Mr. GREENBERG. No. The gypsy is a little different situation. The gypsy operates over the highway.

Mr. O'HARA. So does your agent.

Mr. GREENBERG. No, he does not. He only operates in the city of Chicago. Take it a little further from there. If our agent at Rochester, and by the way, I have a situation like that with an agent at Faribault, takes it upon himself to take a load of turkeys, for instance, from Faribault to New York, he then becomes a gypsy operator.

But he is not in our employ because that truck is not in our employ. As a matter of fact, we have had a situation like that where we had a movement of turkeys, that is, a continual movement, from Faribault to New York and Albany and our agent knowing about the movement bought himself a truck and got the movement himself, and he is operating under the so-called round-trip lease with the shipper, obviously going around the act. That is one of many, many situations around the United States.

Mr. O'HARA. That is true of your Chicago suburban operations, is it not, in that while your carriers may be certificated, they are operating under an exempt operation?

Mr. GREENBERG. No. The Chicago suburban carriers whom I am here representing second-handedly, you might say, are all regulated carriers of their own right. They act in connection with us as a connecting carrier. In other words, if we give them a shipment and it moves through under a through bill of lading and through rate, we pay them a division of the revenue. Our responsibility ceases when we turn that shipment over to them, and their responsibility begins. Mr. O'HARA. Is it not a matter of fact, Mr. Greenberg, that mostly in the development of the trucking industry that the operations of the large carriers is dependent upon your so-called agency carriers or gypsy operations as feeders or aiders in distributing the goods that the big carriers haul where you do have a distribution to the small towns?

Mr. GREENBERG. Mr. O'Hara, I agree with you except to the one extent, and that is we cannot use the word "gypsy" on a local distributor. He is not a gypsy.

Mr. O'HARA. Maybe not, but I have an awful time distinguishing between them and what everyone calls a gypsy.

Mr. GREENBERG. I think we hear enough about what gypsies are today.

Mr. O'HARA. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Any questions, gentlemen?

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. I guess that completes the questioning of you, Mr. Greenberg. We thank you for your attendance and the assistance you have given to us.

Mr. GREENBERG. Before I leave, may I present Mr. Girard's statement?

The CHAIRMAN. I might say what you have not said you can put in the record in the form of statements you have prepared.

Mr. GREENBERG. I will be glad to do that.

The CHAIRMAN. I notice part of your statement relates to testimony in the Senate.

Mr. GREENBERG. That is attached.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that necessary as a part of our record?

Mr. GREENBERG. I wanted to make it easier for you so that you would not have to go to the back and look it up.

The CHAIRMAN. We will look at that portion but it may take up a lot of space. Can you tell us whether it is any different from the statement you made to this committee?

Mr. GREENBERG. Will you accept Mr. Girard's statement in the record?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, and yours.

(The statements are as follows:)

APRIL 14, 1953.

Subject: H. R. 3203, a bill in Congress to legalize one-way trip leases.

DEAR SIR: This is an important matter and it affects your members. We don't know how many truck associations will appear at the House committee hearings on April 21 and 22, at Washington.

These three conferences will appear in opposition as we favor the ICC 30-day minimum leasing regulation.

We believe that it is your duty to poll your membership and advise the House and Senate committees as to how your membership feels about this bill. You do not have the time to present the results of such a poll at the hearing by the House committee but it could be presented to the Senate committee as no date has yet been set for a hearing by the Senate committee.

However, when we appear before the House committee we shall ask leave to present the committee at a later date with the poll results of every State truck association that will make such a poll and provide us with the resulting information.

Therefore we ask you to at once get out a letter to your members, explaining the matter and enclose a reply card on which should appear this question.

No

1. Do you favor th eICC 30-day minimum lease regulation? Yes Each member should show the name of the firm and be signed. Will you please respond, at once, indicating whether or not your association will supply us with the results of such a poll?

Sincerely yours,

EARL GIRARD,

General Manager, Chicago Suburban Motor Carriers Association and

Chicago, Milwaukee Motor Carriers Conference.
P. M. GREENBERG,

Treasurer and Chairman of Legal Committee,
Illinois Minnesota Motor Carriers Conference.

STATEMENT OF P. M. GREENBERG, CHICAGO, ILL., BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ON H. R. 3203.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is P. M. Greenberg. My address is 1500 West 33d Street, Chicago 8, Ill. I have been vice president of Werner Transportation Co., since its inception in 1931. I also am treasurer and chairman of the legal committee of the Illinois Minnesota Motor Carriers' Conference.

Werner Transportation Co. operates motortrucks, as a common carrier under ICC certificate MC 8600, primarily between Illinois and the suburban points of Chicago, including those located in Indiana, and points in southern Wisconsin on the one hand, and on the other hand points in western Wisconsin and in Minnesota.

Werner has 350 employees. We own and operate 209 trucks, tractors, and trailers. We have equipped most of our trailers with mechanical refrigeration and heating systems because we handle-I might say-used to handle a great amount of butter, eggs, dressed poultry, fruits and vegetables, and freezable commodities. Our firm is one of the oldest common carriers operating in our particular area and leader in handling of the above commodities.

The Illinois Minnesota Motor Carriers Conference is an association of 20 common carriers-all of whom operate within the same area as previously described and some of them operate extensively beyond that area. For instance Keeshin Motor Express operates between Minneapolis and eastern seaboard. Consolidated Freightways operates between Chicago and the entire west coast.

Werner Transportation Co. is the outgrowth of the Werner Poultry Co., of Minneapolis, Minn. The Werner Poultry Co., of which I was a partner, started in 1922. In 1930 and 1931 we experimented with long-distance hauling of the commodities with which we dealt, butter, eggs, poultry, and other farm products. As a result, we started to haul freight, on the return haul, from Chicago and Milwaukee. Thus in 1931 we opened up a regular scheduled service to shippers of all commodities.

At that time there was no Federal regulation and rates quoted to shippers were kept in a so-called black book and there was no attempt to avoid discrimination. The shipper that had the most tonnage to offer secured the lowest rates. By 1934, there were so many scheduled and irregular carriers-every one that could buy a truck for a few hundred dollars down got into the long-distance trucking business.

It was dog eat dog-insofar as rates were concerned. No one took too much pains to maintain safety of operations. If the cost of safety affected the price of our services--we didn't spend the money for safety. When I say "we" I am of course referring to all of the for-hire carriers.

No one could earn a decent profit, in order to enable him to rehabilitate his trucks, to keep them in safe running order. Every one overloaded above legal weight limits. It was simply a wild chaotic situation. Banks would not loan money to truck operators. Truck lines were going into bankruptcy one after another.

Then some of us, including myself, started a movement to secure a Federal regulatory bill. The result was the Motor Carrier Act of 1935. Congress was told about the situation and it saw that in order to establish and maintain a well-regulated transportation industry that could be depended on in case of war and emergencies, it was necessary to regulate the trucking industry. It was necessary to eliminate discrimination, chiseling and many objectionable operations and methods then being used. It was necessary to protect the public by establishing rules and regulations whereby trucks would be operated with safety. Since 1935 the Interstate Commerce Commission has, we believe, done a good job of establishing rules and regulations which have for their purpose safety of operation and protection of the public-shippers, receivers, and plain citizens. But the Commission has been handicapped by lack of funds to enforce many of its rules. As a result, many new chiseling methods have crept into the motortruck industry. The Commission has, through its investigation, known as Ex parte M. C. 43, established certain rules relative to leasing trucks which will eliminate most, if not all, the violations of the Commission's safety regulations and other regulations. The Commission cannot possibly detect and prosecute violations by owners and drivers of trucks which are being leased to regulated carriers for a one-way trip, or even a round trip. Under the new rules, the burden is upon the regulated carrier to police the operation of his leased trucks, and he can't afford to jeopardize his certificate by violating the regulations. The proposed bill would have the result of legalizing what the Commission, after many years of research, investigation, and study, including many public hearings, has said is illegal. The Supreme Court affirmed the Commission's decision.

Your committee and Congress is being asked to undo all the work, and which has cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, which was done by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and you are asked to do so in a great hurry. I doubt if any of you gentlemen or any Member of Congress would be willing to substitute his judgment, after this hearing is over, as compared to the slow, mature decisions that were carefully thought out by the Interstate Commerce Commissioners, who are the servants of the Government and the Congress.

Certain business interests and farm organizations have raised a hue and cry that if the ICC rules go into effect it will upset their economy and the marketing practices on many perishable and nonperishable commodities.

Then there are a few motor carriers who insist that they cannot operate under the 30-day minimum leasing requirement and other minor regulations.

Let's look at the facts. First, let's discuss the gypsy truck operator. He is the owner of or owner-driver of the trucks these interests now use. The ICC has made careful investigation and our conference has made periodical investigations, too, as to the operations by gypsies. We have received the cooperation of Illinois and Wisconsin State officers in securing information through road checks. This is what we have found:

I. They do not live up to ICC safety regulations because

1. Very few keep logs of their hours of service. Those that handle exempt commodities mistakenly believe that they don't have to keep logs nor comply with the hours-of-service regulations.

2. They do not make a regular check of the trucks, except the usual routine of checking gas, oil, and tires.

3. They cannot be controlled by the regulated carrier, who leases their trucks, because gypsies will operate over any route, regardless of whether the lessee has rights to operate over those routes. They operate over secondary roads not

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