(The information requested is as follows:)

LIST OF REFEREES IN BANKRUPTCY OPERATING FULL-TIME BANKRUPTCY OFFICES IN RENTED QUARTERS AND AMOUNT OF RENT, LIGHT, HEAT, AND JANITOR SERVICE FOR FISCAL YEAR 1948

Clarence Allgood, Birmingham, Ala: 719.15 square feet, at $2.229 a square foot, plus $228.50 a year electricity, total $1832 annually.

Thomas J. Ledwich, Oakland, Calif.: 1,040 square feet, at $1.961 a square foot, total $2,400 annually.

Burton J. Wyman, San Francisco, Calif.: 1,519 square feet, at $2.247 a square foot from July 1, 1947 to September 30, 1947; 1,510 square feet, at $2.682 a square foot from October 1, 1947 to June 30, 1948, total $3,909 for Fiscal Year 1948.

Chester C. Woolridge, Grand Rapids, Mich. : 1,090 square feet, at $0.791 a square foot total $862 annually.

NOTE. Space in the Federal Building has been assigned to the referee and it is expected that he will move to the Federal Building in Grand Rapids about February 1, 1948.

David J. Goldstein, Utica, N. Y. (estimated): 700 square feet, at $1.166 a square foot, total $816 annually.

Carl D. Friebolin and William B. Woods, Cleveland, Ohio: 2,661 square feet, at $1.879 a square foot from July 1, 1947 to October 17, 1947;1 3,093 square feet, at $2.30 a square foot from September 22, 1947,1 to June 30, 1948, total $7,276.95 for Fiscal Year 1948.

Hill McAlister, Nashville, Tenn.; 885 square feet at $2 a square foot, total $1,770 annually.

Since July 1, 1947, the following referees' offices have been moved from rented quarters into Federal courthouses on the dates indicated:

Austin Hall, Nathan MacChesney, Wallace Streeter, Chicago, Ill.: Rent paid on joint quarters to October 1, 1947, $1,344.

Robert J. Clendenin, Peoria, Ill.: Rent paid on rented quarters to November 1, 1947, $252.

Judson W. Grimmet, Shreveport, La.: Rent paid on rented quarters to November 1, 1947, $180.

John Thornburgh, Knoxville, Tenn.: Rent paid on rented quarters to October 1, 1947, $225.

List of part-time referees in bankruptcy operating part-time bankruptcy offices in connection with their private law offices in rented quarters. In these cases a commensurate proportion of the cost of rent, light, heat, and janitor service is allocated to bankruptcy. The portion allocated to bankruptcy for fiscal year 1948 is shown below:

1 Rent was necessarily paid on two locations for 25 days while alterations were being completed in the new location, subsequent to the removal of the previous Government occupant.

List of referees in bankruptcy now operating full-time bankruptcy offices in Federal buildings:

John E. Joyce, New York, N. Y.
Irwin Kurtz, New York, N. Y...
Peter B. Olney, New York, N. Y.
Robert P. Stephenson, New York, N. Y.
James W. Persons, Buffalo, N. Y.
Nelson P. Sanford, Rochester, N. Y.
Frank C. Kniffin, Toledo, Ohio
Gail H. Butt, Columbus, Ohio
James D. Herrman, Dayton, Ohio
Graham P. Hunt, Cincinnati, Ohio
Maurice F. Ellison, Tulsa, Okla.
Estes Snedecor, Portland, Oreg.
David Bachman, Philadelphia, Pa.
L. Leroy Deininger, Philadelphia, Pa.

Watson B. Adair, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Carl R. Graves, Memphis, Tenn.
John Thornburgh, Knoxville, Tenn.
Warren G. Moore, Tyler, Tex.
D. M. Oldham, Dallas, Tex.
Glenn Smith, Fort Worth, Tex.
Robert O. Huff, San Antonio, Tex.
Russell T. Bradford, Norfolk, Va.
Thomas D. Lewis, Salt Lake City, Utan.
Van C. Griffin, Seattle, Wash.
Thomas H. Duval, Wheeling, W. Va.
Harry L. Snyder, Charleston, W. Va.
Carl R. Becker, Milwaukee, Wis.

Mr. STEFAN. Place in the record also whether or not there is any space available in the government buildings. We know that many of them have rooms that are vacant. Sometimes some of those rooms are used for only 2 days out of a whole year. The public goes into those buildings and finds them vacant and they wonder why the Government is paying rent when there are vacancies in government buildings.

(The information is as follows:)

One of the questions that has been considered as a matter of routine in passing upon arrangements for offices of referees under the salary plan, is whether space might be secured in the Federal buildings in the places in which the offices are located. Inquiry about this has been made of all referees operating full time offices and frequently of the judges. Furthermore the condition in this respect is being continuously watched. Arrangements have been made recently to move the referee's office in Grand Rapids, Mich., from the present rented quarters into the Federal building there about February 1, 1948. Whenever plans for new court quarters are being discussed by the Administrative Office with the Public Buildings Administration in reference to a building program when public construction is resumed, it is the policy to request that quarters be provided for the referees in bankruptcy, and provision for this is being made by the Public Buildings Administration.

PRINTING AND BINDING

Mr. STEFAN. You are asking for an increase of $8,000 in printing and binding.

Mr. COVEY. Yes. That is due primarily to the increase in the volume of business. Understand, we furnish to the referees all of their forms and all of their envelopes that they have to mail out. Mr. STEFAN. Prices have gone up?

Mr. COVEY. The price has gone up.

OTHER CONTRACTUAL SERVICES

Mr. STEFAN. What are other contractual services? I see that you want an additional $17,500.

Mr. COVEY. That is primarily for the publication of first meeting notices in bankruptcy cases. Those costs have gone up, and that appropriation is very sorely pressed at this time for this year.

SUPPLIES AND MATERIALS

Mr. STEFAN. Why do you want a $10,000 increase in supplies and materials?

Mr. COVEY. That is for the supplies that we furnish to the referees in bankruptcy.

Mr. STEFAN. What kinds of supplies?

Mr. COVEY. Papers, letterheads, and other paper-all kinds of supplies that they use in their offices.

EQUIPMENT

Mr. STEFAN. Here is a $10,300 increase for equipment, making a total for equipment of $35,000, as compared with $24,700 last year. Why is that?

Mr. COVEY. One of the principal items is law books. We have endeavored to furnish each referee with a minimum amount of equipment, and that appropriation at the present time is very sorely pressed. The money goes for typewriters, desks, bookcases, and all sorts of equipment of that kind; also adding machines, calculating machines, and so forth. All of that equipment has gone up very substantially.

TIME REQUIRED FOR REFEREE SYSTEM TO BECOME SELF-SUSTAINING

Mr. STEFAN. Let me ask you this question: When do you think this referee system in bankruptcy will become self-sustaining, as has been represented to this committee?

Mr. COVEY. I can only give you my best judgment. I believe this fiscal year 1948 we shall be able to return on the advancements somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 to $150,000 to the salary fund and somewhere between $200,000 and $250,000 to the expense fund. That is just an estimate. That is my best estimate and my best judgment as I sit here now..

Mr. STEFAN. Do you expect to seek any direct appropriation next year?

Mr. COVEY. For the fiscal year 1949; yes.

Mr. STEFAN. I am talking about the next fiscal year 1950.

Mr. COVEY. All I can say is that if the volume of business increases at the rate at which we anticipate it will, the system should be selfsustaining in 1950, and I will say further than that, if we get that anticipated volume of business we will be able that year to liquidate any and all advancements that have been made. That is my best judgment.

Mr. CHANDLER. I simply want to say that these payments into the Treasury, to which Mr. Covey referred, will be in addition to the full payment of the appropriations from the special fund for the current year. So if $150,000 should be paid into the Treasury on account of the appropriation of $350,000, that would mean that the total, for instance, as far as salaries are concerned, would be $500,000. Mr. STEFAN. The committee just wants to know if you are going to ask for a direct appropriation next year. Is it dependent upon the business?

Mr. COVEY. It is dependent not only on the volume, but also on the size of the cases handled. I think that there has been a material change in the size and type of case that has come into court.

Mr. STEFAN. How do the lawyers and the courts, generally, take to this program?

Mr. COVEY. So far as I know, they are very well satisfied. I have here just an extract of two very short paragraphs that I took out of the Commercial Law League Journal.

Mr. STEFAN. We will insert that in the record.

(The statement referred to is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF REFEREE SAMUEL C. DUBERSTEIN, OF BROOKLYN, N. Y., TAKEN FROM THE COMMERCIAL LAW LEAGUE JOURNAL, NOVEMBER 1947 ISSUE

I might say parenthetically at this time that from my observation of the law the new referee system will be self-sustaining if there is only an increase of between 15 to 25 percent in the volume of business for the year 1947-48 over that of the year 1946-47. I am talking about the fiscal year commencing July 1. * * *

As you all know, we are now on a salary basis as distinguished from a fee system, and, I am sure I am expressing the sentiment of all referees throughout the country when I say that this association again is entitled to thanks and gratitude for its efforts in procuring this new system which was finally adopted after long years of hard work.

TYPES OF CASES GOING INTO BANKRUPTCY

Mr. STEFAN. You are also going to put into the record the type of cases that are going into bankruptcy.

Mr. COVEY. I cannot give you too much detail, because we do not have the information except as the title of the case indicates. We can give you that by title for the last 4 months.

Mr. STEFAN. Give us what you can for the record so that we can look over the record and get some idea of how this is going to affect the economy of the country.

Mr. COVEY. The name does not always indicate the type of business. Mr. STEFAN. Give us what you can.

Mr. COVEY. Yes

(The information requested will be furnished to the committee.)

TRENDS IN BANKRUPTCY

Mr. HORAN. I would like to impress upon you, Mr. Covey, that it is entirely possible a prior study of bankruptcy trends might be especially helpful-particularly to a Congress sitting at the seat of a government which at least indicates a desire to help small business to weather financial storms. Often we are asked to pass on legislation to augment the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and support prices for this and that, and unusual credit ventures that may or may not be desirable. We would like to have all this information.

Mr. COVEY. Might I just say a word about that. The latest compiled figures we have on that are for the fiscal year 1947. That is, ending last June. They have been compiled. They are now at the Government Printing Office being printed and will be issued shortly. We cannot get a record of the individual case until it is concluded. We cannot get the information while the case is pending because we do not know what the assets are going to amount to whether it is a little case or a large one. We get the records for filing, the record of the type and location, where the case comes from, and we get that at the beginning. Then when the case is closed we get a complete financial statement. Those are tabulated annually.

Mr. HORAN. Would it not be possible to expand that exploration so we could understand something about the nature of the cases? Mr. COVEY. I would rather ask Mr. Shafroth, whose section compiles the statistics, to get the figures on the cases which were closed within this 4-month period.