Senator BARKLEY. You were also employed by the President's committee, as I understand it?

Mr. MERIAM. That was not my understanding. I can give you the history of it.

Senator BARKLEY. I want to find out in what capacity you serve in working for these two committees.

Mr. MERIAM. We regarded our contract to be with Senator Byrd's committee and with Mr. Buchanan's committee. There was a question of money that was involved. We did not have a staff of our own, on our regular pay roll, paid from our funds, which was large enough to do this job within the necessary time limits, and therefore we had to tell Senator Byrd and Mr. Buchanan that we could not handle this on our financing, that we would have to have money, and Senator Byrd, as I recall, agreed to pay us $20,000. Is that correct? Senator BYRD. $18,000.

Mr. MERIAM. $18,000; yes; from the appropriation which was made to him. The House money came through a separate appropriation. Senator BARKLEY. I do not care anything about that.

Mr. MERIAM. That is necessary to show the relationship, Senator. On the House side, Mr. Buchanan said that he would put in, as I recall it, $10,000; and he would make the President's committee come across for us with $10,000, to do the factual side of it.

The two resolutions were not identical. There was language in the House resolution which called upon the President's committee to present the factual material which we were gathering for the House and Senate committees; and in view of that, the President's committee, as I recall and Mr. Harris will correct me if I am wrong— contributed $10,000 to our group, with the understanding that we would do the factual material regarding the departments.

Of course, this is only one single chapter of a very voluminous report which covers all the administrative agencies, the entire executive establishment of the Government. So that we have assumed right along that we were working for Senator Byrd's committee and Mr. Buchanan's committee.

Senator BARKLEY. Now, did the field covered by you in your capacity as representing the Senate and the House committees, and also the President's committee, cover the same field of investigationwas it identical?

Mr. MERIAM. All three; yes, sir. Our agreement with the committees was that our obligation under our contract would be satisfied completely by the submission of these reports to Senator Byrd's committee and to Mr. Buchanan's committee. We did not assume any other responsibility to anybody.

We did this thing, I want to say, for $38,000, as far as the Government's payment is concerned.

One of the difficulties we have had, we have been terribly cramped for funds. The Government expenditure with respect to this has been-I am not sure whether it has been $38,000 or $38,500, but it was something like that.

Senator BYRD. I just want to state. for the purpose of the record that the Brookings Institution was employed by the Senate Reorganization Committee by unanimous vote of that committee. The

members of that committee are Senator Robinson, Senator O'Mahoney, Senator McNary, Senator Townsend, and myself. A meeting was held, and they were selected unanimously as the best organization to prepare the fact-finding data.

Senator BARKLEY. Well, I did not raise any question about that. Senator BYRD. I know you did not.

Senator BARKLEY. I want to find out, if they are working for three different committees at the same time, whether there is any conflict. Mr. MERIAM. We did not assume that we were working for the President's committee.

Representative VINSON. Mr. Meriam, there must have been some argument or some disagreement among the staff as to what you would recommend in respect to the control audit, was there not?

Mr. MERIAM. No, sir.

Representative VINSON. Now, if I understood you correctly when you answered Senator Harrison, you said when there was unanimity of opinion, you recommended one course; and if there was a disagreement, you recommended courses in the alternative. Did I understand that to be correct?

Mr. MERIAM. There was unanimity on the principle that we should have an audit by an independent office agency prior to final settlement. We are unanimous on that.

Representative VINSON. You were unanimous on the independent unit doing the auditing work?

Mr. MERIAM. Yes.

Representative VINSON. Now, was there disagreement in your group as to whether that unit should be in the executive department, or responsible to the Executive, or a legislative agent similar to the Comptroller General?

Mr. MERIAM. There was no difference of opinion with respect to the desirability of having an independent audit under the legislative branch, if that is constitutional.

Representative VINSON. Now, why did you say in your formal statement that the control audit could well be done either by a unit under the Executive or by an agency such as the Comptroller General? I am not quoting your exact words.

Mr. MERIAM. No, sir; you are not quoting my exact words.

Representative VINSON. I took that up with Mr. Selko, and he agreed with me that you certainly could have an independent unit under the Executive to do this audit; and your formal statement in writing, if we have it, will show that the statement was made that the agency making this control audit could either be an executive or a legislative agency. Let me have a copy of your

statement.

Mr. SELKO. Yes, sir. Now, just a moment.

Representative VINSON. I am asking Mr. Meriam, please.

Mr. MERIAM. If you can find it, Mr. Vinson, I would like to see it. Representative VINSON. Well, there is no doubt about that, because I interrogated you myself about it.

Senator BYRNES. Mr. Vinson, do you want to take the time to go into it now? It is 10 minutes to 12.

Representative VINSON. It will take but just a minute.

Mr. MERIAM. I found it here on page 4, the sentence beginning, "On the other hand." It says:

On the other hand, we believe Congress could delegate final settlement to an administrative officer completely subject to the President.

That is the sentence to which you refer.

Representative VINSON. Just one minute. Back on page 3 I read: To secure control with respect to the legality of action of administrative officers Congress has, in our opinion, the authority to provide a controlling officer responsible either to itself or to the Chief Executive. In all the years during which neither the President nor any of his administrative subordinates could reverse a decision of the Comptroller on the legality of an expenditure, the right of Congress to pass legislation making this officer thus independent of Executive control has never been so challenged that the right has been passed upon by the Supreme Court. In the absence of any definite decision by the Supreme Court, the question is one which the Congress is still free to determine for itself. We believe that Congress could well continue to provide for final settlement of accounts after audit by an independent officer primarily responsible to it. On the other hand, we believe Congress could delegate final settlement to an administrative officer completely subject to the President. If Congress should delegate the power of final settlement, however, it would obviously relinquish its own control and its ability to recover in part, if not in whole, payments made by administrative officers as the result of unauthorized transactions.

Mr. MERIAM. The explanation there, sir, is that here was a bunch of amateur constitutional lawyers. We sat around the conference table at various occasions during which this question of constitutionality was discussed.

Now, that sentence, the one on page 4, "On the other hand, we believe" that Congress could do it is a statement of a bunch of amateurs in the field of law on the question of constitutionality. That means merely that we believe if you, in your judgment as Congressmen, should decide that you wanted to delegate this power, which has since 1921 been in the independent Comptroller General, that you have the authority to do it. We do not advise you to do it. Leaving out the question of constitutionality, our advice to you, sir, would be that the Congress make that agency just as independent as it constitutionally can.

Representative VINSON. We accept the plea of confession and avoidance; but in addition to the language on page 4, I want to read this sentence on page 3 again, which certainly shows that you made recommendations in the alternative:

To secure control with respect to the legality of action of administrative officers Congress has, in our opinion, the authority to provide a controlling officer responsible either to itself or to the Chief Executive.

Mr. MERIAM. That is exactly the same explanation, sir. It is the legality explanation, not the merits. Now, there are various and different points of view with respect to constitutionality. The only thing that we people really knew well about was the existing situation, the existing law-what Congress had done.

Representative VINSON. The question of a practical solution? Mr. MERIAM. Yes. Now, what Congress might do under the law was debated. I can say this, I think, with perhaps fairness, that some of our amateur lawyers and students of the Constitution felt that this was a responsibility which Congress could not properly

delegate to an executive officer. There was, in some of the earlier discussions, a group that felt that Congress could not properly delegate this authority to an executive agency and preserve the proper control.

Representative VINSON. And preserve control in the legislative branch, in itself?

Mr. MERIAM. Yes, sir; on final settlement. Now, we did not want to get ourselves in the position of attempting to be constitutional lawyers. That is the entire explanation of those two sentences to which you referred on pages 3 and 4.

I will say, in connection with this opening statement, sir, for your benefit, or perhaps the benefit of the committee as a whole, that I think this opening statement was read by most of the members of the staff, perhaps not by all, but it was approved, and that was. one reason why I was anxious to get it in.

Senator BYRNES. We will adjourn until tomorrow morning at

10:30.