REORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1949 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a. m., in the committee room of the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, Hon. William L. Dawson (chairman) presiding. Present: Hon. William L. Dawson, Chet Holifield, Hon. Henderson Lanham, Hon. Porter Hardy, Jr., Hon. Frank M. Karsten, Hon. John W. McCormack, Hon. Herbert C. Bonner, Hon. George G. Sadowski, Hon. Walter B. Huber, Hon. John A. Blatnik, Hon. Robert L. Coffey, Jr., Hon. M. G. Burnside, Hon. Richard Bolling, Hon. Clare Hoffman, Hon. Robert F. Rich, Hon. Ralph Harvey, Hon. Harold O. Lovre. Also present: Hon. William M. Whittington, Hon. E. C. Gathings, Hon. Tom Pickett, Hon. Hale Boggs. Chairman DAWSON. The committee will come to order. We have met for the purpose of further consideration of H. R. 1569, a bill providing for the reorganization of Government agencies in the executive departments. Chairman DAWSON. We are indeed honored to have with us this morning a former member of this committee, one who in the past has discussed this reorganization bill, studied it from all angles. He appears before us today as a witness, and I now ask Congressman Whittington of Mississippi to present his testimony. Those of us who have not served with the committee very long and who have read the proceedings of past sessions of this committee, certainly admired the great work and interest that Mr. Whittington, as a member of this committee, did show in its meetings. I am happy to have you testify on this subject at this time, Mr. Whittington. STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. WHITTINGTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI Mr. WHITTINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I am obliged to you. My background, as has been indicated here, is as a Representative of the Third District of Mississippi. As a former member of this committee, I am generally familiar with the Reorganization Acts previously passed by the Congress, beginning with the Overman Act of 1918 which continued, in effect during the First World War until the cessation of hostilities and the declaration of peace. 63 The Reorganization Act, the first of the Economy Acts of June 30, 1932, as amended on March 3, 1933, and finally on March 20, 1933, the terms of which Reorganization Act expired within 2 years after the last date. With the Reorganization Act of 1939, with the power of reorganization in the First War Powers Act, and finally, in the Reorganization Act of 1945 when, as a member of this committee, I was one of the conferees on that bill, I have had occasion, as the chairman has indicated, to discuss reorganization, the principles of which I favor, not only as a former member of this committee, but as a Member of the House of Representatives for the past 24 years. I favor effective reorganization as contemplated by the provisions of H. R. 1569. I believe, in accordance with announcements that I previously made, and arguments that I have previously submitted to the committee and to the Congress, that the framework of the pending bill is the only basis for effective reorganization. For 30 years, we have talked about reorganization. The fact is that Congress has not reorganized. The further fact is that the Presidents, from time to time, have asked that they be given power that can be accorded to them under the Constitution, with the proper framework, with the proper declaration of policy, yardsticks, and standards to reorganize. With deference, my complaint is that neither the Congress in the first instance, does it have the power by legislation, nor generally the executives have power within specified limitations and yardsticks have not been reorganized. I know of no more difficult governmental problem. Merely regrouping, merely putting together existing executive agencies under a declaration to eliminate duplication or waste and extravagance, become empty and hollow declarations because there can be no effective reorganization to promote economy and to provide for efficiency unless agencies-and that means Government employees-are eliminated from the pay rolls and notwithstanding their declarations and notwithstanding the policies of Congress, the most difficult thing that the legislature has to do; and I have found the most difficult thing that the Executive, the President of the United States, has to do is to provide effective reorganization to promote economy and efficiency because that means eliminating from the pay rolls the employees of the Government. As stated, I believe that efficiency in reorganization contemplated by the pending bill should contain no exceptions. I am realistic. I understand that spokesmen for the administartion have said that exemptions should be made in the bill before it is reported. Among other agencies, it has been suggested that the Federal Trade Commission, that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission as a quasi-judicial agency should be exempt from the provisions of this bill. For whatever my opinion may be worth, I believe that more effective reorganization can generally be made by declaration of principles without exemption. But we are realistic. I appear to say, Mr. Chairman, that if there ought to be exemptions in this bill, covering any of the executive agencies and there are functions of those agencies that I do not think should be abolished-but with deference to the views of others in the matter of, for instance, the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Commission, there are certain duties that hey discharge, not fundamental to rate making, not fundamental for the purpose for which that Commission was established some 60 years ago, that might well be transferred to other agencies and thus relieve that Commission for performance of their fundamental function, rate making: for instance, safety appliances, which I understand takes a lot of the time of that Commission, may be transferred to another agency and thus that Commission be given time as well as the authority for its fundamental function. There are two or three things I would say in this connection. The defect in the Reorganization Act of 1939 was the failure to give to the Executive the power to abolish functions. That is covered by the pending bill because there is the power in the pending bill, as I understand, to abolish function. Secondly, I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that it is going to be most difficult to pass the pending bill, or any pending bill with authority in the President of the United States to establish an executive department as distinguished from an executive agency, and by executive department I mean departments with Cabinet status. That was tried by President Hoover; a great administrator he was; but the most disastrously defeated reorganization plan that has ever been submitted by any Executive to the Congress of the United States was the reorganization plan submitted by President Herbert Hoover in 1932, in December. It was considered by the Congress and disastrously defeated. I call attention to two or three matters in connection with that reorganization that are pertinent to the bill under consideraion. It provided for the establishment of, as I recall, the Department of the Interior as a Department of Public Works, and Congress said, while we may not abolish, while we may not coordinate, we think the Congress should have the power and the final say when it comes to the establishment of an executive department of the Government. One thing more: in the Reorganization Act of 1932, passed at the same time, when there was widespread unemployment and when this country faced the greatest crisis that it ever faced in peacetime, during the latter days of the administration of President Hoover, under the power of that first Economy Act of 1932, there were no exemptions, substantially none. Congress had made certain reorganizations in the various economy acts; but President Hoover not only undertook to establish a new executive department of the Government, but among others, he undertook to abolish the function of the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army. I say, Mr. Chairman, that if there ought to be exemptions, I know of no agency of the Government that with its record of 160 years has, by its effective service, by its ability in service in time of war and peace, that is entitled, more entitled to exemption than the function of the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army. George Washington, himself an engineer, first used, in the early days of his administration, the military engineers of the Government for civil functions, and since the days of George Washington, in peacetime, the Corps of Engineers, without duplicating the work done by other executive agencies, has performed our flood control and our rivers and harbors improvements, with an unsurpassed and unexcelled record of efficiency, and without corruption. So that I say, the Congress of the United States, either in the consideration of the reorganization proposal or plan of 1932, or at any other time, either by delegated authority to the President, within constitutional limitations, has ever approved the abolition of the functions of the Corps of Engineers. At this time, Mr. Chairman, following the precedent that has been invoked for a hundred years, long before many of the other executive agencies were established, I think it would be most unwise to report any reorganization bill with any exceptions or exemptions unless those exceptions include the function of the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army. There is a reason for it. They are essential in times of war. They build the railroads; they construct the bridges. They are the vanguard of our armies. I know of no agency more responsible for winning World War II, and in World War I, than the Corps of Engineers of the United States. They make large expenditures. Waste characterizes war. And if these engineers who are to spend our money in works to prepare for the advances of the Army, and for the Navy, for our air fields-if they are to have the experience that engineers must have, in order to prevent waste they ought to be given an opportunity to have experience in times of peace because the experience of the Corps of Engineers in civil works, in times of peace, has been of incalculable value in the prosecution of war. When we are considering a budget of $15,000,000,000 now for preparation, if, in previous reorganization acts, as was the case in the Reorganization Act of 1939, they were specifically excepted; if, following World War II they were excepted, as they were in the act of 1945, it does occur to me that under the precedent and in reason, if there are, I repeat, to be any exceptions, that no agency of the Government should be entitled to prior consideration in the matter of exemptions than the Corps of Engineers, and if there is to be a single exemption, in my judgment the Corps of Engineers should be exempt from provisions of this bill. I might cite the names of the former members of the Corps of Engineers who were the aides utilized by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in the European theater, and by General MacArthur in the Pacific area, and in India and across the Himalayas into China. But I will conclude, if you will permit, my general statement by saying that it was none other than Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower who made the statement, and I quote: The rivers and harbors program does more to train our engineers in the large concepts by which they perform their wartime mission than could any other field of endeavor. When the peace of the world is being repeatedly threatened, and the taxpayers are being called upon to spend $15,000,000,000, probably more, it does occur to me that in all plans for reorganization we should give consideration to the preservation intact of that one agency of the Government among all the oldest of all the functions committed to it by George Washington, and his successors in office, the Corps of Engineers, so that the people of the country may have the benefit of the training and experience that can only come as a result of actual construction in times of war. I therefore conclude by saying that in the pending bill, as a realist, as a Member of Congress having had to do with public works, former |