Mr. SMITH. Yes. The chairman of this Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments has certainly taken the initiative in bringing about associated hearings. It is one of the most fruitful developments under the Reorganization Act. The House and Senate subcommittees on Interior Department appropriations have also associated together in conducting one series of hearings. If it were possible to get an associated group of hearings on appropriations generally then the whole budget-making process could proceed as one unified operation, while each House would still reserve to itself the complete independence of action that it needs. That may possibly be a development for the future.

I should like to pass to the second problem that I have here in my statement, that of seniority. I will go over that rather quickly. The question of seniority will certainly be raised again before your committee because it is one of the perennial criticisms against the operations of Congress. I agree with Senator La Follette, who made the statement yesterday that seniority is greatly exaggerated. Entirely too much emphasis is placed on the undesirability of ranking committee members and selecting chairmen by seniority.

Seniority is but one, although an important, factor in the ranking of Congressmen for committee service. It is thus far the only tested device providing an impartial arbiter of conflicting claims to rank.

It is much overrated in the relation it bears to committee operations. This is particularly true in the light of changes made in the committee system by the Reorganization Act. You know they say of the War Department that the generals always fight the last war in their preparations for the future. I think to some degree our academicians, who are criticizing the selection of chairmen by seniority, are really against what took place before the Reorganization Act was passed rather than what the situation now looks like.

In my judgment the passage of the Reorganization Act took away much of the force contained in criticisms of the seniority rule. By reducing the number of committees the Reorganization Act not only reduced the number of chairmen but also made the subcommittees of each committee more important. The men chosen to head these important subcommittees are selected largely on the basis of talent and other considerations than mere years of service in Congress.

Under the Reorganization Act, moreover, the power of the chairman is shared by the committee as a whole. He cannot appoint the staff without committee approval and all persons and salaries must be regularly reported. He cannot work by proxies. He must convene the committee at regular intervals. He cannot report a measure unless a majority of the committee were actually present and voting for it. Any Member of Congress may appear and press for consideration of his bill. The chairman must report promptly any measure approved by the committee. He must conduct all hearings in public. A record must be kept of all committee action including votes on any question on which a record vote is demanded. All of these are limitations upon the former arbitrary power of committee chairmen.

The present majority has adopted a practice under which Senators in charge of specific bills are given the opportunity to assume floor leadership when these measures are called up. This, in itself, opens

the way for younger Members to display and develop their talents over any restrictions the seniority rule may have imposed.

Here are some examples of that. Senator Wiley is doing excellent work on the floor in charge of legislation dealing with the St. Lawrence waterway project. He is fourth in seniority on the Foreign Relations Committee. Here, then, is a man whose talents and ability are now being employed without any reference to the seniority rule.

I point out that the distinguished Senator from Vermont, Senator Aiken, has handled the long-range agricultural program although the senior Senator, Senator Capper, is the chairman of that committee. Nevertheless, we have had an opportunity of utilizing the talent and the skill of the Senator from Vermont as well as of Senator Thye on that committee. Without any reference whatever to seniority, Senator Smith handled the legislation dealing with a National Science Foundation. Senator Morse handled veterans' aid. Senator Cain is now handling rent control. Seniority had nothing to do with their selection. Senator McCarthy, a new member since 1946, is handling the problem of housing. Senator Flanders, another new member, has done excellent work on the problem of prices. Senator Hickenlooper, as you know, has done magnificient work with the Atomic Energy Committee. One further reference, if I may be permitted, and that is to the junior Senator from Michigan for the excellent work he has been doing on investigating committees.

So here we have a roster of men, selected largely on the basis of talent and without reference to seniority, which completely cuts the ground from under the objections to the seniority rule.

In the light of the limitations on the power of committee chairmen and in view of opportunities afforded to others to give their talents in the service of the Senate, the matter of seniority loses much of its former importance. At the same time, the usefulness of the seniority rule in solving conflicting claims is retained and no satisfactory substitute has been found.

For almost 5 years the American Political Science Association, a group of skilled experts in government, attempted to find a solution. They did not find a satisfactory solution. The same thing was true of the Robert Heller committee trying to find a solution for seniority. The Committee on Committees which has had the problem of recommending Members as chairmen of committees and selecting others to serve as ordinary committee members, tried to find a satisfactory substitute without success. Some impartial criteria have to be used to decide equal but conflicting claims to recognition when the time comes to select a few men out of a large number to fill prominent positions. Repeated reelection tests a Member's principles and performance in the judgment of his constituents. Repeated election builds up seniority and experience with the Nation's problems. Except in the case of a few men, years of service measures competence. Seniority is merely a way of recognizing that kind of an experience with an impartial measuring stick. At the same time the undesirable features of the seniority rule are greatly minimized by the Reorganization Act.

Now I would like to pass to the final topic, and I hope I can conclude it very quickly. I want to say a word about the congressional work load. The Reorganization Act included several provisions to reduce the work load of Members of congress. It barely scratched the surface because the heavy burden continues. There is a limit to the

amount of relief which can be obtained from improvements in legislative machinery, and then the only further solution will lie in absolute reduction of the work load itself.

Now, Senators, you can go and improve and make more efficient your methods; you can do many, many things with the machinery; but there is a rule beyond the Senate of the United States as well as a rule beyond all human relationships that makes it impossible to increase the capacity of certain machinery beyond the load the machinery will carry. You have tolerances in mechanics; absolute capacity limits in industry; you have diminishing returns in economics. If you attempt to put too much of a load on a given institution or on a given piece of machinery, no matter how many gadgets you add in the name of efficiency, no matter how much you staff your committees, or how much you streamline your operations, you will reach a stage where the absolute work load is more than you can handle.

I believe Congress has much room for improvement, but there are now signs that certain limits of capacity have been reached. Congress now legislates for a Federal Government which collects and disburses approximately $40,000,000,000 annually, almost a fifth of the entire national income. Federal legislative and executive operations reach out to every metropolis and cracker barrel in the Nation. In recent years Congress has stretched its long arm to every crossroad of the world. Look how fantastically the work load has grown with Congress expected to deal with it.

I just received yesterday from the Department of State a release which sets forth a letter written by William Green of the American Federation of Labor, and Philip Murray, president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, CIO, making representations against an anti-lock-out law passed in the Greek Parliament on December 7, 1947. Apparently, our Government has reached the stage now where we are extending the National Labor Relations Act and interfering in the internal affairs of every government throughout the world.

This illustrates the length to which the details of a work load which ultimately affects Congress can be stretched. These matters may be within the operations of administrative departments now, but eventually they will create conditions with which Congress will have to deal. Senator FERGUSON. What release was that?

Mr. SMITH. This was on February 3, 1948, No. 86 of the Department of State.

Senator FERGUSON. So that the Department of State recognizes it as being part of the duties of Congress.

Mr. SMITH. As being part, ultimately, of the duty of Congress and of the Federal Government to take action with regard to some antilock-out law in the Greek Parliament.

Now, Senators, for your amusement as well as to bear out my point on the impossible work load put upon Members of Congress, I have gathered here a group of the books and reports, limited solely to an official character, you should be reading right now on the Marshall plan.

(Mr. Smith here presented a stack of material 18 inches high.)

You are going to take the most momentous step in the history of this country when you pass upon the Marshall plan. Whether you are for it or against it at this moment is not the question. But there is your homework. That is what you ought to be studying. It

contains the Krug report, the Harriman report, the State Department report, the reports of the Herter committee, the Foreign Relations Committee digest; it includes part of the hearings just completed of the Foreign Relations Committee. It does not include hearings yet to be held by the Appropriations Committees. This is one work load you have now on a single problem out of the many problems you have to decide.

Senator FERGUSON. How long would it take in your opinion, knowing what is in there, for a person to read it?

Mr. SMITH. Well, Senator, I have been reading for the last 35 years, nearly all my life, in the field of research; and if I could do an intelligent job on that in 2 months of solid reading, excluding myself from everything else; if I could do a decent job in digesting and comparing just this one group of material, I would credit myself with great efficiency. Senator FERGUSON. A normal person probably would take 4 to 5 months.

Mr. SMITH. Yes.

To this collection of material, there will be added the Appropriations Committee hearings as well.

The CHAIRMAN. How many years would it take a Member of Congress properly to inform himself on the matters on which he has to exercise his judgment in 1 year? Would you like to make an estimate of that?

Mr. SMITH. Senator, that is beyond statistical computation. Let me tell you the observation many persons have made about this situation: They say you do not have to read this material. All you have to do is pass upon the policy. I ask you, how can you pass upon the policy, which is an attitude reached and decision taken upon the substantive conditions, without knowing the substantive conditions?

Senator FERGUSON. If you haven't the facts you are not capable of passing on the policy. How can you pass upon the policy if you don't know what the facts are?

Mr. SMITH. Exactly.

I feel that this enormous extension of activities of the Federal Government generates a volume of detailed and complex business which I believe has gone beyond the capacity of Congress to handle. In a moment, I will present further evidence to support this conclusion. It is no answer to say that the problem can be solved by administrative management because Congress must still deal with the work load it involves. No matter how capable your staff digests prove, no matter how much is delegated to the executive departments, you are still 96 Senators and you are still the bottleneck through which everything must be done on the floor of the Senate and in the voting in committees. No staff member can stand on the floor of the Senate and debate for you. The work load generated for you to handle is more than you can actually handle with time and talent and patience.

Senator FERGUSON. Mr. Smith, it might be appropriate if I just interpose what Gen. Bill Knudson used to say in production. He said he discovered certain things are possible, that certain other things are impossible; that putting two hens on the eggs will not hatch them out in any less time. [Laughter.]

Mr. SMITH. That is quite true.

Moreover, the administrative departments of government are showing unmistakable signs that the Federal Government has under

taken more than it can handle within the principles of good and efficient government.

Now let me give you a categorical list of the evidences that I think are proving that Congress and the executive departments are losing control of the people's business. First of all, I think you have lost control over the units of the Government itself. Congress has had to give the power to the President to reorganize the executive departments because it was stated on the floor of the Senate that Congress couldn't do it. Legislation was asked for and enacted on the ground that that sprawling framework of Government [pointing to wall chart] was beyond the competence of Congress to correct or to make more efficient or to consolidate or to do anything with in the way of improve

ment.

Not only did Congress transfer its right in that respect to the executive, making his powers more prominent and more important, but the executive has also failed in his ability to carry it out. The problem has gone beyond his capacity. Powers to reorganize executive departments have been given to the President on many occasions. He has acted by executive orders and by proposals for congressional legislation. Some of the latter have been passed; some have been rejected. Those that have passed resulted in little improvements in the executive establishment; they resulted in no economies; the efficiency of government is just as low as it ever has been. It finally became necessary for Congress to add a third operator in the form of the Hoover Commission to try to produce the efficiency Congress couldn't produce, and which the President couldn't produce. This development is an evidence, in my mind, that we are trying to deal with problems beyond the capacity of everyone along the line.

The CHAIRMAN. I think you might go further and say that members of the Cabinet have virtually lost control of the departments under them, and I think I could name one. I think the Secretary in charge is doing the best he can to keep control but it has gotten away from him, partly through abnormal growth at a time when we were seeking to make work everywhere. There was a possible change to be made and we found it impossible to abolish some of those make-work jobs. Partly, it is a fault of the Congress. Undoubtedly, there are other reasons, too. But control of the executive branch of government has gotten away from the President. I expect he would be the first to say that.

Mr. SMITH. I think that is quite true.

The CHAIRMAN. It would be impossible for any man properly to administer this Government today, and it has gone further and control over the departments has gotten away from members of the Cabinet in some cases-I don't say all of them.

Mr. SMITH. I am going to give you one or two illustrations right on that point. We are rapidly losing the disciplinary control which the executive department is supposed to have over its own sections. The CHAIRMAN. That is correct.

Mr. SMITH. One illustration is the relation that existed between the Bureau of the Budget and the Reclamation Bureau last summer. You have an antideficiency law which requires the allocation throughout the year of the money voted for the total appropriation for any bureau. The Bureau of the Budget called upon the Reclamation Bureau to make that apportionment throughout the whole year.

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