The President's News Conference

CHAIN OF NAVAL COMMAND

THE PRESIDENT. Secretary Adams has worked out the changes in commands of the fleet in certain of the bureaus in the Navy, by which on the retirement of Admiral [Charles F.] Hughes next October, Admiral [William V.] Pratt will become Chief of Naval Operations, and Admiral [F. B.] Upham will become Chief of the Bureau of Navigation. Admiral [J. V.] Chase will become Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet in Admiral Pratt's place, all of the details of which we will give you.

ELECTRICAL UTILITIES COMMITTEE

I have also a letter here from Mr. Sloan, who is the chairman of the Electrical Utilities Committee that we set up last December on construction work, in which he reports the progress of their construction program as being up to date and has even increased from 865 million to 900 million. And that is that.

PROPOSED COMMITTEE TO STUDY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS

I have one or two things for background.

Someone has understood the suggestion I made last evening for the appointment of a body of representative men to study the economic developments during the last 18 months as being the setting up of some superpowered body to direct economic life in the United States. I just want to call your attention to the fact that it is a body purely to make an examination of the experience that we have had in line with the same study that was made in respect to the boom and slump of 1919-1920. That study had the most important effects in the fact that it amounted to a crystallization of ideas and the spread of understanding, and has entered very largely into our economic conduct since that time. The setting up of committees of this kind does not imply questions of. administration or supervision over industrial life, but that we might develop our experiences to get them into form that have more power rather than administration in filtration of ideas. I do not propose to set up that committee until the situation becomes more clear and we have the full background behind us.

CRUISER CONSTRUCTION

I also have some reports on construction of naval work. The Navy Department had expected to lay down the keels of the three cruisers which have been assigned to the Navy Yards on this year's program--at least one of them something over a month ago--but they have been held up with view to consideration of redesign of the whole of the three cruisers. It may delay the construction work for a month or two, but it is believed by the Navy that it makes a more perfect ship.

AVIATION MAIL CONTRACTS

Congress passed a few days ago an amendment to the Post Office mail contract--aviation mail contracts--which amounts to a revolution in the relations of the Government with commercial aviation. It places the contracting for mail on a space-weight basis, as it is called, on the same lines as the railways. The purpose of it was to enable the Postmaster General to contract in such a fashion as to encourage passenger traffic and to bridge over from solely a postal aviation to passenger-carrying airplanes. The heads of various aviation companies have been called in to work out the details. The act also calls upon the Postmaster General, if possible, to consolidate competing routes and give some authority for continuing contracts. Generally, it is quite a revolutionary step in the whole development of commercial aviation.

And that is all I have got on my mind.

Q. Mr. President, you said they would be called in ?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, by the Post Office Department--a number of them here today.