In closing this statement, I think it is appropriate for me to repeat a statement which I made to the Congress 17 years ago, February 17, 1932, apropos of this sort of legislation. I said:

We may frankly admit the practical difficulties of such reorganization. Not only do different factions of the Government fear such reorganization, but many associations and agencies throughout the country will be alarmed that the particular function to which they are devoted may in some fashion be curtailed. Proposals to the Congress of detailed plans for the reorganization of the many different bureaus and the independent agencies have always proved in the past to be a signal for the mobilization of opposition from all quarters which has delayed and destroyed the possibility of constructive action.

That same phase is before us at this moment. Until there can be some initiative of the President, I see little hope of reorganization.

The CHAIRMAN. This bill, Mr. Hoover, is to be permanent legislation? There has been some discussion as to whether or not it should be limited to the term of the President and then a new bill drawn as a new President comes in. Can you give us your opinion on that subject, sir?

Mr. HOOVER. My opinion is that it ought to be permanent legislation because the executive branch of the Government is a constantly changing body. We need no better proof of that than the growth in the number of agencies from 350 to 1,800. I would expect for a constant shift in the focus of government giving emphasis to first one type of action and then to another, with the development of new phases of such action, all of which must be constantly refitted into the whole pattern of the executive branch.

This is not just one action of one administration or one President, it is a continuous operation. As long as the Congress has the veto, I do not see that there is any great danger in conferring such a power. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Holifield.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Mr. Hoover, I noticed in your testimony that you said that there should be no exemptions to this act. You are familiar, of course, with the language of H. R. 1569. It designates the courts of the District of Columbia and the Comptroller General's Office in that particular bill as not being included in the reorganization power delegated to the President.

Do you consider that those two designations are actually exemptions?

Mr. HOOVER. My assumption is, as to the courts of the District of Columbia, that they are part of the judicial arm. This bill is concerned with the executive arm of the Government. The courts do not fall within the executive arm. If anybody wants to put in an exemption of the Supreme Court, I suppose it would be appropriate, but I do not think it is necessary.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Would your reasoning be the same on the General Accounting Office as not being an arm of the executive branch?

Mr. HOOVER. It is not an arm of the executive branch. It is an arm of the Congress.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Therefore, that particular section of the bill is excess verbiage, is it not?

Mr. HOOVER. That is my view.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. The reason we are interested in that is this: The argument has been made before this committee that in view of the fact that those two exemptions are noted there, that other exemptions

should be allowed. Therefore, I think, in the presentation of this bill to the Congress, that that particular language could be stricken, to get one agency or another exempted-they would not have that to lean upon.

Mr. HOOVER. I do not think there is any merit in this exemption to start with. It is not apropos the legislation; I do not see any reason why it should not be stricken out.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. We have had some newspaper talk about exemption of the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Interstate Commerce Commission. Has your Commission recommended that those agencies be either abolished or merged with other departments?

Mr. HOOVER. No, no; and I do not think anyone has any idea of doing anything of the kind. They have executive functions that ought to be taken away from them and put in the executive arm, but not their fundamental function of quasi-legislative and judicial action. I do not think anyone has ever considered such an idea.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. So then, the writing of that exemption into the bill would not be necessary under ordinary circumstances.

Mr. HOOVER. I do not think it has any practical necessity to start with, and in any event it makes great difficulties in any legislation to enable the President to take over their executive functions. Mr. HARDY. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Yes; briefly.

Mr. HARDY. In that connection, then, would you consider that an appropriate exemption could be put in this legislation with respect to the judicial or legislative provisions of those agencies?

Mr. HOOVER. Well, I do not think it is at all necessary. As a matter of practice, it all comes up for veto by the Congress, and if you found anything that vitally undermines the independence of the two other arms of the Government, you no doubt would take note of it in your action on the veto.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. You realize, I suppose, that the members of this committee have been receiving quite a bit of pressure for different bureaus-that always happens.

Mr. HOOVER. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. I want to question you particularly in regard to the changing of the status of the Army Corps of Engineers in their civil functions. We have had probably more pressure, more telegrams and letters and personal intervention on the part of that particular agency than any other that I can think of.

Mr. HOOVER. I think if the Congress starts to make exemptions of what are obviously executive agencies, there will be no end to the exceptions that will be taken and the whole of this legislation will break down. It is all or nothing.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. I want to ask you, going into the merit of that particular reservation, would it not be true that the Army Corps of Engineers could acquire the same skills which it acquires through practice and also retain its same autonomy of administration if it functioned under the public works department, we will say, if there was a public works department, as it now does in its function under the Secretary of Defense?

Mr. HOOVER. Personally, I think that is the case; the Commission has come to no decision about the matter. My own personal view is that if it was desirable to consolidate some of the operations of the Army engineers with other civilian construction activities, then the Army engineers could be transferred for services to any such agency. As a matter of fact-my recollection may be faulty-I think there are only about 185 engineers involved in the flood-control and rivers and harbors improvement. There are some 1,500 civil engineers and 32,000 civil employees; so that it cannot constitute any vast military university.

The training of Army engineers would seem to me to be in a better setting where they could have a wider range of activities than purely on water works; so that I have never thought that argument weighed very much.

I may tell you that I proposed that very thing in 1931 so that it is not new with me.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. I realize that you have had experience along that line and also in the engineering field, and that is why I think your testimony on this particular point is very valuable.

For clarification of the record, I again want to ask you this question: Would it not be possible to retain the supervision of our different waterway projects by the Army Corps of Engineers and have them responsible in the first instance to, let us say, the Department of Public Works, if one is established, or the Department of the Interior as it now exists; in other words, they could, could they not, get the same experience and do the same work without losing their identity? Mr. HOOVER. Certainly. That is entirely possible and that has been recommended by our task forces.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Leaving that point for a moment-this is a little bit aside from the point of the bill, but still it could become a Presidential recommendation, regarding the raising of compensation for the top officials in the executive branch.

Mr. HOOVER. It is a rather complicated problem. We, as a Commission, have already stated that we believe that the top executives in the Government must have larger remuneration if we are to attract the quality of administrative skill into the Government that we We are faced with a considerable increase at top levels.

I do not want that statement to go alone. The Congress has increased the pay levels of people receiving $5,000 a year and under, I think by something over 50 percent. It has not increased the pay levels above by more than, I think, about 12 percent. I would not be quite sure of the accuracy of those figures. But in any event, that group has been entirely neglected. The result is that the Government is losing the very best of top officials from its administration. It is one of the matters that Congress will have to face, either through Presidential initiative or through its own legislation.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Would you apply that same line of reasoning to the top people in the judiciary and in the legislative branch?

Mr. HOOVER. There you are out of my field. I am dealing with the executive. You gentlemen will have to deal with the legislative and the judicial branches. My own personal impression is that due to the heavy taxes and the greatly increased cost of living, we have seriously embarrassed the officials all through the Government. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Hoover.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hoffman.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Is it correct to state that in your opinion the failure to obtain effective reorganization has been due to the refusal of Congress to act on plans sent down?

Mr. HOOVER. If you mean plans that were sent down as the result of the 1939 legislation, I would not say that has been failure. The period of general refusal was before. I think every President from Taft down until my time appointed commissions, investigations, and made recommendations to the Congress to do this, that, and the other. The very moment that you propose the reorganization, or the relocation or change in any particular agency, up comes the same phenomena which I mentioned this morning. If you propose to change 15 agencies at once, you get the opposition multiplied by 15 right away. The result is that Congress hitherto has not been able to solve the problem by taking the initiative itself. This idea that the President takes the initiative and Congress have the veto power seemed to be about the only practical solution.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Then the failure to act, we may say, is due to the pressure brought to bear upon the Congress by the various. departments?

Mr. HOOVER. It is partly the departments, but a great deal the various interests throughout the country. You have to bear in mind that a very large portion of the Government functions have some relation to special segments of the public. There is usually an association that supports each major bureau. The bureaus bring them all to bear on the Congress, so that it is not entirely the pressures of the agencies alone.

Mr. HOFFMAN. So, to obviate that difficulty, this plan, this bill proposes that the President submit a plan and then, unless each House acts affirmatively within the 60 days, it shall be the law of the land? Mr. HOOVER. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Now, in your statement, on page 4, after calling attention to the recommendation which you sent down in 1931, and had that been adopted we would probably not have this problem before us today, you state:

But the Congress of that time reversed the veto idea to a requirement of affirmative action by the Congress.

Now, as a matter of fact, the Congress did not at that time require affirmative action on the part of Congress, did it?

Mr. HOOVER. Yes; that bill proposed that we should proceed by way of Executive orders, as does this program, outlining the plan and the submission of those Executive orders to the Congress. The proposal was that if they had not been acted on in 60 days, then they would become effective.

Congress changed that proposal to the effect that if it did not act affirmatively within 60 days, then the Executive orders had no force. So it amounted to a complete reversal of the idea.

Under that act, as I mentioned above, I submitted a reorganization plan; then we received mass opposition of all of the various agencies concerned, and nothing happened.

Mr. HOFFMAN. But at that time, the plan did not require affirmative action by the Congress in the sense that there was written into the plan, as sent down by you, a requirement that the President should act, yes or no, on the plan, did it?

Mr. HOOVER. Not quite. You are right about that. But the act of Congress passed at that time stated that unless Congress took affirmative action in 60 days, then the Executive orders had no weight.

Mr. HOFFMAN. But if in this bill as it is written here today, in lieu of section 6, we substituted a section providing that the Congress, when the plan came down, each House must, within 60 days, take some action; would that not obviate the difficulty that has been experienced before and still fall within the constitutional method of legislating? Mr. HOOVER. Well, I do not think it has the same force from a practical point of view. I would not want to argue the constitutional question, but my impression is that it is no derogation of the legislative authority of the Congress. The fact is, the Congress has the power to go even further than this proposel and authorize the President to do all this right out of hand.

Mr. HOFFMAN. I am not attempting to make any argument about the constitutionality of the present process at this time, or procedure at this time; what I am asking it whether or not, if the bill in so many words required the Congress, within 60 legislative days, to take action upon the bill, if you prefer, a vote upon the bill, would that not give us all the benefits that the present procedure does?

Mr. HOOVER. I do not think it has very much practical weight in getting results. I do not know how one Congress can bind another Congress to take a vote.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Congress binds itself every session by rules and it may bind itself, of course, by legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lanham.

Mr. LANHAM. Mr. Hoover, I notice the bill gives the right even to create a new executive department, the head of which would have. Cabinet status. Don't you think that is going a little bit too far and that legislation of that weight should be initiated by the Congress?

Mr. HOOVER. There you get into the difficulty of precise limitations which are hard to define. The whole program, in all its essentials, requires the President to build whatever he builds out of the existing timber. It does not give him new timber to build anything with; no new functions in the Government.

The fact of the case is, the implication of the bill, is a reduction of agencies and functions so that if the President sets up a new executive department, it would have to be made out of existing functions.

The difference between someone who is called an administrator and one who is called a secretary is about the total effect. You have that in the case of welfare agencies today. The administrator has about all of the functions that a Cabinet officer would have except the title.

Mr. LANHAM. Leaving that point, we have had lots of pressure put upon us by the Marine Corps and other branches of the armed services with the idea that the President might, under the provisions of this bill, further reorganize the armed services and merge, for instance, the Marines, with the Army and probably eliminate the Naval Air Force.

I would just like to know whether or not your task forces are going to recommend anything like that, if you care to disclose it at this time. Mr. HOOVER. They have not favored anything of that character. I assume if the President was going to make such a violent change

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