For instance, there is a provision that if there are going to be any major changes, that there has to be an opportunity given to interested persons to be heard. That is of particular significance in this respect, you and I know that every agency in the Department of Agriculture has a protective society built around it. You have the PMA committeemen formed into a protective society for the PMA. You have the National Association of Soil Conservation district supervisors, etc. There is a protective society for each of the agencies for the express purpose of putting the heat on you Members of Congress whenever anything happens down here that has to do with them and that the agency heads here do not like.

Mr. POLK. What is your opinion? Do you believe that under your plan No. 2 the Secretary would seek the advice of your organization? Some of those organizations you mentioned are pretty good organizations.

Mr. WOOLLEY. He has to seek the advice of not only the protective societies around the Department agency, but he also has to seek the advice of the free institutions where people voluntarily join and voluntarily pay their fees. He has got to consult with them too.

For practical purposes what that means is this, and I think this is important to Congressmen, it means that the Secretary of Agriculture cannot make any major moves unless he has rather wholesale approval of it. If you make a move and there is one major group that has a major objection to it, you know how the thing operates. They are going to be able to raise so much fuss about it and they have so many anchors in Congress that the Secretary will not be able to

move.

I haven't mentioned the one other important aspect, and that is that the Secretary can only use unexpended balances for the purposes for which they were appropriated. It is true that the reorganization act contains that language, but it is also true that plan No. 4 did not have that express provision in it and it was very questionable as to whether or not that might not abrogate the provisions of the reorganiaztion act pertaining to that particular plan. There was a definite question in Reorganization Plan No. 4 as to whether or not the Secretary could not move unexpended balances around the way he wanted to regardless of the purpose for which the funds were appropriated. There is no confusion about that in the present plan. Mr. POLK. Of course, we are interested in efficiency and economy. That is the only fundamental reason, as I see it, for the reorganization. How do you feel this would bring about more efficiency and more economy?

Mr. WOOLLEY. I do not think there is a single responsible person in the Department of Agriculture who has been there or who wouldn't admit that there are plenty of places where you could bring about more efficiency and coordination.

Yow know when we put the Production and Marketing Administration together in 1945, there were 14 agencies consolidated, and from the noise made by the 14 consolidated agencies when we put them together in PMA, you would have thought the world was coming to an end. You know personally what went on in connection with that. The world did not come to an end. We cut out thousands of employees from the Production and Marketing Administration. There were 22,000 employees in PMA. When we got through, there were

around 11,000 people in the PMA. That reorganization plan was carried out under the War Powers Act. Plan No. 2 would give the Secretary that kind of authority, with the safeguards that I have mentioned which were not in existence in those days.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. I understood you to say that you represented the opinion of 1,037,000 dues-paying members.

Mr. WOOLLEY. 1,492,000 dues-paying farm families throughout the Nation.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. Throughout the Nation?

Mr. WOOLLEY. That is right.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. Did each of the board of directors of the groups of farm people have separate resolutions, or is this the resolution of the hierarchy in the organization, the top level?

Mr. WOOLLEY. I am glad you asked that question because there are lots of popular notions floating about, about the American Farm Bureau Federation.

As a matter of fact, at one time I had some popular misconception about the American Farm Bureau Federation. You see the American Farm Bureau Federation, instead of operating from the top down like many organizations do which justifies people on the Hill being rather suspicious as to how policies are made, the American Farm Bureau Federation operates from the bottom up. It actually sprung up in the counties and the counties formed State federations and the States joined together and made a national federation. This information came up from the bottom. We have an agreement between the States that any State which disagrees with what the other States do in a national meeting can, by written notice, serve notice on the national organization that they disagree. No State has written in and said that they disagree and all the States passed the resolution in December 1952. They have had ample opportunity to discuss this question.

I have written them consistently about the progress of the reorganization plan. This organization actually operates from the bottom up and this is as a result of resolutions passed by a resolutions committee, consisting of representatives from each of the 48 constituent units of the American Farm Bureau Federation, with the voting delegates at the national convention passing them, and I might add this, it was passed after the voting delegates had a thorough opportunity to study, review, revise, and amend. There was no such proposition of simply getting in a room and rigging up a platform and then somebody reading it off after midnight and after listening for about an hour or an hour and a half somebody standing up at 1 o'clock and saying "All those in favor signify by saying 'Aye'; those opposed by saying 'No.' The 'ayes' have it."

None of that happens. No such policy as that is followed in the American Farm Bureau Federation. Our statement is on the basis of what the great majority of people in the organization throughout the country think.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. You have no way of knowing whether those people are familiar with the Reorganization Act of 1949 and whether or not they have an opinion as to whether this plan violates the spirit and intention of the Reorganization Act.

Mr. WOOLLEY. Inside the American Farm Bureau Federation there is every encouragement given to a full discussion of all of the various

issues. We have a newsletter that we put out every week and in that newsletter we try to give the people in the counties a complete story as to what is going on here and with the background which they already have I think you will find many, many people who thoroughly understand the issues involved here and understood the issues in 1950. Mr. RIEHLMAN. Are there any other questions? Mr. Hoffman, do you have a question?

Mr. HOFFMAN. Your statement that your organization works from the bottom up interests me. That is very encouraging to me because it has been my experience that there are too many organizations purporting to represent various groups which work the other way. I will not name some of them.

This week brought us a flood of letters from the officers of a national organization. My experience with that particular organization has been that it advises the people in the local communities but all the advice they get comes from the national organization in Washington. This advice is not always in accord with the thinking of the people at the local level.

Frequently I will get a letter from a local organization suggesting that I vote in a certain way and support a certain bill. I write back and send a copy of the bill and say "What particular provision of this bill do you think is the most important? What do you think this bill will do?"

Many, many times I never get an answer. Only once in a while do I get an answer with a further question "Who suggested that you write me?"

I know very well, and I am sure that other Members of Congress know, that this propaganda, well meaning as it is, represents the views of people sitting in Washington and not the views of my constituents in the field.

Someone was asking this morning about just what economies it is expected will be brought about. In other words, where will it be saved. To those of us who keep in rather close touch with our districts, we know many things that can be lopped off.

For example, in my own county we have township committeemen. I remember one some 15 years ago and I still have the check which he received from Washington for some service that he was supposed to have rendered. He brought it in and gave it to me and said "I never did anything to earn that money."

He added: "I have been instructed to go into a certain township in my county and interview the farmers and ask them to support this plan. While I am doing that I get so much per day."

And then they conduct these schools for 10 days in April, where they instruct the local officers and then take them over to collect. One member gets paid for the transportation for the group and they all get so much per day. Do they still have that?

Mr. WOOLLEY. They have State meetings in which they discuss questions.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Do they have this local school of instruction in the county?

Mr. WOOLLEY. On various programs they have had them over the years.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Well, this farmer was a member of that group, and he received his compensation and brought in his check and said to me, "I wish you would use that for some charitable institution." Naturally there are many of those. In many organizations there can be savings made when they are called to the attention of the Secretary, if he really wants to make savings.

Mr. WOOLLEY. We believe there is room for great improvement. Our farm people know it. There are illustrations all over the country available to anyone who is really searching for an answer. There are

all kinds of economies that can be made, and we know that if we are going to discharge our responsibility for self-government, that we as individuals have to come forward and request solutions to those kinds of problems in the area that we are competent to talk about, which is agriculture, and we think if we do our job in this area that other people will do their jobs in other areas.

The American Farm Bureau Federation is very strong on the idea that in order for there to be efficiencies that we have to cut down on the amount of money that the Federal Government is spending, and we have come forward with specific recommendations with respect to agriculture because we know what we are talking about and the evidence we have is incontrovertible evidence. We know that if we come forward and do your job with respect to agriculture, there are other areas that might gain courage from that kind of a display of citizenship and do the same thing.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Another question comes up, and it keeps recurring in all the Federal departments and agencies, and that is this; how far do you think the employees who represent the Agriculture Department should be permitted to go in expressing their political views, that is their views as to support of a candidate and support of a program? What I am getting at is this: Where do you draw the line concerning the individual citizen's absolute right to speak, or to put out propaganda, either in favor of a candidate or in favor of or against a legislative proposition? I know there is a statute which prohibits the soliciting of funds in many Federal buildings for political purposes. Sometimes the political purpose is defined and sometimes it isn't. What is your position on that?

Mr. WOOLLEY. We always believe that one of the grave dangers to individual liberty is the proposition of groups being identified with a Federal program. They are not Federal employees but they are identified with the Federal program by reason of some committee assignment or otherwise.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Or the expenditure of Federal dollars.

Mr. WOOLLEY. And they expend Federal money and lots of times they become confused. They become advocates for that particular program to the exclusion of other programs and they become blinded to the fact that they are really indulging in a device that will really be the undoing of self-government.

We do not think that is a healthy thing. We think it ought to be corrected. We think that it is the kind of a device that is going to be everybody's undoing. There are 2 forces at work in the world today, in our opinion, and we believe that many of these problems can be answered by these 2 forces that are at work.

One of them is the American force that is at work, which believes that the individual is greater and more sovereign than the state, that

he is above the state, that the individual gives a part of his sovereign power to the state but that he keeps a part of it himself.

Mr. HOFFMAN. When you say the "state," I assume you mean the Federal Government.

Mr. WOOLLEY. Yes, sir; and even the State government so far as that is concerned, and this fundamental idea is being challenged by the idea that the state is the end-all and the be-all and the individual is a mass of putty in the state.

Those two ideas are in conflict, but we do not want to give any comfort to the proposition that puts the state over the individual. We want the state to be the dominant, sovereign power only to the point that the individual permits it and we want to see that that continues for as long as we are here.

Mr. HOFFMAN. I take it you subscribe to the doctrine set forth by the framers of the Constitution that the Federal Government has only the power which was given to it by the people, and the rest of it belongs to the people.

Mr. WOOLLEY. That is correct, and we are willing to stand up and be counted on many issues that go to the very root of that proposition. We are not just paying lip service. When you have to stand up and be counted on whether you want Federal money or not, we will stand up and be counted if there is an invasion of any individual liberty in that direction.

Mr. HOFFMAN. My understanding is that the gentleman is willing to forego what might be termed benefits from the Federal Government in the way of payments in order to retain that individual freedom.

Mr WOOLLEY. That's exactly right; and we believe, unless we get our Government reorganized to the extent where we decentralize a lot of this authority-I mean real decentralization; I don't mean have the strings back here in Washington.

One good example is the school-lunch program. That used to be a completely centralized Federal program. Now, we have that on a grant-in-aid basis, and the States are actually running the schoollunch program. It's not being run in Washington. The money is turned over to the States and they control it.

Mr. HOFFMAN. One thing caused me to ask the question I did in the beginning as to the organization's idea about a man's right to express his views politically, while spending Federal dollars. This was the fact that some of the agencies have collected on Federal premises rather large sums to put over a program in which they were individually interested.

There is also a further fact. As long as 10 years ago, maybe 13, our county agent had up in his office, where the rent was paid by the Federal Government, in part at least, a sign or banner, probably 5 or 6 feet long, which said:

You would have received for your wheat 50 cents more a bushel if it hadn't been for Congressman Hoffman.

Now, I thought that was in violation of the statute, but he seemed to think it was all right; and, in my judgment, it not only wasn't true, but it was rather strong propaganda.

Mr. WOOLLEY. Well, you see, now, you are talking about the thing that really concerns us. If billions of dollars-literally billions of