Senator MCNARY. I express the hope that it is this commission. Should I be asked to legislate in that fashion, on your theory as you present it to me and to the rest of the committee?" Mr. BROWNLOW. My theory is, and the theory on which the committee agrees, that there should be a continuous power of allocation and reallocation, and that it be given to the Executive. A while ago I said I thought it would take 3 years, and I believe I was conservative in that estimate. I am perfectly confident that at the time the 3 years are up new groupings would have to be made and some of the things would have to be changed that are done in the first year, because the Government is a living organism, it is not entirely static. New changes in that life would have created new activities, just as Senator Barkley has said about the long history of the Public Health Department. Some of the things are fairly obvious, some of them are not obvious at all. Some of them may appear to be obvious if you only take the name and general description of the activity, but when you examine into just exactly how it operates and its relation with other things, you will find that what seemed to be obvious was not obvious and it requires most intense study. Senator BYRNES. Possibly I did not understand it. Are you suggesting in your report giving to the President at this time any power different from that which was given by the Congress in 1932 and 1933 of which Congress the Senator was a Member? Mr. BROWNLOW. It is the same power. Senator BYRNES. Are you sure that it is? Representative GIFFORD. I challenge that statement. The veto power of the Congress was the safety valve and President Hoover had no power whatsoever with an unfriendly Congress; he could do absolutely nothing. Senator BYRNES. There is, of course, a differentiation from the powers in the veto provisions which have been heretofore referred to by Mr. Gulick, but we have gone over that. Is there any difference in the language? If so, I want to know what it is. Representative TABER. There is, in this respect, that it covers these regulatory commissions. Senator BYRNES. How was the Shipping Board transferred? Mr. BROWNLOW. The Economy Act, Mr. Taber, if I may just read that particular thing here-let me see if I have got it. Senator HARRISON. It is my recollection that the Shipping Board had a right to fix ocean rates the same as the Interstate Commerce Commission. Mr. BROWNLOW. One of the items was to segregate regulatory agencies and functions from those of an administrative and executive character. Senator BYRNES. That was the power of the President before? Mr. BROWNLOW. That was the power of the President before in these two former acts. Now, we clarify that language, somewhat limiting the action of the President. The bill we propose does not give him as wide power. That is one of the two or three changes that were made. It is not giving him quite as much power as some persons may have read into the former acts, because he is required to preserve the regulatory functions in quasi-judicial form. Senator MCNARY. Doctor, it is your theory, in a simple statement, that, we should grant the power to the President to study and to go forward, and he should, whoever he may be, make this grouping and specify the number of departments we should have after this intense study? Mr. BROWNLOW. Congress would specify the number of depart ments. Senator MCNARY. Congress can say we will have 12 departments and we transfer authority, and that is about all Congress has to do, is it not? Mr. BROWNLOW. That has been established by previous acts. Senator MCNARY. Please answer the question. I wish you would answer it, Doctor. Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes. Senator MONARY. Is it not true that all you permit Congress to do is to name the 12 departments, by the addition of 2 over the present number, and then confer on the President authority, full and ample authority, to build up a structure based upon that authority given him by the Congress? Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes. Senator MCNARY. Then why this long bill? Why the hearings, these drawn-out affairs? I can prepare a bill of that kind in two pages. Mr. BROWNLOW. That feature of this bill is relatively brief, but, as was said here yesterday, it also depended on other features in our report. Our report is not concerned entirely with that particular aspect. We happen to be discussing that aspect this morning. Mr. GULICK. One of five. Mr. BROWNLOW. It is one of six parts of the report; one of five of the bill. Senator MCNARY. The major thing is to give the President authority a create a new administrative structure in the Government, with the limitation only as to the number of departments? Mr. BROWNLOW. I must respectfully dissent from the "major." In our opinion, the whole report, as Dr. Merriam said here yesterday morning, is a report on administrative management, and that these various elements that we have suggested are all necessary as a part of the rounded whole. Senator MCNARY. Of course, I disagree with Dr. Merriam's argument along that line. There is a whole lot of stuff in there that I do not think is material at all. But the hard and fast thing is the Congress granting the power to the President with only the limitation as to the number of the departments. He has to do the rest of the job after the intensive study which you estimate will take 3 years to do. Mr. BROWNLOW. According to the standard set up in there. Senator MCNARY. Exactly. I can write that in half a page. Senator BARKLEY. You would not write it all, would you? Senator MCNARY. No; I would not; and it will not be written it I can have anything to say about the passage of it either. I do not disagree with my dear friend Senator Barkley. I would take some of these agencies and link their names. I would make some transfers. I would simplify the Government; and I think it can be done through the brains that are found somewhere in the Halls of Congress. Senator BYRNES. And you would not have as many pages as you have here. Senator McNARY. No; not so many. Senator BYRD. Now, Mr. Brownlow, you stated a little while ago that you had not made a study as to what activities were to be under these two new departments. The bill does outline the activities. It says: The Secretary of Social Welfare shall promote the public health, safety, and sanitation; the protection of the consumer; the cause of education; the relief of unemployment and of the hardship and suffering caused thereby; the relief of the needy and distressed; the assistance of the aged and the relief and vocational rehabilitation of the physically disabled; and in general shall coordinate and promote public health, education, and welfare activities. How did you come to put that in the bill if you had not investigated it? Mr. BROWNLOW. I used "activities" in another sense. In drawing up the draft for the two new departments we defined in broad terms their functions. I probably used the word "activity" in the sense that I sometimes use it when I should have used the word "agency." Senator BYRD. Does not this bill, though, take the Public Health, for example, from the Secretary of the Treasury? The bill itself does that. It says, "The Secretary of Social Welfare shall promote the public health." Mr. BROWNLOW. The President may conceivably allocate the Public Health Service to the new department, and he may conceivably leave some health activity in some other part of the Government because it was closely related to some agency somewhere else. For instance, he may not take the health activity out of the Indian Bureau. Senator BYRNES. There are other related activities, too. Senator BARKLEY. The creation of any department, whether it is done in a general act of this sort or whether a new department is set up independently, as we set up the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor, would, of necessity, require that there be set out in broad terms what its activity should be. You cannot just create a new department without a general outline of what it has to do. Representative TABER. Is it not a fact that the statement of the functions of the department in that section that Senator Byrd read would constitute a limitation upon the activities that must go within that department and a limitation upon all the other departments as to the activities that might be placed there? Mr. BROWNLOw. It is, in broad outline, the functional definition of the activities that would probably belong there. The precise fitting of a particular agency as now organized into that scheme would depend upon a particular case. Senator BYRD. Well, you did investigate these two new departments as to what would be included or grouped under them? Mr. BROWNLOW. In a general way. Senator BYRD. But you stated a while ago that you had not. Mr. BROWNLOW. We did not go into the United States Public Health Service and make an investigation of its activities or its personnel, Senator BYRD. I am not opposed to the transfer, I simply want to get clear what investigation you made. The purpose of this act would be to transfer Public Health from the Treasury Department to the Social Welfare Department. Mr. BROWNLOW. No, sir; no, sir; that is not the purpose of the act The purpose of the act is to define the broad categories or functions. that would be in the Department of Social Welfare. Then, under this plan, it is left to the President, after a study, to allocate what particular departments, or what parts of particular departments as are concerned primarily with health, should be in the organization of that new department. He might leave some health activities, as I said a while ago, that were administratively related more particularly to some other function or activity of the Government somewhere else. Senator BYRD. Well, without this investigation how could you determine the need of two new departments? Upon what basis do you regard it necessary to establish two new Cabinet positions? Mr. BROWNLOW. On the basis that we wanted to reduce the number of independent agencies, put them all in departments, and it seemed to us that in the existing 10 departments there were certain activities of the Government that were not sufficiently closely related to the general functions of those 10 departments to permit their being properly assigned to them. We have had a discussion of these two particular departments for many years. They were recommended as far back as 1921. There are departments that are well known in States and local governments throughout the country, and we believe that if you set up these two broad categories of social welfare and public works in addition to the 10 in existence then you would have a general framework established by Congress into which all of these dependent and unrelated agencies could be assigned, and into which there could be a more rational division of the existing work of the Government. Senator BARKLEY. In addition to that, if you undertake to allocate all of these one-hundred-and-thirty-odd independent agencies, that are not under anybody, now, to the present 10, would it not result in making some of them top-heavy and give them more influence than any Cabinet officer could really look after? Not only top-heavy, but put things in that were so radically unrelated to each other that administration would be difficult? Mr. BROWNLOw. I do not believe that bigness of itself is necessarily a difficulty in administration, if that bigness covers the same field, but if the bigness that comes about from the grouping of unrelated things, then it becomes very difficult of administration, because you attempt to divide the interest of the responsible man at the head of the department in a way that is not humanly possible. Senator BYRD. Then you did make considerable investigation on the need of these two departments. In doing so, you did survey the 130 agencies, did you not? Mr. BROWNLOW. No, sir; we did not go into them in any detailed way, so far as their operation was concerned. Senator BYRD. Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Gulick and the committee should explain Mr. BROWNLOW (interposing). I do not think anybody could do it, except with a very large staff. Senator BYRD. Just a minute. Mr. BROWNLOW. You would need 3 years to do it. Senator BYRD. Just wait. Let me complete my statement. The report, which the President has endorsed, says this: The departments would have the following major purposes. Then they outline the purposes for each department. There is only one of them, the Department of Conservation, that has the language which has been so emphasized here, "except as otherwise assigned." The definitions of the powers of each of these departments are without that limitation, "except as otherwise assigned." I think that certainly they could not have determined that these activities. should be grouped in these 12 departments without some investigation of these 130 different boards and bureaus. Senator BYRNES. Dr. Brownlow, you made a survey, you say, in a general way? Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes; in a general way. Senator BYRNES. Maybe I did not understand, but you said you made no detailed survey of anything? Mr. BROWNLOW. No detailed survey of their operations and activities. Senator BYRD. They have gone into this detail, Mr. Chairman. Take the Department of Commerce, for example. They say the Department of Commerce is to advise the President with regard to the problems of commerce and industry. To deal with the problems of commercial and industrial production and distribution, domestic and foreign; to carry on research, collect statistics, establish standards and practices, and enforce laws with regard to manufacture, merchandising, communication, and transportation. My interpretation of it, of course, might not be correct, but it is very obvious that they have gone into the activities. They make recommendations to the committee, outlining the duties of the departments and bureaus, so they must have given some consideration to where the 130 agencies will go. Senator BYRNES. He said a half a dozen times he did not do it. Senator BYRD. He must have done it. How could this report be of any value to this committee if he has not done it? Senator BARKLEY. Is there any difference between taking into consideration the general functions of any bureau in order to allocate its functions to a department with which it is correlated and going into the details of the management of that particular bureau itself? Senator BYRD. He has evidently gone into the details, because he has set forth the definition of the powers of these different depart ments. Senator BYRNES. The witness has answered a half a dozen times. There is evidently a misunderstanding as to what constitutes the - survey you have in mind. He says he has made a general investigation, and states the purposes generally. You have a different view of it. His language shows what it is, and anyone can construe it as they desire. |