Mr. BARNES. That may be true, Mr. Luhrsen, but look at it from this angle: Assume that there is a national emergency, and assume that the Department of Justice or certain law-enforcement agencies of the Government on behalf of national defense, limiting it to that, or national-defense projects, have reason to believe or suspect that certain influences are at work in this country to undermine and disrupt our form of life, and our way of life, and our Government, under those circumstances would it be wise for this committee to sacrifice certain rights, and I think this whole committee, in general practice, is against wire tapping and Congress has expressed that view in the past, but in this emergency, limiting it to that field, to combat influences that are trying to undermine or to overthrow our Government, would we be justified, do you think, in passing legislation even though it is restricted to combat those forces? Mr. LUHRSEN. I would be in favor of doing anything that will permit you to apprehend, prosecute, and wring off the necks, or to drown, or anything else, anyone who would do that, and if the Department of Justice is right in its contention, I certainly would be in favor of obviating any such in our midst who are trying to upset this Government. That would be the first thing I would want to do, and I would be in favor of it, but I am fearful that the Department of Justice has not viewed this in a discretionary way, and given all the aspects of it consideration and the evils that will flow from it, instead of accomplishing that which we want_it_to accomplish; I am afraid it will defeat the thing. We have had a lot of legislation that we have passed before and repealed it because it did more harm than good. I feel that way about this. I do not think it is a sound measure to accomplish what it is intended to accomplish. Mr. BARNES. That is the reason this committee is holding hearings such as this. Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right. Mr. BARNES. And the reason we are hearing not only the Department of Justice, but any individual who wants to come here to testify, who has anything to add, to help the committee members in passing on this matter, and then passing it to the full committee and then to the House. Assuming that this committee could write such a bill with certain limitations in there, would you have any objection to such a bill, limiting it to sabotage, espionage, and national-defense projects? I do not think it was ever intended to go into the railroads and the telephone lines. I do not see any reasons for going into those lines, or inter-company communications. Mr. LUHRSEN. No; they are not private. If we have breaks in the wires, or a short, we attach those wires with the Western Union wire. We will attach it with another Western Union wire, and then go back to our own line when it is repaired. We use the Western Union wires, and the Western Union gives us preference to all other wires in case of those emergencies. So, it is not confined at all to just railroad wires. They are just as much in general use as any other wires. There are so many mysterious things which can be done, especially with the Morse code. I do not know whether the F. B. I. uses the Morse code, but there are so many things that can be done with it. My own division, Spokane, Wash., to Troy, Mont., extended for a distance of about 140 miles, and there are about 20 different stations on that division. Everything that is said or done that passes over the wire runs through every individual station on the line. Every man can hear what is going on, and every man can copy it, and everyone at every one of those points can put in and make some remarks that would be the very means of making somebody believe that this man is intending to do something which is a felony, when he is not at all. Mr. BARNES. That would be direct sabotage if they would cut in and try to change or alter any of your messages. Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right. Mr. BARNES. That is what we are trying to avert. Of course, if somebody did that, that would be a different situation, but we cannot foresee any F. B. I. agent trying to wreck a train dispatcher's orders, whereby he will cause a train wreck. It would be just the reverse, if anything. Mr. LUHRSEN. No; I am not saying that. I think it would be perfectly innocent, but we have a telephone wire on some divisions laid out for 300 miles. Any time when you tap it, it depreciates the flow of the current to the extent that it makes it less audible at the other end where it is received. I have issued an order to the man on the other end of the road, and I have asked him to read it back. We are supposed to check the words and figures back. I have checked the words and figures in it as he reads it, and it is so confused under certain conditions that I cannot hear him clearly, and if something was wrong in there, he might repeat the order wrong and have the wrong station in there, and I would not detect it because it is so weak that I cannot hear it. That is where the trouble would come in, causing mistakes. Mr. BARNES. Suppose all railroad wires were eliminated from the bill and we made it just public utility wires? Mr. LUHRSEN. You could not do that. Mr. BARNES. We could not do that? Mr. LUHRSEN. No; you could not do it, because no matter what bill it is, it will be a commercial wire, and it will be Western Union and it will be Postal, because while I understand the telegraph companies build the lines along the railroads, the railroads keep up the repairs for certain parts of them. Mr. BARNES. Assume it was limited to purely telephone. Mr. BARNES. I am just trying to get your views on this. Mr. LUHRSEN. Yes; but you cannot separate them, Congressman; it just would not work, because while tapping in on any wire we would have to use the wires for movements of trains, and a very, very important thing today for national defense is the expeditious and safe movement of trains for commodities that they want to get to any destination for defense and everything else, and for moving troops or whatever is necessary to be moved. Mr. BARNES. Assume that could be eliminated by some language or on the other assumptions that I made a moment ago, limiting it to purely espionage or sabotage, and putting in one or two other crimes, like kidnaping, other than national defense, would your position change any then? Mr. LUHRSEN. Well, I would have to answer that again by saying I would want to do anything if, in your judgment, you had finally decided it was the best thing for the Government. I would say that I would have to be for it if it was. Mr. ROBSION. You would not want to be for it? Mr. LUHRSEN. Yes; I would be for it, but I have my doubts that all of those things you would surround it with would still have it work. I am not a great biblical student, but I read a good bit. I think when Herod tried to kill the Christ child, and gave orders to kill all of them 2 years old or under, he gave a faulty order. This thing, as I see it, is along the same line. You want to kill one, but you go ahead and kill all the rest. Solomon, in his wisdom, when it came to the two mothers appearing before him, I think used wise judgment. Based upon what I have read, based upon the opinions of jurists like Justice Brandeis and others, it reinforces my position that they do not think it is good for America, and if it is not good for America, then I do not want it. If it is, then I would say that I would be for it 100 percent. Mr. BARNES. That is what we are trying for. Mr. LUHRSEN. Yes; I know you are, Congressman. Mr. LUHRSEN. Yes; that is right. Mr. MICHENER. You believe in the three branches of government, and you believe in the Congress using its own judgment? Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right. Mr. MICHENER. Based on its conscientious analysis, honestly arrived at, regardless of what any other branch of the Government may think about it? Mr. LUHRSEN. I think that is the answer, and you will find and get what you think is the truth, in justice and in the application of the truth. It is the privilege of truth to make itself believed. As Emerson said, "Truth is the summit of being, and justice is the application of it to affairs; it is the privilege of truth to make itself believed." Mr. ROBSION. You must have gone to school when we had McGuffey's Reader. Mr. LUHRSEN. I left school when I was 13. Mr. MICHENER. And you have been going to school ever since? Mr. LUHRSEN. I have been trying to learn. I am still young enough to learn a good deal more. Mr. TOLAN. Mr. Farquharson. Mr. FARQUHARSON. Yes, Mr. Chairman. STATEMENT OF J. A. FARQUHARSON, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN Mr. TOLAN. You have been here every day, and you have been very patient. Give your full name, and state to the reporter whom you represent. Mr. FARQUHARSON. I am national legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and my offices are located at 10 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, D. C. Now, I am not a lawyer, and I would not attempt to discuss any of the legal phases that have been discussed here by those who are capable of doing so, but I have very carefully tried, as a layman, to reason out what I thought was proper here, and what I say is my personal opinion. However, I would like to read into the record a letter from President Whitney, of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, addressed to the Honorable Hatton W. Sumners, chairman of the committee, under date of February 7, 1941: DEAR CONGRESSMAN SUMNERS: The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen is unalterably opposed to the passage of the so-called wire-tapping bill (H. R. 2266) introduced by Congressman Hobbs and now under consideration by your committee. The objections which I raised last year to a similar measure can be emphasized even more so at the present time, for there is increasing evidence of a concerted campaign on the part of powerful interests to nullify social and labor gains. On June 5, 1940, I wrote you, in part, as follows: "Certainly no decent citizen can oppose legitimate action on the part of appropriate agencies of the Government to curb fifth column' and other traitorous acts by persons who would destroy the democratic institutions of our country. But in the process of insuring the safety of our people, we must exercise the utmost care and vigilance, lest we delegate authority to those who, under the cloak of official sanction, would destroy the very liberties which they are sworn to protect. "Quite aside from the fact that wire tapping is a device which lends itself to great abuse by even the most upright investigators, who, at times, violate the privacy of honest, law-abiding citizens, such a practice becomes reprehensible when exercised by known enemies of civil liberty." Those who advance the argument that wire tapping is necessary for national defense are merely using the national defense as an excuse to forge another weapon against labor. The saboteur or spy or criminal will know how to overcome the proposed method of surveillance, but the innocent man or woman who desires to communicate with a labor organizer will feel restrained from doing so, because of the possibility that the organizer's telephone wires have been tapped by Federal officials who have been told that he is allegedly an agitator or a "red." This is not speculation. It has happened before. Labor will not be able to operate efficiently under such restrictions. To the extent that this is so, the national-defense program will be handicapped. The Constitution of the United States provides that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech and, furthermore, that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. Writing as a layman, not as a lawyer, it seems to me that a law legalizing wire tapping would be in direct conflict with the above provisions in the Bill of Rights, in that it would throttle free speech as it has never before been throttled. Though it would not result in breaking down the doors to a man's castle, nevertheless it would amount to an intrusion by police officers of the sanctity of the home. If our country is to weather the storm in these critical days, it is essential to keep our civil liberties intact. Otherwise the faith of the people in their democracy will be weakened. I strongly urge your committee to defeat H. R. 2266. That is signed, "A. F. Whitney, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen." Now, as I said in the beginning, I, as a layman, have tried to carefully reason this matter out. There is no disposition on the part of our organization, or upon my part, to do anything that would hinder the apprehension, prosecution, and conviction of anyone who would seek to destroy our Government or hinder our national defense, but when we tap a wire, if we start just intermittently to tap a conversation, it would be like hunting a needle in a haystack, we would not know when, what day, or what hour and what minute to cut in. Mr. ROBSION. And you cannot know when to stop them, or to cut out. Mr. FARQUHARSON. Yes; that is true. That would be like shooting dice, and I have never won at that; it is just a game of chance, but in order to tap a wire, unless the tapping arrangement were connected with some recording instrument, it would involve a constant watch for 24 hours a day and for probably many, many days, and therefore, those desiring to tap the wire would resort to some recording instrument. Now, when the record of all conversations that may pass over a wire has been read and analyzed, the persons tapping the wires are also in possession of information of a private nature and not at all connected with the subject they wish to gather information on. The next question is through how many hands does the analysis of this record pass and what becomes of the record. One of the greatest dangers would be using a part of the conversation to make it fit the case under suspicion. The information thus gained exists as long as the person tapping the wire and who reads the record lives and retains his memory, or any other person to whom he may have confided that information or intentionally or unintentionally makes it known to some other person. Again, is the information thus secured a secret or is there the possibility of its being divulged, intentionally or unintentionally? As an example, is it not a possibility that if a detective for any reason leaves the service and seeks employment elsewhere in the same capacity that his employment may be encouraged by the fact that he is believed to be in possession of certain information his new employer may want? Human frailities are always a dangerous factor, and therefore the right to tap wires exposes, in our opinion, innocent people to unjust suspicion. Now, from my own personal experience in the labor movementand I have been an officer of the brotherhood for over 30 years, and I think I have had four scraps in that time. One of them was stopped before it got started, but we got close to it. A few company detectives have offered to sell information to me. I did not purchase it. The only thing I did was to size them up and see whether I was big enough to kick them out of the room and keep them out, because if they would sell me a thing, they might sell anything I said to them, and misinterpret it, because they are just thieves. I know that action in our lodge rooms in secret session has been given to employers and that it has not been given correctly. I had a superintendent come to me one time and say I told that fellow that I did not want that information. So, there is no doubt that there are spies employed by employers to find what is going on inside the labor movement. Mr. BARNES. May I interrupt you there just a second, Mr. Farquharson? Mr. FARQUHARSON. Yes, sir. Mr. BARNES. In view of what you just said, and in view of what is said in Mr. Whitney's letter, speaking for myself, and I think I am speaking also the sentiments of the rest of the members of this committee, we are not considering this bill in any way to try to come in the back door in some way when we ought to come in the front door. Mr. FARQUHARSON. That is right. Mr. BARNES. In other words, as a weapon to be used against labor. I do not think that there is a single man on this committee that harbors that feeling or that view, and I know personally that if we cannot come in the front door and meet the situation squarely, I am very much |