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How do you do, ladies and gentlemen. But last week was indeed a busy week for our office. We received something over five thousand letters, which is a little over par for our courses, most of them, of course, having to do with the civil rights issue. But many of them are greatly concerned about the test ban treaty, which we will shortly consider in the Senate.

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Here's a letter from a lady in Sarasota asking me, in essence, what types of testing would be banned in the treaty? Well, of course we would have. We would ban testing in the outer space. We would ban testing in the atmosphere where we need to ban testing so that it does not affect the health of our civilization.

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And we would also, by this treaty, ban testing underwater how he would continue to permit testing underground, because apparently the Soviet Union and our people believe that we need to go forward in our effort to develop not only peaceful uses of atomic energy, but also we're trying to develop the ultimate weapon which would be known as the anti missile missile.

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But in three areas, at least we would fantastic the agreement, which will come shortly before the Senate for debate discussion is just about the same agreement, which was drawn up in nineteen hundred and fifty nine and fifty eight by the previous administration. The Eisenhower administration, in which most of the Senate Here's a letter from the Lady and Sarasota.

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This is def you NIAC Springs. And she says, Do you think the treaty will pass and do you support it? Well, frankly, I think this treaty needs to be supported. We need to do a lot in this world and with respect to bringing about disarmament, so long as we do not unilaterally disarm.

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And I think one of the reasons that we're seeing this break in the so called Cold War is because we have kept ourselves heavily armed. We indicated this year and last year that we would even go to the extent of spending some fifty billion dollars in further armaments and the development of nuclear weapons.

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And I frankly believe the Soviet Union just doesn't want to go that high. I don't believe it's economy can afford to spend that kind of money. I think that plus the factor that the red Chinese have begun to pull away from the Soviet Union have been the real factors which have brought about the break.

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I think the treaty is a good treaty. I think that eventually that, uh, it will be approved by two thirds of the members of the Senate. Here's a letter from a businessman in Orlando and he says the senator this on another subject. He's I I understand that you have introduced a bill calling for the creation of a tax commission.

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What is the purpose of this legislation, and what function would the commission serve? Well, frankly, the idea came to me and the congressman pulled from Texas because of the fact that here in the Congress, we pass these laws which have to do with taxes, but because our business community has so many technical set ups that the Congress actually cannot pass a law to cover every particular technical situation.

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So what happens today is that the Internal Revenue Service takes our general law with respect to taxing, and that service then puts out a great raft filling several books, volumes of books with what they call regulations in truth and in fact, it turns out that the Internal Revenue Service begins really to write the tax laws.

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And so we find that the tax collector finally becomes the tax writer. This was never intended by the Constitution. It was never intended by the Congress. So what? This proposal, which I have as suggested and I hope will become law, is that we create a tax commission just as we have created an interstate commerce commission to handle the technical aspects of railroad, transportation and water transportation and so on.

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And just as we have created the Federal Communication Commission in order to handle the technical aspects of radio and television, I think we need to create a regulatory agency, an independent agency, to try to determine exactly what it is that the Congress wants to do and let them become the tax writing body in conjunction with the Congress of the United States.

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I think all of us would fare better than we are now faring with the Internal Revenue Service. If we can adopt this tax commission, I see that my time is up. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for looking in. I hope you'll looking again at the same time next week.

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Yeah, Okay. Mhm. Yeah, well, here's another letter, this time from a member of the state legislation from the Tampa Bay area. And he says to me, in essence, Senator, you have continually stressed the need for passing tax legislation this year. What hasn't even gotten it's been on civil rights.

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You have the time. That's quite span. Treaty and the testing. Do you honestly resolvable over time left on a principle would be enough time. I must answer this tax work because I certainly do. I think we just actually the most important bill except for the test ban treaty that we will take up this year.

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As you people have heard me say on numerous occasions. As far as I'm concerned, I think the rights of the Negro Citizen would be much better benefited if we have a stimulated economy. If we have an economy which is producing a gross national product of some six hundred billion dollars a year, if every Negro citizen could get employment, I think that most of his problems would actually disappear.

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I don't think it's very smart or I don't think it's even greatly important to say to a man that he can go into a restaurant and eat if he does not have any money in his pocket with which to pay for that particular meal. And as far as I'm concerned, while the Negro citizens we find that out of every ten of our citizens in point of numbers in our population there are only one of them.

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When you look at the unemployment figures, you see that of every ten unemployed citizen we have, eight of them are Negro citizens. And every time we get into any kind of a little recession because in many instances they are the unskilled worker and because they are the marginal worker, they're the first ones to lose their job.

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I cannot help but believe if they had the security of a steady job with a good income and it's given an opportunity to get a good education, I think those two factors, more than any other, would solve the problem of the Negro citizens. So as far as I'm concerned, not only for them but for all of us.

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I think we need a tax cut this year in order to stimulate the economy to make certain that we do not go into any kind of a recession next year. Here's a letter from a a man at Orlando who says that he recently read where a union official stated that he believed that a voluntary union management agreement could be reached to settle the railroad dispute before the August twenty ninth deadline.

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And he says, Do you think this is likely to happen, or do you believe that legislation by Congress will be required to halt a strike? Well, I believe that where the Congress is going to have to face up to this issue. Actually, we must remember that this particular dispute with respect to featherbedding and work rules and the transportation industry has been going on for at least six years.

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I used to be the chairman of Surface Transportation Committee of the Senate and as chairman. We had hearings on this very matter as long ago as nineteen hundred fifty three, and the conclusion was reached at that time. At the railroads were suffering drastically from other modes of competition and other transportation companies, such as the airlines and such as the barge canals and particularly such as the as the automobiles and trucks, and that they could not afford to continue to pay something like six hundred million dollars a year overall to employ people who actually, we're not doing very much work.

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And that was the conclusion in nineteen fifty three. And since that time we have had the Rifkin report, we've had the Rosenman report. We have had a report from the Department of Commerce, the Supreme Court of the United States and other agencies and boards have all rules that this, uh, squabbles should be settled and that the featherbedding should come to an end.

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Now, I'm confident that the Congress is now going to have to follow the president's recommendation and passed legislation referring this matter to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which is the regulatory agency that is most experienced in this field. And they are required by this legislation to make a determination within one hundred twenty days or as soon thereafter as is practicable, and I'm certain that they will act with dispatch.

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I think that whatever decision that they come out with will be enforced because it will have the force of law. It will have to be enforced, and once and for all the matter will be resolved. We cannot afford in this country a national railroad strike. It may be that the labor people can afford it.

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It might even be that the railroad companies themselves can't afford it. But certainly we cannot afford to have this strike of the railroads, which would mean a total strike and employment of about a million and a half people, which would escalate up to about six million people within a month in which would cost this nation every thirty days.

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Six billions of dollars. We cannot afford to let that happen. Ladies and gentlemen, I see that my time is up. Thank you very much for listening in. I hope you're listening again at the same time next week.