Request to Congress for Authorization to Requisition Property for National Defense.

My dear Senator Reynolds:

In Connection with the pending legislation now being considered by your committee, the broad intent of which is to reinforce the defense program by providing for the use or acquisition of certain kinds of defense materials and properties now in private hands, I call your attention to the fact that while the Government should be in a position to obtain this essential equipment and property, it is wholly willing to pay just and fair compensation for it.

It is apparent that our Government should be able, upon the payment of a just price, to obtain whatever equipment and property is needed for national defense.

Since its foundation our Government has had the power to obtain private property for public use. By this right of eminent domain our Government for many generations has acquired private property for post-office sites, public buildings, roads, parks, and other public uses. This power I believe should now be broadened to meet the needs of the present national emergency. Our national defense is a public use of the highest order.

During the last similar emergency, the Government's need of broader requisitioning powers was met piecemeal. When a particular kind of property was needed, a particular requisitioning statute was drafted to cover that need. These piecemeal statutes separately gave the Government requisitioning power over virtually everything from distilled spirits required in the making of munitions to lumber needed for making aircraft. This procedure caused unwarranted delays in waiting for the necessary legislation, and it resulted in the enactment of at least seventeen different statutes, all containing language substantially similar to that of the present bill.

This prior experience shows that it would be difficult and even impossible for us now to catalogue each and every one of the Government's needs in advance. I cite an example, relatively unimportant in itself but significant of the difficulty. Who would have thought a few weeks ago that any American citizen who owned a needed transport plane would have set up his personal and private judgment against that of his own Government as to the Government's need for such a plane? The enclosed correspondence shows how one citizen places his own predilection over and above the national need. I think that this correspondence will be of interest to your committee.

Some of the other foreseeable needs of the present time include machine tools, stocks of aluminum, and other similar raw materials and German-controlled patents. But they would obviously not cover the complete needs of the Government even for a very short period, and the Government, if its powers were limited to them, would be unable to obtain other types of equipment or property promptly if the owners- as occasionally happens- demanded exorbitant prices or refused to sell altogether.

Of course, the Government has always paid and always will pay a fair compensation.

I know that a people who have agreed to draft themselves into military service will not hesitate to approve any draft of their own equipment and property which is necessary for defense.

Very truly yours,