TESTIMONY OF LEO B. HELZEL, FORMERLY CHIEF TIME INSPECTOR, WOLF CREEK ORDNANCE PLANT, MILAN, TENN.

PERSONNEL PROBLEMS

The CHAIRMAN. Give your name and connections to the reporter, please, Mr. Helzel.

Mr. HELZEL. My name is Leo B. Helzel. I was formerly employed as chief time inspector of the Quartermaster Corps. I was stationed at the Wolf Creek ordnance plant, Milan, Tenn.

Mr. FUTON. When did you arrive on the project?

Mr. HELZEL. I arrived on the project on March 14, 1941.

Mr. FULTON. Did you in connection with your work get to know a Mr. Oscar Miller?

Mr. HELZEL. I did, sir.

Mr. FULTON. Who was handling personnel for the contractors?
Mr. HELZEL. Yes, sir.

Mr. FULTON. Do you have any idea how many men he brought on this job from other jobs?

Mr. HELZEL. Well, it would be a very difficult amount to name, and all I could name would be an approximate amount, anywhere from 500 to 1,000 employees, including craftsmen and administrative workers, were taken by him as personnel director from the Camp Blanding job in Florida.

Mr. FULTON. That is by a different contractor with Starrett Bros. & Eken, but he had worked on that job under the Starrett Bros. firm. Mr. HELZEL. That is correct, sir.

Mr. FULTON. On the 20th of June, did you submit a report to Mr. Thomas, the last witness, with respect to your work?

Mr. HELZEL. I believe so, sir.

Mr. FULTON. Is this a copy of it? Tell us whether these are copies of papers that you are familiar with in your work there. Are those papers that you were familiar with in your work there?

Mr. HELZEL. Yes, sir.

Mr. FULTON. With respect to that report that you made to Mr. Thomas, I will quote various parts of it, and I would like to have your comments. You say, "There was no check of the pay rolls for the validity of persons working on the project for the contractor as to the effective date, classification, or salaries." What did you mean by that?

(The report referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 203" and is included in the appendix on p. 3351.)

Mr. HELZEL. That was prior to the time that I entered on duty with the Quartermaster Corps. The pay rolls were being submitted to my office for preaudit and postaudit prior to the vouchering for reimbursement. Well, when Mr. McCarran was chief time inspector for the Government-that was my predecessor who later was transferred to the contractor's pay roll on my arrival

Mr. FULTON (interposing). Let's see. Do you mean that the contractor hired the Government's chief time inspector and put him on the contractor's pay roll?

Mr. HELZEL. That is correct, sir.

Mr. FULTON. Did he do that at a higher salary?

Mr. HELZEL. Yes; he was put on at $1,700 a year more than he received when he was with the Government.

Mr. FULTON. How long had he been with the Government?

Mr. HELZEL. He had been with the Government approximately a month at the plant prior to the time that I came.

Mr. FULTON. So that while he was working for the Government for 1 month he was negotiating a $1,700 a year raise to be paid by the contractor and reimbursed by the Government?

Mr. HELZEL. That is correct, sir. I believe that that is correct due to the fact that the day I arrived there his resignation was waiting for the signature or the acceptance of the constructing quartermaster. Mr. FULTON. Would he be entitled to annual leave?

Mr. HELZEL. That has been a disputed item. At other ordnance plants and governmental agencies that I have worked at, the moment that a man went on a reimbursable basis with the contractor he was cut off from annual leave. However, he was continued on my pay roll for about a month and a half or more after the time he had assumed duty and collected salaries with the Ferguson-Oman Co.

Mr. FULTON. So that he not only got a $1,700 wage increase at the expense of the Government through the contractor, but he got double salary for a month and a half after he resigned from the Government pay roll and during which he was on the contractor pay roll? Mr. HELZEL. That is correct, sir.

Senator HATCH. Why was that? You were the timekeeper. You knew he was on the other job.

Mr. HELZEL. My authority ran only as far as the field auditor. I presented the facts to the field auditor. The field auditor presented the facts to the constructing quartermaster. The constructing quartermaster just pigeonholed the whole matter. That is as far as we could go. We have communications directing that to his attention.

Mr. FULTON. You are one of the men who asked to be transferred from this project?

Mr. HELZEL. That is correct, sir.

Mr. FULTON. Will you tell us why?

Mr. HELZEL. Well, it was like running up an iced hill-you were getting nowhere in a hurry. There is a certain amount of pride and pleasure in being a Government employee, in seeing that your job is right, a certain amount of patriotism in doing the work, and also quite a fear that the whole thing might be laid in your lap later on. So you would like to sleep nights with the understanding that you are doing a good job, that your work is being appreciated, and that there is some future to it.

The CHAIRMAN. Did the constructing quartermaster have any relatives on the contractor's pay roll?

Mr. HELZEL. The constructing quartermaster had at one time his father, aged 71, on the contractor's pay roll.

Senator HATCH. What did he do?

Mr. HELZEL. He was general foreman in charge of water barrels. Senator HATCH. What was his salary?

Mr. HELZEL. $40 per week.

Senator HATCH. $40 per week? General foreman in charge of water barrels?

Mr. HELZEL. Yes, sir.

Senator HATCH. Was there work to do in that connection?

Mr. HELZEL. There was work to do. The only man on the time check was actually seen doing work. He was pretty conscientious. The CHAIRMAN. I understand that there were also other people on the contractor's pay roll at the suggestion of Major Brewer, some of them even under assumed names. Do you know about that?

Mr. HELZEL. Well, I don't know definitely of any instance of Major Brewer's relatives under assumed names, with the exception of his sister-in-law, working for the Government. And the only assumed name that I ran across on the pay roll was that of my predecessor, McCarran. I don't know whether it was her assumed name or her maiden name, but she was working for him at $35 a week in addition to receiving a salary from the Government and from the contractor. He had his wife working for him at $35 a week under the name of Selma Schultze.1

The CHAIRMAN. On two salaries from the Government, then, really. Mr. HELZEL. That is right.

Mr. FULTON. Was the project labor man, Mr. Miller, the representative of the contractor, asked to see to it that she was released from employment?

Mr. HELZEL. He was asked to see to it that she was released. However, to my knowledge she wasn't released at the time that I left the project on August 5.

Mr. FULTON. Was she transferred to a different position?

Mr. HELZEL. I think that she was transferred from a personal office to Mr. McCarran's office on the switch.

Mr. FULTON. That is the predecessor of yourself that you were speaking about?

Mr. HELZEL. That is right.

Mr. FULTON. I note you say here also, the office force at the time you took over from your predecessor was working, on the average, 2 days per week, and the field force working 1 day per week [reading from "Exhibit No. 203"]:

It was a strict embarrassment to the members of the office of the chief time inspector to be caught doing nothing, but the situation prevailed where no instructions had been given them as to what they were supposed to do. A portion of my office was working for other parts of the plant.

What is your comment with respect to that?

Mr. HELZEL. Well, Mr. McCarran was actually working for the contractor at the time that he was still on the Government pay roll, I have been told. Not knowing what the situation was when I got there, I had to take information from the people in the office. However, the condition of the records was very, very poor, and he was known to come into the office only approximately 1 day a week in order to sign vouchers.

Mr. FULTON. And that is the man the contractor hired at Government expense at a $1,700 raise?

Mr. HELZEL. That is correct, sir.

Mr. FULTON (reading from "Exhibit No. 203"):

The attitude of the contractor's employees of the pay-roll department and the timekeeping department was that the Government had no right to interfere in the operations of the contractor and that the time department of the Govern

1 See Exhibit No. 204, appendix, p. 3353.

ment should be a very passive organization which had as its purpose the witnessing of pay-roll checks.

Do you mean despite the fact that you had a force working only a few days a week, 2 or 3 days, they didn't use their time to check on the contractor?

Mr. HELZEL. Well, no instructions had been issued by Mr. McCarran, prior to my advent, on what they were supposed to do, except keep warm. When I arrived at the project I found all my employees huddled around a stove. Being a young man, they said, "Well, did you get a job, too?"

I said, "No; I'm your boss." So everybody hopped to in army fashion and it wasn't long before we had organization.

Senator BALL. Who kept time? Was the Government the prime timekeeper on this job, or the contractor?

Mr. HELZEL. The contractor kept time and the Government was supposed to spot check it and preaudit and postaudit it so that they could have an adequate reason for passing the voucher for reimburse

ment.

Senator BALL. What was the procedure on pay rolls? Who had to O. K. them? Did the foreman have to O. K. his own pay roll and certify that the men listed on that pay roll were actually working those days?

Mr. HELZEL. NO. The procedure was for the worker on the job to receive a time card at the beginning of the day. It was signed at the end of the day by the foreman, certifying that the men worked. It was signed twice during the day by the time checker of the contractor who witnessed the men work, and it was then sent over to the timekeeping department for classifying, put into the tabulating department for running on the I. B. M. machines, and the pay rolls were then tabulated from the I. B. M. records.

Senator BALL. Then the foreman on that time card actually did certify that the man was working.

Mr. HELZEL. Well, he saw that the men were working. There was no actual certificate, but there was a place for his signature with the understanding that he witnessed the man work. and the employee was under his supervision.

Senator BALL. Well, I mean, didn't it say something like that on the time card which he signed?

Mr. HELZEL. No; it didn't say anything on the time card that he signed with the exception that it says, "Foreman's name." However, printed on the back of the time card, at my suggestion, was section 35 of the Penal Code, which said that, in essence, if you got out of line and misrepresented the facts, you were subject to a fine of $10,000, I imagine 5 years-I don't know the exact terminology of section 35 of the Penal Code.

Senator BALL. What was the procedure on Government pay rolls? You said your staff was working the office 2 days a week and 1 day a week, but I assumed they were being paid for 6 days.

Mr. HELZEL. They were paid for 6 days and their presence was in the office 6 days, but the actual labor being done prior to my advent was 1 or 2 days.

Senator BALL. Oh, but they actually put in the time?
Mr. HELZEL. They actually put in the time; yes, sir.

Senator BALL. Were Government pay rolls certified that same way, that kind of system on time cards rather than

Mr. HELZEL (interposing). No; Government pay rolls were certified on the basis of the in-and-out sheet, which is common practice in the Government, signing in and signing out, those time sheets being posted to a master pay-roll sheet, from which master pay-roll sheet the governmental pay rolls are made out.

Senator BALL. How about this McCarran, then? You say he was paid by the Government for a month and a half after he quit working for the Government and was working for the contractor? Is that what I understood you to say?

Mr. HELZEL. That is correct.

Senator BALL. Was he certified as working at that time by somebody, or was that supposed to be leave?

Mr. HELZEL. Annual leave accumulated from former work with the Government.

Senator BALL. Oh.

Mr. HELZEL. It is to be noted, however, when one Government employee leaves the Government position with one agency and is picked up by another agency, he does not collect two pay checks, but his annual leave is then transferred.

Mr. FULTON. You continue in your report here to say [reading from "Exhibit No. 203"]:

It has been the policy of the Construction Division of the Quartermaster Corps to have employed on each project only one $9,000 employee on a reimbursable basis. On this project we have three, John McInerney, superintendent of construction; Gilbert Olson, coordinator; and Guy B. Panero, assistant project manager. Construction Division letter No. 73 requests that the Chief of Construction Division or his representative shall be informed by the constructing quartermaster of salaries being paid to chiefs of the administrative departments. No such record has ever gone in to the Chief of the Construction Division. Increases in salaries in the past on employees with the department of the contractor have only needed the approval of the contractor. In this way a man earning $25 per week could be raised to $173 per week without any approval of the constructing quartermaster or the authorities in Washington.

As a matter of fact, one man was so raised, was he not?

Mr. HELZEL. I don't know of anybody's being raised up to $173.04 a week from $25. You didn't have to have the approval of the constructing quartermaster to get a raise. Let's say a man working for $25 could have gotten a raise to $50 just by changing classification. The classifications were approved in March by the constructing quartermaster. I don't know of any particular cases that were.

Mr. FULTON. I notice that the contractor had employed here, including Procter & Gamble as well as the contractor for the construction on this project, 57 men at Government expense who were receiving more than $5,200 a year. Isn't that a very large number of high-salaried men?

Mr. HELZEL. That is an exceedingly large number of high-salaried men. due to the fact that I have been on other ordnance plants for the Construction Division and they didn't have anywhere near the amount of high-salaried employees.

The CHAIRMAN. I want these exhaustive lists of high-powered workmen put in the record at this point.

(The lists referred to were marked "Exhibits Nos. 204 and 205” and are included in the appendix on pp. 3353 and 3356.)