STATEMENT OF HON. E. DANA DURAND, DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES CENSUS.

Mr. DURAND. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, as has been suggested, I had at one time some experience in work of this character in Albany, where the plan of collecting information for convenience of the legislature had recently then been introduced. I may say that it was such a new plan that it did not cover anything like as wide a field as it now does or as is proposed in this bill. The main function at that time was making a complete index of the statutes passed each year by the various States in order that the Legislature of the State of New York-and for that matter others, for we published the results-would have a way of finding out what had been done on each particular subject.

The index stated the substance of the legislation but of necessity in such brief form that it would be quite necessary for one who wanted to know thoroughly what was going on to look up the full statutes, but it was at least an index by which the information could readily be found.

Aside from the desirability, in my opinion, of similarly indexing the most important legislation-not necessarily all of the legislation of the leading foreign countries, and aside from other, it has seemed to me functions that such a proposed bureau could perform could be very useful to Members of Congress in enabling them to get promptly and fully the information which is already available in the posesssion of the different Government departments in their reports and in their files.

The departments and bureaus of the Government are somewhat intricate in organization. One can not always be sure, from the mere name of a bureau, just what subjects it covers and what different classes of information it may possess, and Members of Congress and others are very much at a loss often to know where to get information on a subject, although they know that that information probably exists in some bureau.

At the Census Bureau we get from Members of Congress practically every day requests, sometimes for information for their own personal use in connection with legislation, in other cases merely for the convenience of their constituents. Frequently these requests are for information which our bureau does not possess, but which the Member of Congress assumes that we probably do possess or can refer him to. We have requests for information that ought to go to the Bureau of Labor or Bureau of Statistics or Bureau of Manufactures or to the Geological Survey or to the Department of Agriculture-all coming to us. We either look up the information from the reports of the proper bureau as best we can or more often we refer the Congressman to the proper bureau.

Now, that wastes time, and if, perchance, we do not happen to know and we do not pretend to be infallible-where that information exists we may make incorrect reference or may suggest that the information does not exist when it does exist.

It seems to me that an organization of the sort that is proposed in this bill could keep an index-not an exceedingly detailed index, but

an index of main subjects-of each of the reports issued by Government departments and bureaus, and also more or less of an index of the current activities of each of the bureaus, not yet appearing in their published reports. It would then be in position, when any question arose as to information likely to be possessed by the Government, to refer at once to the proper bureau. It is, of course, desirable that so far as possible such information should be actually in the possession of this legislative bureau, so that it could be at once. handed out to the person inquiring; but that is less important on the whole than merely knowing where it exists; having an index, in other words, of all important information in the hands of the Government department. That alone, in my opinion, would be of immense value. Mr. TOWNSEND. Is it not possible, Mr. Durand, that they would find all of that information in the Library, in all these reports?

Mr. DURAND. The great bulk of it would be there even now.

Mr. TOWNSEND. So that the great majority of all that data would be there, and that this bureau we have reference to here could, perhaps, have room in the Library to collect that-maybe in some part of the Library where it would be more than commonly available to

them.

Mr. DURAND. And it perhaps might go further. It might take some of the reports of the departments and bureaus which consist of a large number of separate subjects put together in one volume, and tear the volume apart and subdivide it and put the sections in a proper subject file which could easily be gotten at. I feel sure that in various ways such a bureau could make the existing governmental information much more available.

Besides that, it could collect valuable information from sources outside of the Government, or at least familiarize itself with the sources of such information, so that it could promptly refer to it and compile it in the way and along the line which the Members should desire.

I speak of this with some feeling of enthusiasm, because we in the Census Bureau here are called upon so much to give information and we can do it so inadequately. I feel sure that a body which had more time for doing such work than we have and which had a more widely trained corps of specialists could be of much more assistance to Congress than we can, even along the lines of inquiry that now come to us. Of course there are a great many interrogatories that do not come to the Census Bureau at all, but which go to other bureaus and departments, which again could be probably handled much more expeditiously and satisfactorily through an organization of this sort. It could become, as has been suggested, a kind of clearing house for the great mass of information that exists in scattered form in the Government service already.

I think that is all, unless somebody has some questions.

The CHAIRMAN. We are much obliged to you, Mr. Durand.

Mr. NELSON. I would like

Mr. EVANS. I desire to thank Mr. Durand for telling us what he has said in such a condensed manner.

Mr. NELSON. I should now like to present the Commissioner of Labor, Mr. Neill, who has also kindly consented to speak.

STATEMENT BY HON. CHARLES P. NEILL, COMMISSIONER OF THE BUREAU OF LABOR.

Mr. NEILL. Mr. Chairman, I can only supplement what Mr. Durand has said. We have a precisely similar experience. I might classify my experience under three heads: Frequently we get letters and not infrequently personal calls from Members of Congress or the representatives of a committee interested in a bill or in a report looking for certain information. Now, only part of the information that is needed in that study for the preparation of that bill or the making of that report is in our bureau.

The CHAIRMAN. May I interrupt you, Mr. Neill, with a question right there?

Mr. NEILL. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not true that there is considerable duplication of work in the departments?

Mr. NEILL. I think there is a very much exaggerated notion of that, Mr. Chairman-very much exaggerated. There are a great many topics

The CHAIRMAN. That has nothing particularly to do with this hearing, except it adds a little to the difficulty of getting information. Mr. NEILL. I was going to cite this case: For example, a Member comes in and he has a certain bill or a certain report in mind. It may be part of that information would have to be supplied by the Census, part would have to come from the Bureau of Labor-we can furnish you that—and part must come from the Bureau of Manufactures. He does not know where that is. We attempt to help him out, with the feeling that he does not know just what he wants out of our bureau. I do not know what he wants for his bill. both of us blunder along quite a while convinced that we are both wasting a good deal of our time-he wasting his time and I wasting my time.

We

At other times I get requests for information by letter, say. We prepare information in precisely the form that it is asked. In three or four days later we get another request from some other Member for the same data in a different form. We found in the first form it does not give the information wanted; and sometimes two or three different requests come in a period of 30 or 60 days, for almost the same information, presented in an entirely different way. Twothirds of that work has been wasted.

Frequently we have furnished information, and until I read the report I had no adequate idea of what was the purpose of the information or what particular subject was under discussion; and upon reading the report realized that the material used was very inadequate, that a much better explanation and a much better report could have been prepared by the use of more full information which might have been had right in our library. I did not know the purpose of it, and even if I had known it I might not have felt the propriety of suggesting that they use it.

But my own experience of six or seven years has been that a very large part of the work, at least of our own bureau, in furnishing information to Congress has been thoroughly unsatisfactory to those

to whom it was furnished and more unsatisfactory to us in the method of furnishing it, simply because there was no clearing house. Members have not known clearly what we had; we have not known the purpose for which the information was wanted; and as we have blundered along a large amount of work has been expended with very small percentage of it yielding actual return.

The CHAIRMAN. We are greatly obliged to you, Mr. Neill.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, your time is limited. Will you sit this afternoon at all?

The committee and others present here informally discussed the plans for further hearings.

Mr. NELSON. I am going to interrupt even a member of the committee just a moment, because the gentlemen have come to serve us, and I would like to have them given an opportunity to print statements in the hearings along this line.

The CHAIRMAN. Certainly.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Middleton Beaman, of New York, will now address the committee.

STATEMENT OF MR. MIDDLETON BEAMAN, OF NEW YORK.

Mr. BEAMAN. I represent the same association as does Dr. Lewis, who addressed you yesterday. I have, perhaps, a further claim to take up your time from the fact that I was for over five years serving you here in the law library of Congress, during the greater part of that time having in charge the preparation of the index to the Statutes at Large; and I may say, probably, that I am one of the few men in this country who has read all the legislation of Congress. In the work of indexing we read every line.

The CHAIRMAN. You deserve consideration.

Mr. BEAMAN. So that I feel at least I can lay some claim to knowing the defects in the legislation of Congress, and therefore feel that possibly I understand your needs pretty well.

There has been considerable discussion here as to "legislative reference work" and as to "drafting work," and the impression, from what I have heard, seems to be that there is a clearly defined distinction. It seems to be the idea in any event that the legislative reference work should be in the Library, but there has been intimation from various people that possibly the drafting work, or that part of it which is spoken of as "form," might be connected with the House or with the Senate. It seems to me that if such a distinction were made it would be most unfortunate. In the gathering of information, as Dr. McCarthy well says, we should have everything together on a shelf, and that is a very desirable thing; but the trouble is, What is on the shelf when you get to the shelf?

In other words, information can be gathered in a good many different ways. It can be gathered by some one who does not know much about the subject, and therefore is not likely to be so gathered as to be useful; or it can be gathered by a person expert in the subject, in which case it is more likely to be useful. In either event, not only must it be gathered, but it must be interpreted, in order to be of use in legislation.

Mr. Evans and several others spoke of passing out information in "tabloid" form. That is a very good thing, possibly, for the pur

poses of writing a speech or enabling a Member to understand legislation coming up on the floor, and can easily be done; but the idea that a legislative reference bureau, no matter how well organized, can gather the stuff and put it in tabloid form and give it to the drafter and say, "You draft the measure according to these lines," is, to my mind, something that can not be done.

Mr. EVANS. I think, Mr. Beaman, if you will permit me, that what I said was not quite that. I was referring entirely to the desire of certain Members to have it in that tabloid form, rather than the possibility of any commission being able to produce the capsules of information. [Laughter.]

Mr. BEAMAN. The point is, it is likely to be indigestible. In other words, the drafter, in order to draft a law, must know something about the subject matter. No man, no matter of how great ability, can take the results of the labor of somebody else and, knowing nothing about the subject himself, express it.

Mr. Sherley has spoken about the importance of form. I thoroughly agree with him. No one better than myself knows the lack of form in the statutes of Congress; but the trouble is that form depends not alone on accuracy in phraseology. A statute may be worded so that it is perfectly clear; anybody can understand it, but unless a man knows something about the subject on which he is drafting a bill, he may not say what ought to be said.

Mr. TOWNSEND. It might be like Browning's poetry, very well said, but not say something.

Mr. BEAMAN. It may say something, it may be beautifully expressed, but it may not cover the point; it may not say what ought to be said. And if the man who is drafting the law does not know the subject in some measure, why, he can not draft a law, no matter how expert he may be in form-and substance has got to have formbut the form is only for the purpose of carrying out the substance of the law.

Mr. BEAMAN. Exactly.

Mr. NELSON. And if error has not been eliminated, if that has not been covered thoroughly, the form will do little good.

Mr. SHERLEY. May I make a suggestion here, because if the statement is unchallenged it will give a false impression of what my viewpoint is, and I think the error is due to the gentleman's absence of legislative experience.

We want knowledge of the subject matter, but practically when we are legislating on the floor and bills are put into their final form, there is no opportunity to refer; and under our system there is not any advisory scheme I know of whereby you could refer the matter to any board to see whether we have sufficient knowledge or not. But what we could do, and ought to do, is to have then and there available some one sufficiently versed in form pure and simple to enable the substance, as disclosed by the bill and the report and speeches and action of the Members on the floor, to be embodied in a law that would be intelligible; and that is the crying need, it seems to me, and the reference aid ought to be now possible under the existing organization of the library, if it carried out the purposes for which it was originally created.

Mr. TOWNSEND. Mr. Chairman, I am certain that Mr. Sherley would