have to be resolved at a high executive level before the plan should be

sent up.

Mr. KARSTEN. But you feel the plan should be adopted notwithstanding the fact that these nine points were not included?

Mr. HOPE. Yes, I do; very definitely, yes; this plan is complete and it was a good plan without those features.

Mr. KARSTEN. Possibly some of them might come before your committee.

Mr. HOPE. I think that is possible; yes.

Mr. KARSTEN. In your statement, Mr. Hope, you say, "I have implicit confidence in the present Secretary of Agriculture.

As a matter of information, I wonder if you would tell the committee just what he has accomplished in the last 5 months that gives you this implicit confidence?

Mr. HOPE. I would be glad to go into that if the committee wants to take the time.

I think I can say that in every problem that has come before Secretary Benson since he has been Secretary of Agriculture, he has met in a very realistic way and, I think, in a proper way.

Now, there has been some criticism of the Secretary because he has not done some things that he did not have authority to do. I don't know of any criticism that has been made of him of the things he did which he did have authority to do.

Now, some of the matters that have been thrown on his doorstep since he came in here, matters that he inherited, in a sense-well, to name one, the matter of butter price supports, that is a question which is very controversial and one on which there are differences of opinion, but it was a decision that had to be made by the Secretary as to the level at which butter prices would be supported, whether it would be 75 percent or 90 percent or anywhere in between, and I think the Secretary

Mr. KARSTEN. We still have that problem, do we not, Mr. Hope, in the overall picture?

Mr. HOPE. We still have that problem, but

Mr. KARSTEN. What I am trying to get at is his accomplishments.. Mr. HOPE. Well, that is what I was getting at, what the Secretary has done in that connection. There was nothing the Secretary could do except decide one way or another, whether it would be 75 percent or 90 percent or somewhere in between. I think he did the wise thing, under the circumstances, in saying 90 percent.

He also called in all representatives of the organizations, from the producers up to the distributors of butter and dairy products, and said, "Now, I want you folks to get together and come up here at the end of this year with a better plan than you have now," and he has Mr. KARSTEN. It still is in the formulative stage?

Mr. HOPE. It is still in the formulative stage, and

Mr. KASRTEN. What I was trying to get at was his accomplish-. ments, not in the future but in the past.

Mr. HOPE. Well, of course, the greatest accomplishment we can have in any executive department is the wise, sound administration of that department, and I was giving this butter situation as an illustration of what I thought was a sound, wise exercise of the authority of the Secretary in a difficult situation.

Just as another illustration of the exercise of sound constructive administration policy I would like to point out how Secretary Benson

has tackled a problem that I think is of very grave importance to agriculture and to the country as a whole. I refer to what he has done in setting up a new organization to deal with foreign trade in agriculture, a matter of the utmost importance.

He called in a man who is an expert on foreign trade, Mr. R. F. Wilcox, of California, and asked him to revamp and revise the foreign trade setup in the Department of Agriculture and make a vital, dynamic sort of an organization which could actually function effectively and promote our foreign trade in agriculture. Following Mr. Wilcox's report the Secretary has set up an organization under the head of Mr. Romeo Short, former vice president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, who has been a great student of foreign trade and an expert on foreign trade for many years, certainly a very wise selection for that position, and I think we are going to get somewhere in the field of foreign trade. That is a very important matter.

Mr. KARSTEN. I join you in hoping we will get somewhere.

Mr. BROWNSON. Will the gentleman yield for an observation? The Eisenhower administration inherited a shortage of money and a surplus of butter.

Sometimes when an incoming administration inherits a situation such as this it takes more than 120 days to reverse the picture.

Mr. HOPE. That is true. The only body that can relieve the Secretary of Agriculture from the responsibility he had as far as butter is concerned is Congress. He is operating under the law that Congress passed, and he is trying to work out the very difficult problems of the dairy industry.

We are trying to help him here in Congress; we have a Subcommittee on Dairying under the chairmanship of Congressman Andresen; it is a big problem.

Mr. KARSTEN. That is all I have.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Mr. Meader.

Mr. MEADER. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Hope, I know you were present when Mr. Fountain made his brief opening statement, and I was rather struck by one of his reasons for support of his resolution of disapproval. I quote him approximately correctly, I think; he said, "This plan was contrary to the spirit and intent of the Reorganization Act.'

He didn't elaborate on that point, but I would like to have your comment on it since perhaps you won't be here after he has made such an elaboration.

Mr. HOPE. Well, of course, I do not know what Mr. Fountain has in mind. I think it is thoroughly in harmony with the spirit of the Reorganization Act. I don't understand

Mr. FOUNTAIN. Mr. Chairman, pardon the interruption, but if you will permit me, I will read that portion of the Reorganization Act which I had in mind and permit him to comment upon it.

Will you permit me to do that?

Mr. MEADER. Yes.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. I will read section 2 (a) as a preface to the paragraph I have in mind.

It reads as follows:

The President shall examine and from time to time reexamine the organization of all agencies of the Government and shall determine what changes therein are necessary to accomplish the following purposes―

And then he lists the purposes, such as "To reduce expenditures and promote economy; to consolidate agencies," and so forth; there are six of those.

Then down to section 3, it reads as follows:

Whenever the President, after investigation, finds that (1) the transfer of the whole or any part of any agency, or of the whole or any part of the functions thereof, to the jurisdiction and control of any other agency; or

and then it lists six other things, such as abolition of all or any part of the functions of any agency, the consolidation or coordination of the whole or any part of any agency, and so forth, and then here is (a):

He shall prepare a reorganization plan for the making of the reorganizations as to which he has made findings and which he includes in the plan, and transmit such plan (bearing an identifying number) to the Congress, together with a declaration that, with respect to each reorganization included in the plan, he has found that such reorganization is necessary to accomplish one or more of the purposes of section 2 (a).

I have particular reference to that statement:

He shall prepare a reorganization plan for the making of the reorganizations as to which he has made findings and which he includes in the plan.

Now, you may prefer to comment on that.

Mr. HOPE. Well, Mr. Fountain I am not familiar at the moment with everything that is in the Reorganization Act, and you omitted a great deal of it when you read it, so I am not sure that I am stating the matter correctly when I say that it is contemplated among other things in the part of the act which you read that there would be transfers between departments, transfers between the departments of various governmental agencies.

Now, I assume in a case of that kind it would be very necessary to be specific and say what agencies are transferred and what powers are transferred, and that sort of thing.

Now, there is certainly nothing in the statements which you read, as I would interpret them, that would prevent a plan of this kind from being submitted where it applied only to a single agency, and that evidently was the thought of the last administration, as well as the thought of this administration, because the six reorganization proposals to which I have referred were identical in form to this one, and I have never heard the question raised in the case of any of those that they were not in harmony with the spirit of the Reorganization Act. Mr. RIEHLMAN. Mr. Meader.

Mr. MEADER. In other words, Mr. Hope, your reply is that if this plan is in violation of the spirit and intent of the Reorganization Act, previous plans submitted under the previous administration were equally in violation of the spirit and intent of the Reorganization Act? Mr. HOPE. Yes, certainly, I don't think there is any distinction that can be made.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. Would you yield for one question?
Mr. MEADER. Well, I was going to yield the floor.
Mr. FOUNTAIN. Along with the line you expressed.
Mr. MEADER. I will yield to the gentleman.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. Since this is my first experience in Congress I had nothing to do with the other plans. I did not support Reorganization Plan No. 1. I supported reorganization authority for the President wholeheartedly and even voted to require a constitutional majority to disapprove his plan. I expected the President to submit something

that I could intelligently decide upon, and thought at the time I did so that I would at least get a general idea of what he proposed to do. The question I want to ask is this: If Congress has heretofore adopted plans which may be unwise with respect to the various agencies or executive branches of the Government and if this is bad, (which you say is good,) is there any reason why we should adopt this plan?

Mr. HOPE. No; I don't say that we should; one mistake should not be a precedent for another, if it was a mistake, but, of course, I don't agree with the gentleman that the other plans were bad. I think they were good.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Do you have any further questions, Mr Meader? Mr. MEADER. No, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Mr. McCormack.

Mr. MCCORMACK. You are satisfied under this plan that the Secretary cannot abolish any functions?

Mr. HOPE. Yes, I am. I am quite satisfied that is correct.

Mr. McCORMACK. It can give him power to transfer but he cannot abolish them?

Mr. HOPE. That is correct.

Mr. McCORMACK. That is all.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Mr. Judd.

Mr. JUDD. Mr. Hope, I think your statement speaks for itself. I don't see how we can ask people to be responsible for the actions of an agency if they don't have authority to manage it.

The Department in which I have been most interested is the State Department. We have had the same problem there. In the public mind the Secretary is held responsible for the point 4 program, although he does not administer it in much of the world. He gets the credit or the blame, for all foreign aid, much of which he does not administer. And he has authority, supposedly, for the Voice of America, and other information activities. Right now we have the same problem, either to get their activities out of the Department or, if they are to be kept in the Department, let the Secretary have full authority and then hold him responsible if the performance is not up to what we believe should be a proper standard. Certainly that principle should apply to all these agencies of government.

I was surprised to find that the Secretary of Agriculture has only one Assistant Secretary. In the State Department there are 10 Assistant Secretaries, and the Secretary can delegate functions to them and hold them responsible. Inasmuch as this plan does not change, basically, policies and functions, I can see no good reason for not passing this reorganization plan, or rather letting it go into effect so that the Secretary can then administer his department adequately.

I have only one question, and it is for information. What is the relation of the Secretary of Agriculture to the Commodity Credit Corporation? The Secretary of Agriculture has to carry out the price support programs and yet the agency which does the buying and selling of surplus commodities, is the CCC; is that not correct?

Mr. HOPE. Yes, that is correct. CCC is a Government corporation with a charter from Congress. The Secretary uses the Commodity Credit Corporation as an instrumentality to carry out the pricesupport programs. It has the authority to make loans on agricultural commodities, to buy and sell agricultural commodities and, subject to

33798-53-3

the terms of the charter of the corporation the authority to do a number of other things which directly or indirectly relates to Government price support programs. It also acts as a procurement agency in connection with foreign aid and foreign-aid programs.

Mr. JUDD. Well, you say that the Secretary of Agriculture in carrying out the price-support program uses the Commodity Credit Corporation?

Mr. HOPE. Yes.

Mr. JUDD. Does he have the authority to instruct or order the Commodity Credit Corporation to buy or sell in order to carry out the price support program?

Mr. HOPE. Well, the officials of the Commodity Credit Corporation and the Board of Directors are officials of the Department of Agriculture and the Corporation's activities are carried out in harmony with the policies of the Department.

Mr. JUDD. Well, then, we have the case of an agency which is really controlled by the Department of Agriculture but is not in the Department and, on the other hand, we have agencies in the Department which the Secretary does not control?

Mr. HOPE. That is true.

Mr. JUDD. That certainly is an anomalous situation.

Which agency in the Department now handles the price-support program, the PMA?

Mr. HOPE. That is the PMA.

Mr. JUDD. So he does not control the PMA which handles it in the Department, but he does control the CCC which handles it outside the Department?

Mr. HOPE. Yes, he does control the PMA. The PMA wouldn't be affected by this program.

Mr. JUDD. That is right, the PMA is the one already in

Mr. HOPE. The one in which he has unlimited authority.
Mr. JUDD. Thank you very much.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. I would like to hear from some of the members of the Agricultural Committee sitting in with us this morning, and the first member I will call upon to see if he has any questions is Mr. Abernethy.

Mr. ABERNETHY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the privilege of being here with the committee, and I would like to ask my chairman, Mr. Hope, one question or so.

First, I would like to say that as to any question I may propound it certainly won't have political import. The gentleman from Ohio is gone now, but I want him to know that I am one of those who feels that this administration or any other administration should have the right and power to place in position employees of its choosing in positions of policy. However, I do not understand that to be the purpose of this reorganization plan.

As I understand the plan, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Hope, the object is to create efficiency, effect economy, eliminate duplication, to bring the agricultural programs closer to the people in the States, and to give the Secretary control over the specific agencies mentioned in your statement, to wit, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, the Forest Service, the Soil Conservation Service, the Farmers' Home Administration, the Rural Electrification Administration, and the Office of the Solicitor.