Senator COTTON. I agree with you, and as I said, my question had no reference to the President. Nor should the Congress attempt, or any Member of the Congress attempt to tamper with the decisions or influence the decisions, improperly, of the Civil Aeronautics Board or any other board, but we do like to feel that they recognize that they are a completely independent agency and your answer has indicated that.

Forgive me for getting parochial, but I would again like to raise with you what you probably heard me mention to Chairman Boyd, that I think I can state without fear of intelligent contradiction, that there isn't an area in the United States of America that is so starved for transportation, and particularly air transportation, as northern New England.

I am not talking to you about the Northeast case or any other case, but I have felt at least that CAB has not always seemed to realize how necessary, how much we are starved for air transportation, how our recreation industry and activities are going to pieces because of it. I almost think I could say, that with the exception of my colleague here perhaps, from Vermont, my colleague from Vermont and my colleague from New Hampshire, I am probably about the only U.S. Senator who can't get to his home or anywhere near it by air, despite the fact that we have a very modern and completely adequate airport.

I simply can't, because there is one plane a day and it is always taken weeks ahead, and I couldn't get on it unless I crowded somebody off. So I have to fly into Boston, go over the roads 32 or 4 hours, every time I go home.

I hope, and I am not referring to any particular case, but I hope that you will have that in mind and have us in mind as you assume your duties on the CAB.

Mr. MURPHY. I certainly will, Senator. I think it is clear that I am in no position to express any views about any particular case or any particular service, but if confirmed by the Senate and if I take this office, I will give particular attention to this problem.

Senator COTTON. Of course we intend to give everybody their due justice in every section, but I hope you will examine this section, and if you do I am confident you will be convinced from the facts that there isn't a section in this country as desperate for air transportation as New Hampshire and certain parts of Vermont and I guess certain parts of Maine.

I am sure that you will be a very useful and successful Chairman and thank you for these expressions and I intend to vote for you and wish you well in your new duties. Thank you.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Senator

Senator MONRONEY. Thank you very much, Senator Cotton.

You enjoy the unusual distinction, Mr. Murphy, of having two Senators, who claim you as their constituent, Senator Jordan and of course Senator Ervin claim you as a constituent of North Carolina, but the distinguished Senator in whose district you reside also claims you. He happens to be a member of this committee, a very active member of this group before which you appear today.

Mr. MURPHY. I am a very fortunate man in many respects, Senator, including the fact that I have two home States.

Senator MONRONEY. You are very fortunate indeed, so I would like to call on Senator Brewster next, who has a few words to say about his constitutent also, probably about your attitudes toward various aviation matters.

Senator BREWSTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As you so properly pointed out, as Senator Ervin and Senator Jordan support Mr. Murphy, Senator Tydings and I add our very genuine endorsement and look forward to his confirmation as Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board.

Though born in North Carolina, we have known Mr. Murphy has lived in Maryland for many years, and we are very proud of our adopted son.

We know him to be a scholar, a very able lawyer, a distinguished public servant with a long career in Government here in the Senate, Legislative Counsel's Office, as an administrative assistant to President Truman, as an assistant at the White House, and now in his present capacity, as Under Secretary of Agriculture.

Mr. Murphy, you have Senator Tydings and my very sincere and genuine congratulations.

While I have this chance, I would like, with the chairman's permission, to propound a question or two.

Senator MONRONEY. Yes.

Senator BREWSTER. Many of us have felt that the CAB in the past did not pursue as vigorously as possible its responsibilities in the area of adequacy of air service to various communities. Are you able to make any comment on your thoughts on the Board's responsibilities in this adequacy area?

Mr. MURPHY. In all candor, Senator, I would have to say no. Even during the last few weeks, since the President announced his intention to nominate me for this post, I have not had an opportunity to spend much time studying and refreshing my recollection about the work of the Civil Aeronautics Board.

The problems of cotton, tobacco, sugar, have continued to be very pressing, and some of my friends and associates have been kind enough to urge that I try to do some more work on them before I left the Department of Agriculture.

I do know that adequacy of service is one of the difficult problems in the field of air transportation. Certainly we will always in a general way be in favor of adequate service for all communities. I think it is properly the function of the Civil Aeronautics Board. It is my impression that in recent years the Board has been performing this function more effectively than in earlier years, of promoting, if you please, and encouraging the development of adequate service and not just waiting for these questions to come to it in the routine way when applications are made.

Senator COTTON. When you move over from agriculture to aviation, you won't forget the problems of cotton. [Laughter.]

Mr. MURPHY. Senator, I hope it will be a different kind of cotton. Senator BREWSTER. Allow me to make this comment, that I believe the CAB should initiate investigations as to adequacy and not merely sit as referee of differences of opinion between existing airlines, and that the primary job is to the public and not to the airlines.

As a Senator from Maryland, I am sure you are aware of Maryland's great international airport at Friendship; are you not, sir?

Mr. MURPHY. I am, Senator. I would certainly have no prejudice gainst this particular airport. It happens to be the one that is closest o my home.

Senator BREWSTER. I congratulate you, Mr. Murphy, and you shall certainly have Senator Tydings' and my support.

Senator MONRONEY. Any further questions, Senator Brewster?
Senator BREWSTER. No.

Senator MONRONEY. Senator Prouty?

Senator PROUTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Murphy, I am sure the headaches you face as Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board will be much smaller and easier to handle than those you have been confronted with in your profession.

I just want to reiterate what Senator Cotton has said. Many sections of Northern New England are more isolated now as far as transportation capacity is concerned as was the case 30 years ago.

Train service, passenger train service, is practically nonexistent. We have got to rely on air transportation in order to maintain economy in those areas, and I hope very much you will give this problem of ours your serious thought and consideration.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Senator, and I certainly will do that. Senator PROUTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator MONRONEY. Senator Bass?

Senator BASS. Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me say that I have worked closely with Mr. Murphy as a member of the Committee on Agriculture, both in the House and Senate. I know him to be an outstanding public servant and an able administrator, and I am very happy that the President has asked you to take on this very responsible position and I know that you have a background and experience that will allow you to do a commendable job.

I would like to make one or two comments for your observation, as far as my own personal views are concerned with airline service. I would like to commend, first of all, for your attention, an article or a speech, rather, in the Congressional Record of March 25, 1965, by my senior colleague, Albert Gore, of Tennessee, dealing with airline service in Tennessee.

The speech is a result of a great deal of research done by Senator Gore through of course, the CAB and members of his staff in pointing out the decrease in the amount of service from the major cities in Tennessee to their major terminal points throughout the Nation.

We are a bit disturbed about the decrease in amount of service. I point out one particular schedule. From Nashville to Washington, D.C., on September 1, 1957, we had 63 flights originating per week from Nashville to Washington, D.C. As of February 1, 1965, we had only 41 flights a week from Nashville to Washington.

Of course, I realize that the type of aircraft used has improved the service greatly, the time traveled has been decreased quite a bit and the number of passengers per flight has been increased. But at the same time it has appeared to me that this type of reduction in most of our major cities in Tennessee is bringing about hardship on air travelers in our State.

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This inspires a comment of mine, that I have noted as far as airline service is concerned in the past few years. I certainly do not want airline service to become a utility, if you understand what I mean. It is still a private competitive business and I would hope that it would remain as such.

I have noted, just with some experience, without any statistics or data to back up this observation, that when we have competing airline service between two points, with two or more carriers, we will find that the service is good, and they put on a lot of aircraft, and then immediately, if one of them is not doing so well, it and it has pulled off new schedules, immediately the other one will pull them off.

So I want to commend to you, as the future Chairman of the Board, that I think it is very essential that the public interest comes first, and there remain adequate competition in order to afford public service in the field of air service.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much, Senator, and I am glad to have those comments, and if I should be confirmed, certainly I will take them into account in my work over there.

Senator MONRONEY. Is that all?

Senator Bass. Yes.

Senator MONRONEY. Thank you very much, Senator Bass.

I would like to ask the distinguished Secretary his feeling with reference to aviation growth and pioneering of new routes and pioneering of new services and pioneering of new types of aircraft. What is the Secretary's attitude with reference to the need and necessity of the propriety of the subsidies where necessary to promote new uses or new routes and new developments in aviation?

Do you have any preconceived prejudices against the use of subsidy in developing the new types of services?

Mr. MURPHY. I can say categorically I have no preconceived prejudices against the use of subsidy. I go beyond that, I think I would next need to say that any views I might have at this point should probably be very tentative indeed, because

Senator MONRONEY. General, I would say. You certainly have some general ideas?

Mr. MURPHY. I do have some general ideas, but at the same time I think the feasibility, the judgments that ought to be made about things of this kind and about particular subsidies ought to be based on a very careful study of the facts. This I have not had an opportunity to do.

In general I am in favor of innovation, of improved services, of experimentation. As a matter of general governmental philosophy, I think it is in the public interest for the Government frequently to encourage even with financial resources activities of this kind.

As it comes closer home to the particular work of the Civil Aeronautics Board, it seems to me it would be most appropriate that I should be even more cautious about any comments that I might make.

Certainly there is a very intimate relationship between the work of the Board and the kinds of activities that you speak of, the development of new methods, new equipment. All of this has an economic impact. It has a very close relationship to economics of our air transportation system, and I would think, among other things, that any of this kind of effort, the development of new equipment, de

velopment of new services, should be staffed out as carefully as possible in relation to the economic potential and the earning potential which I regard as the province of the Civil Aeronautics Board and I will expect the field in which the Civil Aeronautics Board would have the best expertise among all of the agencies.

Senator MONRONEY. The distinguished Under Secretary is aware, of course, of what has been happening in feeder line field, where they are upgrading their equipment because of the absence of any modern turbine powered aircraft that seems to be desirable to replace old DC3's, that they are converting their fleet to turbine power engines and converting them to F-27's, turbine powered, converting them to even French imports, which are turbine powered.

In order to do this they are vastly increasing their investment because they have been flying a plane that probably had a value of $100,000 or less. Now they are upgrading them to about $1.2 million, $1.5 million, in that range, price range, which means that they have to find greater loads in order to maintain the capital investment that they have in these planes, and oftentimes these capital investments are insured by the Federal Government to make possible this acquisition.

With the withdrawal or neglect of the trunklines to the intermediate areas which Senator Brewster spoke about, generally the feeders are asking for some relocation of their routes to put them into other points.

I wonder if you had arrived at any opinion or had any ideas at present with reference to the possibility of expansion, where possible, without deleterious effect, on trunk carriers that are already certificated in there, to the expansion of these feeder line routes to give better service to their area with which they are charged to serve?

Mr. MURPHY. It is my impression, Senator, that the service, the route patterns of the local service carriers has been improved in recent years and that this is a fairly steady improvement. Their financial situation has improved. I am glad to say the equipment has improved, as you have pointed out.

It is my understanding that from time to time that the local service. carriers do take over points that have been served in the past by trunk carriers, and that there is a development in this direction, which seems to me to be a good thing.

Now whether it has moved fast enough, I do not have any judgment. I would regard it as desirable to continue to move in this same direction.

Senator MONRONEY. This assumption that it has generally taken place up to now has been with the approval or with the urging of the trunk carriers wanting to withdraw service from small revenue points to overfly in order to take care of the bigger points.

However, it is necessary, I think, if these local service carriers are to develop their systems to the full extent, they are going to have to be given the right to fly into more of these intermediate points, whether the trunklines abandon them or not, in order to give the kind of service to these localities that they deserve with turbine powered aircraft.

Mr. MURPHY. I think the primary consideration, Senator, is the kind of service that is given to the public as distinguished from the welfare of any particular air carrier or kind of air carrier, important