Senator LA FOLLETTE. I would like to suggest, Mr. Chairman, that it might be worth while to have that report available to the members of the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know the system they pursued, Mr. Brownlow?

Mr. BROWNLOW. They pursued a system that was differentiated with respect to the type of work that they were going to get done. They did not have exactly the same techniques for common labor

and

The CHAIRMAN. Didn't they employ the Civil Service in selecting their personnel?

Mr. BROWNLOW. They had some help from the United States Civil Service Commission. By the way, a considerable treatment of the problem will appear in one of the reports, a memorandum that was made by our staff of the committee which I think goes to the Printing Office probably today or tomorrow and will soon be available.

Senator BARKLEY. The Tennessee Valley Authority had from 125,000 to 140,000 applications for positions soon after they were established. They adopted some method by which they classified all those applications according to the qualifications and experience of the men who were applying-and women, too. They had no rigid civil-service rules, because the civil-service law did not apply to the employees. But, under their guidance they did segregate the applications according to experience or qualifications under some rule that they adopted for their own guidance, and whenever they had a vacancy for an engineer or for any particular position they would go to that part of the list of applicants that fitted into that and they would presumably pick somebody who was qualified to do that work.

Mr. BROWNLOW. All carried on, Senator Barkley, under a single personnel director with personnel agents in each of the several departments, precisely as we recommend our report for the Government of the United States.

Senator BARKLEY. How would you handle a situation like this: Of course, the American people vote every 4 years for somebody and against somebody, and they vote frequently to change the policies of the Government under the leadership of a political party, a candidate; now, soon after the election of 1932, when we tried to inject new blood into the land-bank system so as to make more liberal loans to help the farmers, we found a lot of the agents and examiners under the old Farm Bureau-I mean the old Farm Board or the old Land Bank Administration-absolutely out of sympathy with what was attempted to be done and they discouraged and restricted and threw cold water on applications for loans from farmers deliberately in order to create dissatisfaction with what was going on. Not only that, but I know of many instances where civil-service employees, appointed by a previous administration or previous admininstrations, in the administration of their duties have under cover and secretly, and in other methods of insinuation and innuendo undertaken to discredit what the present administration is trying to do. Now, how would you get rid of that situation under a civilservice rule that would require the President to appoint one of three men? Of course, it could not be expected that the head of the Civil Service organization would be of that type, but certainly if the American people vote for a complete change of policy in gov

ernment, there ought not to be somebody away down the line in that Government who is trying to nullify everything that the administration is attempting to do.

Mr. BROWNLOW. Absolutely, and it is the purpose of making the democratic process effective, and the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box actually effective that is the major foundation of our recommendations with respect to these administrative changes. Now, these examiners you mention in the Farm Credit were not chosen by the merit system. They had been chosen on the political system and they stuck to it.

Senator O'MAHONEY. It worked also under the merit system. Let me add to what Senator Barkley has said. In the Forest Service when the C. C. C. camps were set up at the very outset of the administration, I have personal knowledge of cases in which the civil servants of the Forestry Bureau, appointed under previous administrations, exercised their power to bring about the appointment in the C. C. C. camps of persons who were altogether out of harmony with what the administration was trying to do. I know of whole districts in which the appointment of foremen and other supervisory officials were turned over to the Republican local organization. Mr. BROWNLOW. Under the system

Senator O'MAHONEY. That was by the Civil Service.

Mr. BROWNLOW. That is undoubtedly true, but that is becauseSenator O'MAHONEY. How are you going to get away from that? Mr. BROWNLOW. We believe that this system of personnel administration that we have recommended gets away from that if you once put it into operation, because then in each department you have this personnel division working with your central personnel division, and you get rid of it, just in the same way that favoritism of different kinds has been gotten rid of in large private business organizations which have undertaken this form of personnel administration, as you got rid of it in T. V. A., as you got rid of it in varying degrees in different parts of the Federal Government, and as you got rid of it to a very large extent, if I may use an example of certain sections of the Department of Agriculture, because of the very excellent personnel administration that that Department has had, and as you got rid of it in the Farm Credit Administration after it adopted the merit system-not utterly, but relatively, compared to what it was before and as we got rid of it in the Federal Government itself, in all parts of the Federal Government, if you will contrast the situation today with respect to what it was in 1883.

Nevertheless, there is a primary purpose of making the will of the electorate effective, so that the policy-determining officers certainly ought to be appointed by the President, the responsible political leader, the head of the executive branch, and I believe that he will be judged by this.

If we go to another country-somebody asked awhile ago about another country-take the situation in the British Government as it was in 1854, when the first report was made on this matter, where patronage was not so much a matter of party as it was a matter of a hangover from the feudal system, although it was used for political purposes, worse than anything we have got in this country. After the reform was finally made under Mr. Gladstone in 1870 we have discovered a diminution of that type of sabotage, and we have also

discovered an increasing responsiveness of the policy-determining agents to the decisions made by the electorate.

Representative GIFFORD. Mr. Brownlow, right there you keep referring to the decisions made by the electorate. In order to get sympathetic cooperation with the electorate you will have to have a reorganization of government every time the electorate speaks.

Mr. BROWNLOW. No; only the heads of the departments of the policy-determining agencies. Take the government of the city of New York; how many change with the election? About a hundred. Mr. HESTER. Not as many as that.

Mr. BROWNLOW. Not quite 100 change in the entire government of the city of New York, which employs about 180,000 people.

Representative GIFFORD. Now, Mr. Brownlow, pursuing that-because you say that the electorate having spoken, you should obey the electorate every 4 years the electorate speaks, and if you have solidly planted by civil-service methods all these people, and then you have a new electorate speaking a new opinion, would you not have to reorganize again? What can you do about it?

Mr. BROWNLOW. With the change there should be the change of the policy-determining officers. All of the other positions should be career positions, which are filled by people who are loyal.

Representative GIFFORD. All I am asking you is, If you are going to keep saying you want now to conform to the way the electorate has spoken, are you going to assume that they speak for many years to follow?

Mr. BROWNLOW. I repeat, Mr. Gifford, that the policy-determining officers should be political officers and, in my opinion, should change when the President changes.

Senator BARKLEY. You are talking about these career people. I happened to be over in Europe last summer at a good many capitals, and I found an undercurrent of resentment among Americans over there because a lot of these career men were doing everything they could to discourage the policies of the Government of the United States under this administration. The greatest complaint that was made was that these so-called career people who were not in sympathy with the policies of this Government, from an international standpoint were handicapping and retarding the efforts of this administration to bring about cooperation among the nations in respect to certain policies that it advocated.

Representative GIFFORD. I thank the Senator for that. That is just my point.

Senator BARKLEY. And that might happen, no matter which administration was in office.

Mr. BROWNLOW. When we use the words "career in service" in the sense that it sweeps through this report, we are not confining it to the particular type of career service which is set up for foreign service under the Rogers bill and its limitation.

Representative KNIFFIN. Mr. Brownlow, in the classified civil service it has been my observation that some of the employees down. here are very clever politicians. What effect would the proposal contained in this section have upon that?

Mr. BROWNLOW. I think that the proposals contained in this section would have the effect, as they have had the effect where they

have been put in force, in State and in local governments, to reduce the political contact of the thought of these people. I don't say you can do that overnight, but that has been the experience.

Representative KNIFFIN. Another question: Is it not conceivable under your proposal here for the selection of the administrator, that possibly half of the business and professional people of the country would become applicants and the job of selecting that administrator would become very cumbersome and require a year or 2 or 5 years in order to sift out the most available three out of perhaps a million? Mr. BROWNLOw. I don't think so, because the Government pays for executive ability so much less than private business pays. For instance, I counted the other day-I have forgotten just ma many it is but it is something over 50, and I can check this up-over 50 officers of one corporation I know of in this country who get more than $100,000 a year salary. There are thousands of business executives that get more than $15,000 a year salary. Our newspapers all over the country have been publishing the lists. For the best execu tive to fill this position you have got to go out and get the type of man who is going to make a sacrifice in salary.

Representative KNIFFIN. Of course, I don't know about that; but is it your impression that half of the business and professional people in the country have incomes greater than that contemplated for this administrator?

Mr. BROWNLOW. Half of them of the executive ability required for that job? Oh, more than that have greater salaries than that.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Mr. Brownlow, let me interrupt you, please. Mr. Chairman, I should like to suggest that it seems to me we have gotten a little bit off the track. Mr. Brownlow was undertaking to explain the changes and we have indulged ourselves in a very interesting debate.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; we have engaged in an argument.

Mr. BROWNLOW. Shall I resume?

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead, Mr. Brownlow.

Mr. BROWNLOW. I was being guided by the committee, Senator O'Mahoney.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Yes; I said we indulged ourselves.

Mr. BROWNLOW. Next is title III, which refers to the auditing and accounting agencies. This section, section 306, is amended by adding three sections clarifying the bill with respect to the independence of the office.

The first change comes in section 306, on page 30.

Senator O'MAHONEY. What is the change, Mr. Brownlow?

Mr. BROWNLOW. The change is that subsection (b) provides that the General Auditing Office shall be independent of the executive branch and shall be an agent of Congress. We thought that was already there, and it was there if you read it in connection with the other statutes, but we wanted to make it explicit.

Subsection (c) provides for the appointment of the Auditor General and Assistant Auditor General by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, at the same salaries we have suggested in other parts of the bill for positions of that kind, $15,000 and $12,000, and it follows the wording of section 302 of the Budget and Accounting Act except as to titles and salary. Instead of "Comptroller

General and Assistant Comptroller General" we have "Auditor General and Assistant Auditor General."

Subsection (d) provides for a term of 15 years for both and provides that the Auditor General only shall not be eligible for reappointment.

Representative VINSON. May I inquire why the Auditor General should be confirmed by the Senate?

Mr. BROWNLOW. Undoubtedly, under any circumstances, he should be.

Representative VINSON. Why?

Mr. BROWNLOW. Because he is primarily an agent of Congress. He is appointed by the President for this long term and is removable in the same way exactly. We incorporated by reference the same language which now applies to the Comptroller General.

Representative VINSON. It is your thought that the Congress, speaking through the Senate, should have something to say as to his selection?

Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes. It is very doubtful constitutionally, leaving aside the mechanics, whether the Auditor General or the Comptroller General could be appointed by the Congress itself. Not being appointed by the Congress itself, he is appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and then the removal procedures, whether constitutional or not, are carried forward just as they have been since 1921.

Representative VINSON. What about the gentleman in the Treasury? Is there anything about confirming him by the Senate? Mr. BROWNLOW. No, sir.

Representative VINSON. What is the reason he should not be confirmed by the Senate? It is a very important position, it seems to

me.

Mr. BROWNLOW. It is a very important position, but it is part of the administrative work, and, in our opinion, the head of that Department should be a civil servant, nonpolitical, nonpolicy determining, just as he is in most of the governments of the world. He is an executive agent in the executive branch and should be a career

man.

Representative MEAD. Mr. Brownlow, did your committee give any thought to limiting both the Auditor General and his assistant to one term so that they may not continue the policy for 30 years in that Department?

Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes; the Auditor General is limited to one term. The only change we made is that the Assistant Comptroller General is now limited.

Representative MEAD. Both are confirmed by the Senate but one may be reappointed?

Mr. BROWNLOW. We have left the statute exactly as it is. He cannot be reappointed.

Representative MEAD. What about the assistant auditor who is there 15 years under the policy of his superior?

Mr. BROWNLOW. We have not changed that from the present law. The CHAIRMAN. What, from your standpoint, is the advantage of denying the Auditor General reappointment by law?

Mr. BROWNLOW. We have not changed that from the present act for the Comptroller General.