Mr. WHITTINGTON. Do you mean to tell me that you members of the Commission independently investigate 10 of those cases a day down there? Mr. LADNER. No. You probably do not understand me. Mr. WHITTINGTON. I do not. That is the reason I am asking the question. Mr. LADNER. Where there is a question in our minds as to whether the examiner offered the right recommendation, that is where we review the matter. Mr. WHITTINGTON. Did you say 20 a day or 20 a week? Mr. LADNER. About 10 a day; sometimes 20 a day. It will vary. It may run 50 a week, and sometimes it may run 100 a week, depending upon how they come to our desks. Mr. WHITTINGTON. When you return to your office will you look at your file and give the clerk of the committee a letter telling how many applications for review have been handled by you on the average for a week, a month, or a year for the last 5 years? Mr. BENDER. Is it necessary on a quasi-judicial body that the members of that body be lawyers? Does that give them any particular talent? Mr. LADNER. They do not have to be. Mr. BENDER. For example, a legislator like Mrs. Caraway has for many years been making laws and reviewing laws and changing laws, and so did her husband before her. She is pretty well qualified to sit on a body to determine what is legal and what is not. Mr. LADNER. She is very capable and very able, and so is Mrs. Swofford. Both are unusual women. They are not lawyers, as has been said, but they are very well versed in the procedure. Mr. BENDER. Is it not true that on a great many of these quasijudicial bodies a number of the members are not members of the legal profession? Mr. LADNER. That is true. (The following was submitted for the record:) STATEMENT OF ALBERT H. LADNER, JR., COMMISSIONER, UNITED STATES EMPLOYEES' COMPENSATION COMMISSION Congressman Whittington requested information in respect to the number of cases reviewed by the Commissioners of the United States Employees' Compensation Commission, and also in respect to the quasi-judicial nature of the Commission's function. From the questions asked, I have inferred that Congressman Whittington may have had one kind of review in mind, while my response had another. The Commissioners in performing their function directly pass upon the original claims. The paper work in the processing of claims is done by subordinates, who summarize the evidence and any applicable precedents before the Commissioners receive the cases for direct and original decision by them. This is not a review function, as no final decision on a case is made until it has been adjudicated by the Commissioners. The principal and major function the three members perform is to receive and weigh the evidence in the cases, and to make the original decision applying the statute and the principles of workmen's compensation law directly to the cases. The Commissioners in the course of the average week receive and weigh the evidence, and apply legal principles, in approximately 100 to 150 cases these are original decisions. In the course of an average week there may be not more than a half dozen closed cases which are reviewed in the sense : that new evidence is submitted which requires practically a de novo consideration of the evidence. No review of a closed case is conducted in the manner of an appellate board function. Reviews are essentially de novo processes, much like new trials in the same case before a judicial officer. The case load over the past 5 years is distributed as follows: Federal employees. Employees of private enterprise (longshoremen and harbor workers) – Private employees of Government contractors outside the United Total Benefits paid pursuant to Commission's decisions to private employees of private employers-. Benefits paid by the Federal Government to its employees___ The Commissioners' function in Federal cases is solely quasi-judicial; it is the same function any judicial tribunal would exercise in receiving and weighing evidence, and then making a decision which involves the application of legal principles, under findings of fact aud conclusions of law. The Commission's Deputy Commissioners, acting under the authority of the Commission, perform the identical function through more formal procedures, as their transcripts of testimony and decisions must be in form suitable for judicial review as the longshoremen's Act affords. The Comptroller General has held that the Commissioners of the Commission cannot delegate to subordinates their statutory power to make, such decisions. Mr. WHITTINGTON. The next witness is Mr. Samuel J. Hogan. STATEMENT OF SAMUEL J. HOGAN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL MARINE ENGINEERS' BENEFICIAL ASSOCIATION Mr. HOGAN. I have not prepared a brief, but I would like to make a verbal statement and leave with you and the committee the correspondence that I have had with the Secretary of Commerce. The President of the United States has also been furnished copies of it. Mr. WHITTINGTON. What plan do you desire us to permit you to testify about? Mr. HOGAN. Reorganization No. 3. Mr. WHITTINGTON. What feature of that plan? Mr. HOGAN. We oppose the Bureau of Marine Inspection being returned to the Coast Guard. Mr. WHITTINGTON. Where is the Bureau of Inspection at the present time? Mr. HOGAN. Under the Coast Guard. Mr. WHITTINGTON. You oppose its being kept there? Mr. HOGAN. Yes. Mr. WHITTINGTON. What damage or injury has your organization suffered by the fact that it has been under the Coast Guard during the war? ci Mr. HOGAN. I want it to be understood, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we have no fault to find with the Coast Guard's operations during the war. They were given that function as a war measure. Now in peacetime we believe that the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation should be turned back to a civilian function under civilian personnel. Under the Coast Guard it will be under a military operation. I have drawn up here, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, a memorandum that I have submitted to Mr. Henry Wallace, Secretary of Commerce. The membership that I represent consists of 17,000 marine engineers who hold licenses that have been issued to them by the Bureau of. Marine Inspection and Navigation. That membership is desirous of the functions of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation being returned to the Department of Commerce, where it had been for 100 years. Mr. WHITTINGTON. How long was it under the Department of Commerce? Mr. HOGAN. One hundred years. Mr. WHITTINGTON. You do not mean that, because there has been no Department of Commerce for 100 years. Mr. HOGAN. It is close to it. It has been a function of that Department for many years. Mr. WHITTINGTON. I am not arguing that. Mr. HOGAN. From my personal knowledge, 38 years. Mr. WHITTINGTON. It was organized during Wilson's administra tion. Mr. HOGAN. I have copies of the correspondence that I just mentioned. Mr. CHURCH. I ask that his correspondence be made a part of the record. Mr. WHITTINGTON. It may be inserted in the record in connection with your statement. (The correspondence referred to is as follows:) Hon. HENRY A. WALLACE, Secretary, Department of Commerce, MARCH 13, 1945. Department of Commerce Building, Washington 25, D. C. SIR: I am enclosing two bills, S. 1788 and H. R. 4475, introduced in the last Congress which were designed to continue the jurisdiction of the United States Coast Guard over the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation after the war. This jurisdiction was transferred from the Department of Commerce to the Coast Guard until 6 months after the duration by the direction of the Execu-tive Order No. 9083. I am also enclosing a memorandum giving the reasons why the membership of the National Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association is on record in opposition to this legislation. There is reason to believe that similar legislation will be reintroduced during the present session of the Legislature. Our organization would greatly appreciate your support in opposition to any legislation designed to remove the permanent jurisdiction of this Bureau from the Department of Commerce. Respectfully, 1 S. J. HOGAN, President. Mr. S. J. HOGAN, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, OFFICE OF SECRETARY, President, National Marine Engineers, Beneficial Association, Washington 1, D. C. DEAR MR. HOGAN: Due to the unusually heavy demands on Secretary Wallace during this early period in the Department of Commerce, he has requested that I acknowledge your letter of March 13 in which you express interest in the future location of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation. I am sure you will understand that in spite of the Secretary's interest in the; matter, time has not yet permitted him to come to any firm conclusion as to the future location of the Bureau. However, we have opened the subject with the Bureau of the Budget whose responsibility it is to advise the President on such organizational questions as this presents. The Bureau of the Budget will, of course, consider this problem in the light of plans for the ultimate organiza tion of the Government with respect to the performance of transportation and related functions. Mr. Wallace wishes to assure you that he is appreciative of the clear and thoughtful presentation you have made, and he will give it his most careful consideration in formulation of his own policy. Sincerely yours, MEMORANDUM BERNARD L. GLADIEUX, Assistant to the Secretary. In the interest of the membership of the National Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association of America it is my desire to place on record the position of this organization with reference to a matter of vital importance to the members of this association employed on vessels of the United States Merchant Marine: namely, the transfer of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation from the Department of Commerce to the United States Coast Guard, a Bureau that had for a number of years been under the jurisdiction of the Department of Commerce. The transfer of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation was authorized by Executive Order No. 9083 to be effective for the duration of the war and 6 months thereafter. It was assured that after the war the Bureau would automatically revert back to its former place under the Department of Commerce in accordance with the terms of Executive Order No. 9083. On March 20 (legislative day, February 7, 1944) during the second session of the Seventy-eighth Congress, Senator Josiah W. Bailey, of North Carolina, introduced a bill known as S. 1788 which would vest permanently the functions of the former Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation under the Bureau of Customs and the United States Coast Guard. S. 1788 was referred to the Committee on Commerce but no hearings were held and the bill expired with the Seventy-eighth Congress. Under date of March 24, 1944, second session of the Seventy-eighth Congress, Hon. S. O. Bland, chairman of Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, introduced a bill providing for the future status of certain functions and personnel transferred to the United States Coast Guard which was known as H. R. 4475 and referred to the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. No hearings were held on the bill and it too expired with the Seventy-eighth Congress. (Copy of bills enclosed.) We are strenously opposed to any bills or any bill that might be introduced in the Seventy-ninth Congress that would prevent the return of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation to the Department which you now head and fully believe that if an impartial investigation is made it would reveal a large portion of the marine industry concurring with our view. The United States Coast Guard is an old and honored branch of the military forces of our Government and since it is strictly a military organization, being so constituted by law, we fail to see by what right it should be given control of the functions pertaining to the supervision of the merchant marine which is primarily engaged in commercial business. For more than a hundred years the personnel of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation has been selected by the United States Civil Service Commission from among the officers manning United States merchant vessels and has been under civilian control which is as it should be. The Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation manned by personnel selected from the merchant marine with years of seagoing experience was the finest inspectional agency in the world and under its supervision the vessels comprising the United States merchant marine became the safest and most efficient vessels afloat. I quote here a letter from the President of the United States to the Secretary of Commerce dated February 11, 1938, on the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Steamboat Inspection Service which bears eloquent testimony to the above statement. The honorable the SECRETARY OF COMMERCE, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. SECRETARY: It has come to my attention that the year 1938 marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Steamboat Inspection Service. We may therefore consider this year as the centenary of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation. At so important a milepost it is fitting that attention be called to the fact that in the last 3 years United States vessels under the Bureau's inspection have carried some 600 passengers and that only 1 passenger has lost his life in that time. Credit for this achievement is shared by our merchant-marine personnel and by the Inspection Service for which the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation is responsible. To the Department of Commerce, to the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, and its personnel all over the country, I send greetings and congratulations. Very sincerely, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. As as substitute for the trained men who were formerly selected to fill the positions of hull and boiler inspectors in the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation the Coast Guard is now filling these positions with young men without any previous experience in the merchant marine, after a 4-month course at the Coast Guard Academy and a special 5-week training course in the duties of an inspector at a school in New York. Many of the deck and engineer officers of our merchant marine are looking forward to the opportunity of securing shore positions after years at sea, either as port captains or port engineers for the various steamship companies, surveyors for salvage assocnations, classification societies, and as inspectors in the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation. Positions for which they are most admirably qualified due to their intimate knowledge of the operation and maintenance of merchant vessels acquired during their many years of experience in the maritime industry. Had the afore-mentioned legislation been enacted into law, it would have prevented merchant-marine officers from ever having the opportunity of securing positions as United States Government inspectors of merchant-marine vessels since these positions would be filled by United States Coast Guard personnel, a military branch of our Government. In order to expedite the prosecution of the war effort, the President of the United States found it necessary to issue Executive Order No. 9198 on July 11, 1942, amending Executive Order No. 9083, returning the merchant marine training functions which had been placed under the Coast Guard by section 5 of the order of the Administrator of the War Shipping Administration in order that the training of merchant seamen would be under the direction of men who were acquainted and versed in problems of the maritime industry. We feel that the time is now opportune for the return of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation to the Department of Commerce where it rightfully belongs in order that men acquainted with the maritime industry will be in charge of the reorganization of the Bureau. Therefore, in all justice to the seafaring personnel of the United States merchant marine, and in order not to close the door of opportunity for shore positions after years of service at sea, and to help preserve the American democratic way of life, we respectfully request the influence of the Department in the prevention of enactment into law of any legislation that may be introduced during this session of the Senate and House of Representatives that would retain the functions of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation under the United States Coast Guard, and any aid and assistance the Department may offer in our efforts to return the Bureau to the Department of Commerce. Respectfully submitted. S. J. HOGAN, President, National Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association. Mr. HOGAN. I have with us Mr. Warren C. Evans, who would like to be heard. Mr. WHITTINGTON. We will hear from Mr. Evans. STATEMENT OF WARREN C. EVANS, BUSINESS MANAGER, MARINE ENGINEERS' BENEFICIAL ASSOCIATION NO. 13 Mr. EVANS. I do not have a prepared statement. Mr. WHITTINGTON. Let me ask you this question. What civil functions would the Coast Guard have that would prevent their being as |