one phase of the consumer problem, and that is the spread of prices between the producer of the raw material and the ultimate consumer. It spent two solid years and I forget the amount of money on the meatprocessing interests of the United States of America, but in its report it impinged very seriously on those very powerful interests.

The result was when I came to the Senate and tried to get that report to carry on the work, there were only 11 copies of the report that were available anywhere in the United States. Through the manipulation of someone, they had been abstracted from the files where they should have been and had disappeared, and the Federal Trade Commission itself only had one copy of the results of that 2 years of study.

Now with reference to the work that the Subcommittee on Agriculture did on which the Senator served very assiduously and very valiantly, with Senator Norris, and Senator Wheeler, after we worked we ran against the powerful petroleum interests of this country.

The result was it was almost impossible, the whole program of rubber, synthetic rubber, was endangered, and it was necessary for me to go down to President Roosevelt under orders of the committee to say that if something wasn't done to preserve the synthetic-rubber program from this adverse effort, that we would act up here on the Hill. The result was that President Roosevelt appointed a rubber czar and saved the synthetic-rubber program.

Senator AIKEN. May I add something there?

Senator GILLETTE. Yes.

Senator AIKEN. And from Senator Gillette's committee work there developed the Baruch report which actually should have been the Gillette rubber plan, but apparently Gillette's name was not given the weight that Baruch's name was at the time.

me.

Senator GILLETTE. I thank Senator Aiken, but that doesn't interest

Senator AIKEN. In other words, they took it over.

Senator GILLETTE. But again 2 years ago I think it was, that this Subcommittee on Agriculture undertook this work, and went into various phases of activity in the food industry. Among the rest we got into the coffee industry, and we developed I think beyond peradventure of a doubt that speculative interests in coffee-producing countries with certain speculators in the United States had manipulated the coffee market so that in a 6-week period the price of coffee rose from 26 cents a pound here in the United States to 92 cents a pound, mulcting the people of the United States out of billions of dollars.

And when we developed these facts and reported them, the coffee producers in Brazil yelled to high heaven and went to their government and asked for some protection against this sort of attack, and they in turn went to the State Department and the State Department said that we were endangering good-neighbor relations by making any suggestion that these boys weren't simon-pure, that they were doing anything excepting in the interests of the people of the United States. Every effort was made to block that report.

What I am trying to say is that in every effort that is made to show a situation where there may or may not be a monopolistic trend or attempts to exploit the consumers of the United States, we run directly counter to big interests, powerful interests, whose own financial position is endangered.

As far as the consumers are concerned, what is a housewife going to do when she goes in-as I saw her go in a year ago-into a grocery store in the morning and, on seeing a man raising the price on a commodity from 71 cents to 92 cents, she said, "Why is this?" and he said, "I don't know. I got orders to go over and raise the price.”

What is she going to do, go to the Public Health Service and ask them? What is she going to do? Go to the Food and Drug Service and ask them? Where is she going to go? She can go no place. Senator AIKEN. She had better go to the polls.

Senator GILLETTE. Yes; that is a good place for her to go, but she can only go to the polls the following November.

Senator AIKEN. Congress has instructed agencies of Government to look into those things, and my concern is that we are getting away from the delineation of the functions of these three branches of Government to a dangerous extent with Congress undertaking to do the work which the Department of Justice and other agencies of the executive branch ought to do, and the executive branch ignoring the intent of Congress or else going ahead and legislating on its own after the bills have been signed by the President and become law, we get into a dangerous situation.

But I say the answer to the problem of the executive branch usurping or taking over legislative and judicial functions of Government is not to be found in the legislative branch undertaking to take over the work of the executive department.

Senator SMITH. Mr. Chairman, may I ask Senator Gillette if a separate committee or a new committee is the answer before we find out what Banking and Currency and Labor and Public Welfare are doing in these cases? Isn't this a sad commentary on those committees if they are not functioning?

Senator GILLETTE. That is a matter of judgment, Senator, and of course the members of the subcommittee's judgment is worth just as much as mine on the matter. The very questions that have been raised here, however, as to the possible jurisdiction of a standing committee will inevitably result, as it results in a small-business controversy, either that they do not do anything or that when one acts, the other one says, "Why you are getting over into my territory here?“ Then you come on the floor and you have that question of border-line jurisdiction.

It isn't clear if there is any assigned jurisdiction to cover this field not only of prices but a number of other phases of it. There is no clear jurisdiction.

And as I said, the housewife has no place to go. Where does she go? She goes to her Senator, she goes to her Member of the House and says, "For goodness sake, why don't you do something about this," and where is he going to go? Banking and Currency? "Well, we don't have that responsibility." Agriculture? "We don't have it." Committee on the Economic Report?

And I am no more in favor of special committees spending money than anybody, but I am tremendously disturbed over the fact that our people are being exploited heavily financially and by the use of improper methods, improper distribution methods-you have that whole field-and it would seem to me the part of wisdom to have a centralized agency.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you just one question, because it has been raised here. You propose a special committee of 13 Senators. How many of the 13 Senators will have the time to devote to the work? Senator GILLETTE. Nobody.

The CHAIRMAN. I find that to be true in every committee of which I am a member. Appropriations has 21 members. Every Senator is also a member of another standing committee and many are members of special investigating committees.

When we have an Appropriations Committee meeting, it is most difficult to get a majority of the members of that committee to be present. The only way we do sometimes get them is that the La Follette-Monroney Act requires that before a committee can report a bill to the Senate there must be a majority present. In order to get an appropriation bill on the floor at the last moment, after a few Senators have passed upon the main questions, the remainder accept their version of what ought to be done, and the bill is reported.

That is what disturbs me in view of the large number of subcommittees of standing committees, and the large number of special committees that have been created. Is it possible to get 13 men who will put in their time or any considerable number of the 13 men who will put in their time to do this work?

Senator GILLETTE. In answer to that, Mr. Chairman, might I say that you cannot in my opinion, without their sacrificing somewhere along the line.

I happen to be a member of the Select Committee on Small Business that was set up, as you know, and we function through subcommittees. I happen to be chairman of the group of three that are in the rubber field, and others are in steel, others in nickel, and it is a burden.

The CHAIRMAN. You are also a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Senator GILLETTE. Yes, and through the grace of this chairman. I am a member of the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections. It is a burden, there is no doubt about it. Well, I thank

Senator MONRONEY. Mr. Chairman, in reorganization, or in the organization I should say of the Congress, or the Senate, you have 96 Members. You can't increase that number unless you take in Alaska and Hawaii, but that is another question, but now you have only 96 Members of the Senate.

Now you divide them up into teams, you might say, to do special jobs. We decided that perhaps we had better not have 33 team and maybe an additional dozen select committees, which brought it up to about 45, but to have 13 teams and divide the work up among those 13, and thus your organizational pattern would be more efficient and more effective.

Now if we create the Select Committee on Consumer Interests, we are going to have more and more select committees. Now in a defense emergency perhaps you can establish, in a period when little business is getting blacked out by defense, a select committee on small business. I think you can establish it. You should not be too rigid. The reorganization work is far from perfect, and time will demand some necessary changes. But once we break over and start setting up select committees, don't make any mistake, it won't be just one, we will find ourselves with a dozen or more. They are like

rabbits they multiply. We simply can't afford to have another complex of select committees.

We would be much better under our organizational pattern to give the Banking and Currency Committee two staff members to specialize on the collection of all these data on consumer interests that you mentioned in your four points.

Two good staff members could do that, and you would not be dividing the membership up into new task forces to go out on jobs. Senator SMITH. And at the same time, Senator-may I interruptthe Senate should do something about jurisdiction, clarifying juris

diction.

Senator MONRONEY. That is important, but we haven't had too many jurisdictional problems.

Senator SMITH. I understand Senator Gillette to say we had a good many of them.

Senator MONRONEY. His complaint was that the consumer problem was split with five or six committees, but obviously the consumer problem is also a manufacturing problem because that is the other side of the same shield on processed goods. It is the other side of the same shield on agriculture. It is the other side of the same shield on banking, it is the other side on housing, and so you cannot possibly say that the consumer interest is a special specific interest, because if you do, then you have got the other side of that same shield.

What is one man's profit is another man's price, and you have got to look at both sides of that picture.

And I think the present committee structure, which does divide between Labor, Banking and Currency, Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Banking and Currency in all categories, the thing is carried to where the consumer's interest is not protected by just one committee but it is protected by a number of committees.

Now if we need more specialists in these committees, then I think it would be wise to have Banking and Currency ask for someone to coordinate these data. But at the same time we need the McClellan bill for a Joint Committee on the Budget to keep us from doing what we did last year. Then we cut 32 scientific inspectors out of the Pure Food and Drug Act under the Ferguson amendment. This agency is a most important consumer's agency. This was an old line agency that hasn't gone up much in personnel for 10 or 15 years, but under the blanket cuts, Pure Food and Drug lost over 30 inspectors.

We have 1,054 men protecting the health and standards of food and drugs in this country. It costs about $5,000,000 and they are faced with another cut this year again under the meat-ax business.

Now obviously we ought to cut the overstaffed or swollen agencies, but you take these agencies like Pure Food and Drug, you can't cut them because your health and consumer interests are impaired. I think we should give these agencies that are doing a good job and haven't grown or anything, an adequate staff to do the job.

Another example of this meat-ax cut, the most vital policeman for consumers' interests is BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics. I have found them through the years to be completely reliable. They can tell you what is going up next month in the Consumers' Price Index.

It is a small agency, it hasn't been overgrown, and yet they took a blanket across-the-board cut. Well, right at a time when you have these terrific pressures upward on price, here is the policeman on the

beat whose sole job is to specialize on that. It is an important function and yet Congress without singling out these agencies that can't be spared, gives them a whack in the name of economy, and the cost of living goes up 3 or 4 percent because we have denied maybe $50,000 to an agency that has to have the money to establish a case in behalf of the consumer.

Senator AIKEN. Congress isn't selective enough in its cuts on the executive department.

Senator MONRONEY. That is right. We don't single out the overstuffed from the thin lean agencies that have been thin and lean all through the years.

Senator AIKEN. We could cut enough out of our appropriations to enable the agencies that need the help to have it without increasing the overhead costs.

Senator SMITH. It is beside the question, but wouldn't it be possible for the agencies that need the money after the cut is made to come back and sell their stories to Congress? There is no reason why BLS shouldn't come up here and show how important it was and get the money.

Senator MONRONEY. It is awfully hard. After they have been cut once, if the budget opens up doors for requests, every overstuffed agency would be coming in, too.

Senator SMITH. I would like to discuss that with you some time. Senator AIKEN. The Budget Bureau is subject to pressure from certain groups the same as Members of Congress are.

Senator MONRONEY. I think if we want to help the consumers, we should watch the appropriations for BLS. These other agencies are spending dollars where they are spending pennies, and you will wind up with more protection for the consumers from these two small agencies than you will from the Federal Trade Commission.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further statements to be made at this time?

Senator GILLETTE. I have nothing further.

The CHAIRMAN. Will there be any statements to come in from any of the other consumer groups? There was a request contained in your prepared statement for a further hearing where they might have an opportunity to appear. We will leave that to you to fix the time and to recommend who shall come.

Senator GILLETTE. Mr. Chairman, there were at least two or three of these organizations who asked to appear if there were public hearings. I don't know that it will contribute anything to the problem excepting to evince their interest, and they already have done that. But if it is the intention of the subcommittee to take other than just statements to embody them in the record, we can fix a time.

The CHAIRMAN. I think the subcommittee will accommodate itself to your wishes in that regard. If you determine what you want done, we will be very glad to carry out your desires in regard to the matter. Senator GILLETTE. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. As I have said, I have received letters from five chairmen of Senate committees commenting on this legislation, together with other communications and telegrams sent to me by interested parties and organizations. I ask that the letters of the chairmen be inserted now in the record here, and that the other communications,