[Mr. Sherley at this point was about to leave the room.] Wait a minute. I am going to talk about you. [Laughter.] With his experience would have no idea contrary to that expressed by Dr. McCarthy yesterday, and I am sorry you did not hear him; and that is the occasion of my asking the present speaker. For instance, Mr. Sherley, a legislator contemplating legislation about publicservice utilities: Under the provisions of this bill that I read you they would have available for the committee preparing that very public-service law, passed not only by this country but the States of this country and foreign countries, and they would have material there to give them the best substance as well as the best form.

Mr. SHERLEY. Not only that, but the man who is looking to form purely on the floor would supposedly have some information gathered through this other source and through the debates in Congress; but when you, for instance, are providing for a public-utilities act and use the phrase "any person," whereas the phrase "whoever " would be a better phrase, it would not require a great amount of information outside for a man to suggest "whoever" in place of any person."

66

Mr. NELSON. I do not want to be misunderstood. You have had practical experience in codifying laws, and therefore the form has got very prominently into your mind, but you do not undervalue the substance.

Mr. SHERLEY. I do not at all, but I do not want any man in this practical work to overvalue substance. We compile now masses of information that convey nothing to anybody, for there is a tendency of some men delving into a subject to give undue importance to a particular arrangement of information on a given subject, whereas the crying evil now is in the expression of our laws; and you can not by any system of reference take away from Congress the necessity itself of arriving at a conclusion on the substantive proposition.

The CHAIRMAN. May I interrupt you just one moment? That particular point was spoken of yesterday by Mr. Bryce, the British ambassador, and he said that they kept accessible on the floor of the House of Commons a parliamentary expert in form and that if an amendment were offered and the prime minister or the minister in charge of the bill were in doubt as to how it would affect the bill or whether it was desirable to accept, he would put some other man on the floor to talk five or six minutes while he went out and consulted with the parliamentary expert and came back ready to express himself upon the amendment.

Mr. SHERLEY. It is just that practical reform I want to see upon the floor of the House.

Mr. BEAMAN. But that man in England who is on the floor is the man who has been drafting the bill and knows something about it. In other words, it seems to me that it is impossible, in the hurry of legislative necessities, for a man to appreciate the significance of an amendment that is offered or a word or suggestion unless he knows its relations to the other parts of the bill. I think we are differing in terminology; that is all.

Mr. SHERLEY. I grant you that such a man must not be absolutely ignorant of substance and know only form, but presumably such a man will keep himself advised as to substance that may be provided through another source. The point I want to emphasize is that a

practicable thing that we can put through Congress now and get results from it is to put on the floor of the House a man who shall correspond to substantive law as the parliamentary clerk does to the parliamentary law, and then I think it ought to be possible, without much enlargement or change, to make the Library of Congress perform one of the functions that it was created for of furnishing, in proper, usable form, information on the substance of matters. I am sorry to have to so hastily make these statements.

case.

Mr. BEAMAN. The reason I bring up this point is that I am afraid in your consideration of the bill you might be led to separate the two functions in that way, and to my mind, if you separate them, you will not get the value of them. In other words, here is a lawyer trying a He gets the evidence; he gathers that evidence. He may have employed a statistician or an economist or anything else, but he sees what is needed. It is the same way in legislation-someone has got to direct the gathering of the evidence so that it may be focused and concentrated on the right point. Mere information gathered and not gathered properly may not be of much use, and it is the same way when the information is interpreted to the legislature. That has got to be done in the same way as a lawyer does in court. In other words, it is the lawyer who has to be at the head of the thing, and for that reason I think that the head of the bureau should be a man who is, not necessarily a practicing lawyer, but a man of legal education, a man of sound ideas on the law, who knows the law and appreciates what is necessary; and all information should be gathered that way, and if you separate the two ideas you are going to get into trouble.

In the same way, there has been some talk about the assistants. To my mind it is going to be perfectly impossible for any one man, no matter how able he is or how industrious, to carry all of this work. The chief of the bureau must have at least four or five other trusty lieutenants, and they must be men of almost the same caliber as himself. For that reason I take it that one of the objections you will have to meet from Members of the House, if you report a bill of this character, is as to the size of the appropriation. They are going to say, "Why can not you appropriate a few thousand dollars?" The answer to that is that you can not get the men. Another thing I think is important

Mr. EVANS. Can you give us some of the details? What would you suggest?

Mr. NELSON. On that point

Mr. EVANS. We know a good many men have to be employed. A "good many" is not definite enough for the men who are drawing

the bill.

Mr. NELSON. May I insert this in the record right there and I will just hastily read it. It will not take long. It is a very careful estimate, and a rather low estimate from the prices Dr. McCarthy has got to pay for men. We may find we may not get these [reading]

Mr. EVANS. Who made the estimate?

Mr. NELSON. It is the result of going over the matter with the Librarian of Congress and others who have to administer your law. Mr. EVANS. You will put that in the record?

Mr. NELSON. Yes.

Chief of bureau.

Legislative Reference Bureau,

Assistant chief

4 expert draftsmen, at $5,000 each_

2 experts, at $2,500 each___

Chief of indexes and digests and editing. 1 assistant__

4 assistants, at $1,800

2 assistants, at $1,500.

Chief translator_.

2 translators. at $1,800

1 translator_

2 cataloguers, at $1,500– –

2 high-grade stenographers, at $1,500

4 stenographers, at $1,200__

4 stenographers and copyists, at $900

6 clerks, at $900_.

4 clerks, at $720

2 messengers, at $840.

4 junior messengers, at $480_.

Special, temporary, and miscellaneous service.

Purchase of material..

Stationery and supplies_

Equipment-

Travel, transportation, postage, telegrams, and incidentals.

$7,500

4,000

20,000

5,000

3,000

2,000

7, 200

3,000

2,500

3,600

1,500

3,000

3,000

4,800

3, 600

5, 400

2, 880 1,680

1, 920 5, 000

20, 000

4,000

5,000

6,000

126,500

125530

Dr. MCCARTHY. I think there should be a good leeway made for getting men outside of Washington for temporary service.

Mr. TOWNSEND. Saving thereby travel.

Mr. EVANS. These four expert draftsmen will not be needed at Members are not in the habit of using them. They will gradually get to using them.

once.

Mr. BEAMAN. May I say there that I should think that that was a pretty good statement of what was needed. You asked me to give details. I should say that that would about represent my ideas on the subject-something like that.

Mr. EVANS. I think, Mr. Beaman, when you should come to get this into practice, if we had four draftsmen, that for the rest of this session those four draftsmen would be sitting around smoking good cigars from early in the morning until late in the afternoon. Mr. Sherley and my good friend, Mr. Mann, would use them, but as to the great bulk of the Members, it would take time to get them in the habit of utilizing the services of these draftsmen.

Mr. BEAMAN. There are two answers to that, Mr. Evans. The first is that if they would sit around and smoke cigars over in the Library of Congress they would not hold their jobs very long.

Mr. EVANS. I do believe the Librarian has a rule of that kind. [Laughter.]

Mr. BEAMAN. In the second place, I think the situation you spoke of is necessary for the proper establishment of this bureau-in other words, these men would need time to fit themselves. There is at present nobody in this country who is fit for this job-in the ideal sense. Some men are better than others, but you can not expect any results from this bureau for several years. I think that is a thing you have got to impress upon Members of Congress in regard to this bill. That has to be said right now. You are going to get the help, but you can not get the help that you will get eventually, and these

draftsmen have to be trained. For that reason I think the way to start this thing is to get capable young men and to train them up, men who will be interested in making this their life work, and to let them grow in experience. Reference has been made to Mr. Courts and to Mr. Hinds and other valuable assistants. That comes chiefly from the fact of their long experience, and that is the only way a man is going to amount to anything in this work-long experience and careful, hard work.

The CHAIRMAN. It is now 12 o'clock and I know something about your engagements.

Gentlemen, the committee stands adjourned until 2 o'clock this afternoon.

Thereupon, at 12.05 o'clock p. m., the committee stood adjourned until 2 o'clock this afternoon.

AFTER RECESS.

The committee reconvened at 2 o'clock p. m., pursuant to adjourn

ment.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to have Mr. C. B. Lester, of the Legislative Reference Bureau of New York, make a statement. Mr. EVANS. Mr. Lester, will you kindly make a statement? This hearing is not formal, and we want to get at the real facts.

STATEMENT OF MR. C. B. LESTER.

Mr. Chairman, if you will pardon me, I want to start out with a little personal statement which will show the basis for the practical experience that I want to present to you. I was one of McCarthy's boys out in Wisconsin; went there as a graduate student in 1905, and in 1905-6 worked in his bureau; and I went from there in the latter part of 1906 to Indianapolis and installed there the first legislative reference bureau in that State. I inaugurated a new department in the State library, and was chief of that until I went to New York, in 1908. The Indianapolis work was instituted very closely along the lines which I had seen in Wisconsin.

In New York, as Dr. Durand has told you this morning, there had been a reference department specializing on legislative lines for something like 20 years. Beginning in 1890, this reference department indexed all general legislation for all the States. This is the only index of the kind in this country, and in printed form has been made widely available. As time went on the work expanded and other series of bulletins were added.

You will note that the New York department emphasized the reference side, the collecting and making available of information, and did not include at all the bill-drafting side. Bill drafting in the State of New York is under the control of a bill-drafting commission. That commission is under the appointment of the majority leader of the senate and the speaker of the assembly.

Mr. EVANS. Let me ask you this: The bill-drafting commission, then, is really a bipartisan affair?

Mr. LESTER. It is a bipartisan affair.

Mr. EVANS. Each side appoints some one?

40435-12- -6

Mr. LESTER. Well, there are, of course, the more prominent men, and particularly Mr. Cumming; he is appointed right along, no matter which side is in control in either house. He is one of the best men in the State, but, of course, the clerical force will undergo changes as the political complexion of the two houses changes.

Mr. EVANS. Oh, I did not mean that. Is the appointment of these men made part to one party and part to the other? Mr. LESTER. It is a joint appointment.

Mr. EVANS. A joint appointment?

Mr. LESTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVANS. And the practice is to have one man whom the Democrats refer to and another to whom the Republicans refer?

Mr. LESTER. I do not know very much about that detail of the work at all. That is the unfortunate thing about it, that the two things are not united at all in New York, the legislative reference and the bill drafting.

Mr. EVANS. Well, we have had here before us two propositions: one bill provides that each party shall appoint its own members; and we want to know the conditions in New York; you have said enough to make me think that that might be the method in New York, and I simply wanted to know about that.

Mr. LESTER. I understand your question, but I am unable to answer it. The legislative reference work there is under the State library, and all employees are under civil-service appointment. Now, the thing that comes to my mind, that I can present to you from the experience that I have thus had on the two sides of that work is, first, and perhaps most important, that the two things to be successful can not be separated.

Mr. EVANS. Well, now, they seem to be separate in England and in New York.

Mr. LESTER. They are separate in New York, and I do not think that the result is successful.

Mr. EVANS. In what places are they united? I want this for the record. I am not making any controversy with you.

Mr. LESTER. They are united in Wisconsin; they are united in Indiana, and I understand they are united in Pennsylvania.

Mr. EVANS. Is there any other gentleman who has a suggestion to make? Mr. Beaman, you had a suggestion.

STATEMENT OF MR. MIDDLETON BEAMAN.

Mr. BEAMAN. I would just like to say this: Mr. Lester, is it not a fact that the bill-drafting bureau in New York is very little use? Mr. LESTER. I do not think that that is the fact. I believe it is used a good deal. The application to the bureau is directly by the member who desires amendments, perhaps, or resolutions, and for the more important bills, unless those more important bills have been prepared for him elsewhere. But there is no connection, no organic connection and no practical connection, between the work of the billdrafting bureau and the work of the reference section of the State library.

Mr. BEAMAN. In other words, the bill-drafting bureau is not used as an agency to interpret and make useful the work of the legislative reference bureau?