Mr. BENDER. Do you not think we are putting the cart before the horse here? Do you not think we should start at the other end, first? Mr. MEYER. I think you have to start at both ends. I think you have to make your economics and your educational progress go hand in hand. But, as I said, I think the greatest way to produce more wealth is to have people who can produce it. As it is, we are carrying these people without an education. I do not want everyone to have a college education. I think there are tremendous reforms necessary in our educational system. That is another question of a very large nature. What they want for the South now, for the veteran, very badly are vocational schools for the boy, for the veteran who did notfinish his grammar school. They want to fit him either for industry or for agriculture. They haven't got the schools to do it. These men are hanging around with semiskills with which they have come back from the war that do not fit in our civilian production. They have the feeling that they should be able to do something better than dig ditches, which is all that is being offered them, but they have no chance to develop skills.

Mr. BENDER. You know in many of our Northern States, we are providing an education for all of our citizens irrespective of race, color or creed.

Mrs. MEYER. I come from the North too.

Mr. BENDER. You know too that after we provide that education, we then make it impossible for these educated people to obtain the kind of positions they are qualified to hold.

Mrs. MEYER. I think that is because their education is not what it seems. A lot of our education is very superficial stuff. I think if our education were sounder, we would not have these people with a college degree, but with no real education.

Mr. BENDER. I say job opportunities are not there for many of these people who have gotten an education.

Mrs. MEYER. If we get our production going again, there will be some jobs, there will be so many there will not be enough people to do them unless we educate them.

Mr. BENDER. Mrs. Meyer, do you know what is back of this whole program, that is, the idea of saving money, the idea of cutting people off the pay roll and cutting down the Federal pay roll? Do you feel this plan No. 2 that you are advocating will do exactly that; is that correct?

Mrs. MEYER. Do exactly what?

Mr. BENDER. Cut people off pay rolls and save money?

Mrs. MEYER. I do not see the relationship at all. I am trying to strengthen the community and have it a going concern, with education, health, and welfare.

Mr. BENDER. Do you think we are making for a going concern by bankrupting the Federal Government? Do you think you are improving the condition of the average citizen?

Mrs. MEYER. I am trying to save you money through this improve

ment.

Mr. BENDER. Have you analyzed to see how much money will be saved and how many jobs will be eliminated?

Mrs. MEYER. Certainly I have not figured that out in dollars and cents. I know efficient administration is economy.

for any people is to have them well educated. I believe that will do more to have them acquire responsibility of their own to try to get themselves out of one condition which is not good.

Mrs. MEYER. Yes, sir.

Mr. RICH. The more money you give people, the more they will spend it having a good time, and they will not do the things good for

them.

What we want to do is give them an opportunity to go out and work and earn and save and to teach them that they ought to save some of that for their own family benefits, and for their own education instead of trying to give them a hand-out. That is what I want to try to do.

Mrs. MEYER. I agree with you entirely, but people will never save unless they have some sort of educational training. That was the great catastrophe about some of these poor ignorant people who came into the war centers and earned large salaries. I saw them throwing their money around. It is the same with these poor miners. They have got wages; they have not improved their standards one bit, because they are so uneducated, so ignorant, that they do not know better. Saving is a matter of training.

Mr. RICH. Do you belong to any welfare societies?

Mrs. MEYER. I have gotten out of all of them except the Child Wel-fare League of America, and I think I had better get out of that.

Mr. RICH. You had better try to get back into them and try to rectify them.

Mrs. MEYER. I am trying to rectify it by holding up the bad conditions of the country.

Mr. RICH. I hope you can. Your coming here and asking us to put a proposal in without knowing just what it is going to cost this country to start it, and then do not know

Mrs. MEYER. What it costs the country will depend entirely on the Congress. This does not spend a nickel. This simply improves the machinery. So, by chance you wish to spend some money, it will be well spent. What happens about Federal aid after that is entirely up to Congress?

Mr. RICH. We have had a pretty good spending Congress. We are about on the rocks now. I do not know how much further you can go.

Mrs. MEYER. Sir, if you have a department of this sort, you can even administer more effectively the money that you are spending now without voting another cent.

Mr. RICH. There is no mistake about that.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you through, Mr. Rich?

Mr. RICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. BENDER. Regarding this business of education-I read your statement rather hastily-what do we do when we educate people and' then we give them jobs wholly out of line with their educational training and their cultural development?

For example, in a good many of our cities, we educate a lot of people, even give them a college education at taxpayer's expense, and then we give them a job as street cleaner. Do you think we are making him happy?

Mrs. MEYER. I think that happens largely to people who are at disadvantage for other reasons.

Mr. BENDER. Do you not think we are putting the cart before the horse here? Do you not think we should start at the other end, first? Mr. MEYER. I think you have to start at both ends. I think you have to make your economics and your educational progress go hand in hand. But, as I said, I think the greatest way to produce more wealth is to have people who can produce it. As it is, we are carrying these people without an education. I do not want everyone to have a college education. I think there are tremendous reforms necessary in our educational system. That is another question of a very large nature. What they want for the South now, for the veteran, very badly are vocational schools for the boy, for the veteran who did notfinish his grammar school. They want to fit him either for industry or for agriculture. They haven't got the schools to do it. These men are hanging around with semiskills with which they have come back from the war that do not fit in our civilian production. They have the feeling that they should be able to do something better than dig ditches, which is all that is being offered them, but they have no chance to develop skills.

Mr. BENDER. You know in many of our Northern States, we are providing an education for all of our citizens irrespective of race, color or creed.

Mrs. MEYER. I come from the North too.

Mr. BENDER. You know too that after we provide that education, we then make it impossible for these educated people to obtain the kind of positions they are qualified to hold.

seems.

Mrs. MEYER. I think that is because their education is not what it A lot of our education is very superficial stuff. I think if our education were sounder, we would not have these people with a college degree, but with no real education.

Mr. BENDER. I say job opportunities are not there for many of these people who have gotten an education.

Mrs. MEYER. If we get our production going again, there will be some jobs, there will be so many there will not be enough people to do them unless we educate them.

Mr. BENDER. Mrs. Meyer, do you know what is back of this whole program, that is, the idea of saving money, the idea of cutting people off the pay roll and cutting down the Federal pay roll? Do you feel this plan No. 2 that you are advocating will do exactly that; is that correct?

Mrs. MEYER. Do exactly what?

Mr. BENDER. Cut people off pay rolls and save money?

Mrs. MEYER. I do not see the relationship at all. I am trying to strengthen the community and have it a going concern, with education, health, and welfare.

Mr. BENDER. Do you think we are making for a going concern by bankrupting the Federal Government? Do you think you are improving the condition of the average citizen?

Mrs. MEYER. I am trying to save you money through this improve

ment.

Mr. BENDER. Have you analyzed to see how much money will be saved and how many jobs will be eliminated?

Mrs. MEYER. Certainly I have not figured that out in dollars and cents. I know efficient administration is economy.

Mr. BENDER. Do you know that these plans, if they become effective, will cost the taxpayers at least $250,000,000 more?

Mrs. MEYER. I do not know anything about the other two, but it will not cost them a cent as far as organization plan No. 2 is concerned. Mr. BENDER. You believe this. If your husband provides a thousand dollars a year for the running of your household, and you spend five thousand, you are not creating a happy atmosphere and happy condition at home.

Mrs. MEYER. I do not see what that has to do with the reorganization plan.

Mr. BENDER. That is what we are driving at. You see in this reorganization plan the bill that we passed on December 20, lastMrs. MEYER. Which bill is that?

Mr. BENDER. That is the reorganization bill, Reorganization Act of 1945. It says it is the expectation of the Congress to accomplish an over-all reduction of at least 25 percent. That is what this is all about. The Federal Government has been spending too much money. We have had too many people on the pay roll. The idea is to cut people off the pay roll. We can pray and we can pass resolutions and we can attend social meetings, and we can attend religious services, and so on, but unless we have a sound economy, unless this thing is based on a good foundation, we do not get anywhere. It reminds me of the preacher who was getting $800 a year salary. So they met and they unanimously passed a resolution or one of their church decrees or they acted as a congregation to raise his salary from $800 a year to $1,200 a year. He said, "No, you don't; not until you pay me what you owe me."

We are not doing the preacher any good by raising his pay when he is not getting the money that is now coming to him. That is exactly what we are driving at here. We are trying to do good, at the same time have a sound economy.

Mrs. MEYER. I beg your pardon. I am not trying to do good.

I am trying to make our Government more efficient. If a greater efficiency of administration does cut some people off the pay roll, I think that is an excellent thing if they are not needed.

Mr. BENDER. This plan increases the pay roll.

Mrs. MEYER. Reorganization No. 2?

Mr. BENDER. Yes.

Mrs. MEYER. You mean because it suggests a Cabinet officer? If it saves you millions of dollars in the way the money is being administered, it is economy.

Mr. BENDER. That is not all plan No. 2 accomplishes. I cited figures yesterday as to how much more money this plan would cost.

Mrs. MEYER. As I said, I do not know anything about the others. I am willing to have it out with you about plan No. 2 at another time. Mr. BENDER. I will supply you with the information, Mrs. Meyer. I appreciate the fact that you are interested in doing a good job. Please do not misunderstand me. This is not for the purpose of ridicule, but sometimes we propose a plan-for example, in this morning's mail I received two letters, one from an enterprise in Ohio, in which he raised hell about a particular piece of legislation. In the same mail I got a letter from his wife supporting that legislation, from the same family.

Mrs. MEYER. I do not know what the measure was, but I have found the women of the country very often more progressive than their husbands.

Mr. BENDER. Maybe it is progressive for the old man to sweat blood and spend money and provide education for his kids so his kids can sign statements to Members of Congress and disagree with the old man's point of view. I had in my audience in Mansfield, Ohio, a group of fellows who were objecting to some legislation we had here. I had on a petition the names of the children of these men supporting the very thing that these men were objecting to.

Mrs. MEYER. This is purely a business matter of improving the functioning of the Government. If you are a businessman and it costs you something to reorganize your business, you are not going to give it up because it will first cost you something to reorganize, because you know that you are making your whole business more productive. That is what we are doing with the Government.

Mr. GIBSON. Progress is only a process of moving. It is a question of which direction you are moving. A lot of people make progress, but in the wrong direction.

Mr. BENDER. If I reorganize my business and go in the red as a result of that reorganization

Mrs. MEYER. Sir, as a matter of fact, this movement to improve the Federal Government is similarly carrying out in the Federal Government a trend that exists all through the country in the Government. It exists in localities. We have all these agencies, but the poor individual in the community does not know where they are or where to find them. So, the community is establishing a community service center as a clearinghouse. The States are following the same trend. They, too, see that they have to coordinate these facilities to bring them to the people more easily and also to economize in bringing them to the people. Therefore, if we do this in the Federal Government too, we are simply helping a trend that is already powerful all through the country in the locality and in the States, and the States having the real responsibility. I think the Federal Government cannot do less than to help them carry out their responsibilities.

Mr. BENDER. All this costs money.

Mrs. MEYER. Not in a great way. I am sure without having the figures here any more than you have that such costs that may be involved as in any good business will result in economy. I am for economy, sir, every bit as much as you are. I was brought up to be economical.

Mr. BENDER. Do you not feel a great majority of the natives back home are sick and tired of being inspected and wet-nursed and welfared from Washington?

Mrs. MEYER. I do not want to wet-nurse anybody. In making this, their own Government, more efficient as they are doing now, they are taking things in their own hands. The States are making tremendous strides.

Mr. BENDER. Tremendous strides by going in the hole more and

more.

Mrs. MEYER. We are not doing this because we are inventing any. thing; we are doing this in the Federal Government because we are trying to keep up with the people who are already well under way

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