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that they should confuse and try to hide the facts which they go to great lengths to do. But the government has a stake in this picture; it should step in and take a hand. Flying hours of the air line pilots must be reduced. If they are not, the sponsorship of our vast air line network will fall short of its principal purpose -- national defense. 

I WISH TO TURN NOW TO THE PROBLEM OF PILOT RETIREMENT.I want to discuss very briefly five propositions about the problem of retirement. While pivoting an aircraft is probably not to be classified as a strenuous physical occupation, flying produces heavy strains on the human organism. Neither I nor anyone else can claim that men have flown long enough to determine all the effects of flying on the human body, particularly flying with responsibility for the lives of others. But of this I am sure: No other major occupation wears men out so quickly as air line piloting. That is my first proposition. My second proposition is that this fact -- the high rate of wearing out -- poses a major problem to pilots, to the air lines and to the nation. My third point is that the problem is mainly one for the industry -- the employers and the pilots. Fourth, most employers have done nothing about the problem and those who have tackles it have done very little toward a solution. Finally, I submit that the time for the industry, in cooperation with the pilots, to act is there. I have some suggestions as to appropriate action which I shall set forth. 

I. The Working Life of Pilots is Relatively Short. 

We would be further along toward a proper solution for the retirement problem -- and we would make faster progress in the future -- if the air lines were less anxious to convince the public that air piloting is a lark, that is has no unusual hazards, and that, if only we live abstemiously and virtuously, our working lives will run longer than those of judges. 

I wish it were fair to say that I exaggerate in describing the employer position. But that position has been set out fully in response to our contention in wage negotiations of almost two years ago, that extra hazard and short working lives ought, among other things, to be recognized in pay scales. When a failure of the air lines to negotiate properly brought on the appointment of a Presidential Emergency Board in May, 1946, to the Air Lines Negotiating Committee took advantage of public hearings to introduce certain ex parte data said to bear on the contention of pilots as to hazard and abbreviated working life. 

At the time of the T.W.A hearing, the Air Line Pilots Association made a statistical study of this problem. The Air Lines Negotiating Committee produced its statistics which we challenged. We have recently begun a more extensive study of our own. While this study is not yet completed, and while, in any event, this is not an appropriate place for a detailed refutation of the propaganda of the air line employers, there are a few points to be made. 

Transcription Notes:
unsure how to transcribe the red "error" in the bottom paragraph.