were relating their experience during the year, these Congresswomen were, with regard to their use of radio and television. I was very much concerned after they got through talking. I was amazed to learn that all during the year they traveled, some of them, 2,000 miles back home just to get on a little discussion program in radio, but the moment election time arrived, all 7 of them, including the Republicans, could not get 1 cent of time for nothing, and they could not afford to buy the radio or television time. It was just beyond their purses.

Now then, as I stated to them that night, I said, "If you women in Congress do not do something about this," and I think section 315 is really in a way the cause of the the general public feels that under section 315 if 1 candidate gets time, the other 1 gets it. Well, that is true, but there is no compulsion under section 315 to give them the time at all, only unless you give it to one candidate, unless you open that door then you give or have to give the time to them across the board. You have to sell it to them or give it to them and, secondly, you are not supposed to give them any time under section 315. Now, then, there is a misapprehension about that section and I put it right into this statement. Quite apart from that, Senator, I am amazed to find that more and more that has become the practice. At one time they did give time for nothing during election. But now it has become one of the most profitable ventures for the stations as regards candidates.

I think that is shameful, I really do. Now something ought to be done somewhere. I am not here to ask licensees to lose money, but I think something ought to be done about getting them the time, getting it to them, as I stated, free, and letting this committee determine where these funds should come from and how to do it on an equitable basis.

Senator HENNINGS. Miss Hennock, I wish we had a great deal more time to discuss this matter with you and to profit from your observations. We are limited today and we have five witnesses. I thank you so much for coming and we hope that perhaps before these hearings are over, we will have another opportunity to hear from you as these hearings may develop further questions in this and related fields. Commissioner HENNOCK. Please consider me at your command, sir. Senator HENNINGS. Thank you so much, Miss Hennock.

The next witness is Congressman Udall of Arizona. Good morning, Mr. Udall. Glad to see you, sir.

Mr. Udall, you did prepare a statement, did you not? You may either read from the statement or read from it and depart from it at your pleasure.

Mr. UDALL. I will stick pretty close to it. I would like to read it, Senator. I think we can move right along.

Senator HENNINGS. Thank you, sir.

TESTIMONY OF HON. STEWART L. UDALL, A MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM THE SECOND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Mr. UDALL. I am very much interested in the comments the witness has made. I would like to make one comment in regard to this television business. Of course, as I understand it, and I do hope that this

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particular problem, which is a thorny one, does not interfere with or does not become part of this bill. I think you certainly contemplate it to be separate legislation because I think your bill, Senator, should be considered on its own and not be cluttered up with other legislation, but I do think you are serving an important service in discussing this problem of free television time. I have given it considerable thought. I would like to make a concrete proposal. It seems to me that there has been reluctance on the part of everyone who has discussed it before your committee to make any concrete suggestions on it.

I think that, if say, 3 hours' time, free time, were made available to the national committees of the 2 major parties during the last 6 weeks of the presidential campaign, start out in a modest way and not even give time in the congressional campaign year, that would give each party a half hour, if they wanted to use it, each week of the last 6 weeks of the campaign. And certainly they would purchase other additional time but it would help to provide a means of reaching the people through this most vital medium of television. It is my feeling that those who operate the television business are operating under a privilege and a license.

Their business is affected by the public interest and they already give such time. In fact, they would have a perfect right to say to other people who get such free time at other times, "Well, we cannot give it to you in October just before the election because the FCC and the Congress requires us to give it to the political parties."

So, I do not think they would be hurt and I just wanted to make that observation. I will now get on to my prepared statement.

Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to appear before your committee to testify in favor of S. 636. It seems to me that this bill represents the first serious attempt that has been made to draft a realistic statute to effectively control election spending and insure full disclosure by candidates

Senator HENNINGS. Just a moment, Mr. Udall. It has been known upon occasion for the use of time by a candidate or party to react disadvantageously to that view; hasn't it?

Mr. UDALL. Yes; I think it has.

Senator HENNINGS. So that simply having the time and the facilities available and making use of the time does not necessarily mean that it is going to be to the advantage of the candidate or party?

Mr. UDALL. No. I would not think so, and it depends on the type of use that is made of the time, naturally.

It seems to me that this bill represents the first serious attempt that has been made to draft a realistic statute to effectively control election spending and insure full disclosure by candidates and their supporters of all expenditures.

I have long been interested in seeing our Federal election laws revised, and, therefore, when I studied this carefully prepared legislation last January, I introduced an identical bill-H. R. 3139—in the House without any hesitation whatsoever.

May I say aside to you, Senator Hennings, that when I noted that my colleague from Arizona, Senator Hayden, who has, I think, been here in Washington and the Congress longer than any other man, was one of your cosponsors, I was drawn to the legislation because he is one of the wisest, oldest heads in Washington in my opinion.

I understand that hearings will be held on the House side in the near future on election law revision-I believe next week they are starting, and it is my hope that this Congress will enact legislation on this important subject.

It is my opinion that nothing has done more to lower politics and politicians in public esteem than our lax election laws which have produced widespread cynicism, and placed men in public life under needless suspicion. As Members of Congress, we need a full measure of public confidence, and I strongly believe we cannot afford to further postpone the day when our election procedures command universal respect.

I do not pretend to be an expert on many aspects of this legislation, and I intend to confine my presentation this morning to what I consider to be the most vital parts of this proposal. As I read your bill, Mr. Chairman, I note it proposes four major changes in the existing law. Three of these proposals-regulation of primary election campaigning; raising of spending limits; and sterner enforcement provisions-have won near-unanimous support. However, the fourth, the real kernel of this bill-section 201, which would broaden the law by requiring all campaign committees to report expenses, and would prevent them from operating without written authorization from the candidate himself has met with some disapproval.

If this law is enacted without section 201, our Corrupt Practices Act would be as meaningless, practically speaking, as it is today. This is the provision which puts teeth in the statute, and without it there would be no purpose in making the other changes. Consequently, this morning I want to stress the necessity for retaining this section, or a substantial equivalent, in this bill.

Under the old statute the very letter of the law invited circumvention and it has not been surprising that the spirit of the law, if it has existed at all, has been likewise the spirit of evasion. All a candidate needed to do in the past was to be discreetly ignorant of what his friends were doing on his behalf.

I was disappointed that the two national chairmen of our political parties did not give stronger support to this provision when they testified before your committee. I was surprised to learn that Chairman Hall stated here this type of law would be unworkable, as it is his function to improve the caliber of our political life, and the old special committee, friend-spending loophole has perhaps done more to bring politics into disrepute than any other current practice.

This criticism came unexpectedly, as other countries, notably England, Canada, and Australia, have found that such laws are workable and readily accomplish the purpose of restricting and equalizing expenditures and promoting full disclosures of election facts.

For example, the Commonwealth Electoral Act of AustraliaCanada has an almost identical provision-provides:

Any person incurring or authorizing any electoral expense on behalf of a candidate without the written authority of the candidate shall be guilty of a contravention of this act.

So we see that other nations have had ample experience under this law to warrant the assertion that such a regulatory statute is both realistic and necessary to assure that election facts are fully disclosed. I seriously hope that Mr. Hall will reconsider his expressed reser

vations, as the enactment of this law is a nonpartisan task and we need his approval and support.

The principal argument made against section 201 is that it would require reports from all of the 165,000 precincts in the country. I think that statement was made here.

In my opinion this is a completely mistaken view of the practical operation of this law. It is hardly that complicated. Let us take my own State of Arizona as an example: We have 12 rural counties, 2 urban counties with cities of over 200,000 population, and a total of 519 precincts.

Under that argument there would be over 500 reports.

If this provision is enacted into law and both political parties in my State continued their present practices, the only reports that would have to be made to Federal authorities under this bill would be reports by the 14 county committees and the 2 State central committees.

There is no spending on a precinct level.

Senator HENNINGS. I think I undertook to point that out at some of the previous hearings.

Mr. UDALL. That is my experience and I have questioned those in other States.

Senator HENNINGS. I agree completely with the comment you have made.

Mr. UDALL. I think we are trying to make it look more complicated than it really is.

Unless I am mistaken, it is the practice in all except a few of the largest cities for party campaign spending to be centered at and controlled by county committees. If this is true, I cannot believe that the great merits of this provision are outweighed by the inconvenience that would be caused these political workers. We would probably find that once reporting techniques were mastered, this system would work well and practically all county committees would tend to handle contributions and disbursements and precinct workers would have no occasion to file reports.

The argument was made, too, that it would be impossible for a candidate to control the amount spent by various organizations working for the entire ticket. Admittedly, this would present a minor problem, but certainly not one which would render the law unwieldly. This bill, as it is written, is flexible and unquestionably alert party workers could adapt themselves to the new requirements.

The real answer to these objections, however, is that unless the restrictive provisions of section 201 are enacted, the law will not be strengthened in the least. Surely we can ask our politicians to put up with minor inconveniences in order to bring new respect to our electoral process.

There is a good reason to believe that one highly important byproduct of a stricter law would be that the level of our campaigns would be raised by fixing personal responsibility on the candidate himself for the activities of his friends and "committees."

In fact, I am not so sure that this is not the most important thing that would be produced by the law.

Many of the excesses, usually in the form of personal attacks engaged in by "committees" would be eliminated if the candidate had

to assume clear moral responsibility for such actions, and members of both parties have been guilty of such things.

Only last week the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee heard rather shocking testimony from the notorious Harvey Matusow that he "falsely pictured" a Senator as pro-Communist in speeches given in the Senator's home State during the 1952 campaign. He was paid $1,100 by a candidate's "committee" for these two speeches, he said, and it is almost certain that his services would never have been employed had the candidate who benefited from his efforts been required to sponsor him openly and accept responsibility for his statements, as he would be required to do under this law.

Now I am going to a different subject and I may seem to be talking against the enactment of this law. I do not think I am.

Senator HENNINGS. As a matter of fact, you are the author of a companion bill which you introduced in the House, Mr. Udall, which is in most respects identical

Mr. UDALL. It is an identical bill.

Senator HENNINGS. With the Senate bill; is it not?

Mr. UDALL. Yes; it is.

There is one other matter which I would like to comment on before your committee today.

Last Sunday I read an article in the New York Times, written by a competent and reliable reporter, which stated that passage of the Hennings bill would

give the public for the first time what some Members of the Congress fear might be the shocking truth about the cost of obtaining political office.

This same reporter, reflecting the generally held view, stated further:

Altogether, candidates for the 84th Congress spent or had spent in their be-half $13,654,236, according to the reports.

This has been compiled by Congressional Quarterly in very ef fective fashion.

Even these figures, however, give only a fraction of the true picture. Informed guessers estimate that the true cost of electing the 83d Congress was somewhere between $100 million and $200 million. The lowest estimate advanced by any "informed guesser" in this field put the cost at $75 million.

That even the "informed guessers" cannot get closer than $100 million to the true cost is a tribute to the inadequacy of existing laws * * *.

To me, the appearance of this statement in a conservative newspaper famous for its factual reporting is highly disturbing. The average reader of such a statement cannot avoid conclusions about our political life that are both ugly and untrue. Some of the more obvious of these would be: Most elections are "bought"; politicians are a tricky lot and their campaigns are usually corrupt; politicians are indebted to large secret contributors and probably sell votes for substantial campaign contributions; it takes "big money" to succeed in politics, and the average person does not have a chance.

guess

It is my opinion, without qualification, that these "informed ers" are all wet and that their calculations, to use Mark Twain's expression, are "greatly exaggerated."

Yet, wrong as they are, such figures and the ugly erroneous conclusions they suggest enter the public mind because our laws are inadequate and tend to leave the impression that honest men are dishonest.