Accounts, rendition of: Proposed an amendment of sec. 12 of the Dockery Act of Appropriation-supervision: Revision of appropriation methods with a view to Bonds of fiscal officers: Recommended a uniform law with respect to the bonds of Building, General Accounting Office: Called attention to need of a separate building Conservation of personal estates: Conservation of personal estates of American citizens dying within consulates... Consular invoice lists, forwarding of, to General Accounting Office: Recommended, in interest of economy, the repeal of sec. 4213, Revised Statutes, as amended, which requires "a statement of all certified invoices" (consular) be forwarded to General Accounting Office. Contingent expenses: That language in contingent appropriations be more uniform. Corporations, government by: Elimination of exceptions to the requirement that ac- Customs and internal revenue: That the General Accounting Office be given further Disbursing officers: That the power to authorize disbursing officers and agents to accrue. Disbursing officers, relief of: Suggested that where crediting, validating, or relief legislation is presented to Congress in cases where credits for payments by disbursing officers have been disallowed, the General Accounting Office be given the opportunity of presenting the pertinent facts in its possession in order that Congress may be fully informed. Disbursing system: Presents defects in disbursing system and recommends establishment of an independent disbursing agency reducing from 2,000 disbursing agents to approximately 50.. Disposition of unclaimed effects of persons dying subject to military law: Custody of Fees of Federal claim agents and others: Attention of the Congress was invited to the 1926 1927 1931 General supply fund for field services: Increased economics would result if all estab- Indian tribal claims jurisdictional statutes: Recommended standardization of such Injunction and mandamus suits: Recommended that legislation should be passed prohibiting injunction and mandamus proceedings against accounting and disbursing officers of the Government, and requiring that all actions be by ordinary suit so that cases could be tried on their merits. Military Academy-contingent funds: Moneys in this fund derived from use of public Motor-carrier travel: Due to the fact that autobus lines are being used extensively for Oaths of office of Federal personnel: Recommended that a uniform law be enacted in Payment of Federal moneys to States and Territories-Simplification of procedure: Refunds by United States of small amounts: Recommended legislation requiring 1931 Retirement of personnel: Recommendation for uniform retirement of Federal per- 1932 1929 Returns Office: That the Returns Office be transferred from the Labor Department to the General Accounting Office; draft of bill submitted..... 1927 1928 1929 1930 Revolving funds, consolidation of: Suggests that if certain revolving funds of pur- Special reports: Specific reference made to special reports during the fiscal year 1932. REORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 1937 SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON The committee met, Senator James F. Byrnes presiding. STATEMENT OF HON. HAROLD L. ICKES, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, we have before us S. 2700. Heretofore I noted that you submitted to Senator Robinson a letter in response to his request. In your letter you set forth your views with reference to the bill. If you desire at this time to make any statement as to anything that has been testified to we would be delighted to hear you. Secretary ICKES. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, I appreciate this opportunity. I would have been content to stand on that letter, but it seems that a great many gentlemen have been interested in the particular phases of this bill which apply to, or are intended to apply to my department. So many statements have been made, iterated and reiterated, that I thought I would like to appear and make a brief informal statement. It has struck me as being curious that so many people representing different interests in different parts of the country should have become so excited about changing the name of the Department of the Interior to the Department of Conservation, as is proposed by this bill. It is like insisting on naming the neighbor's baby. You will remember at the last session of the Congress the Senate, without any opposition, passed a bill to change the name of the Department of the Interior to that of the Department of Conservation. Why should not we have a Department of Conservation? More particularly, why should people from Wall Street to the farms object to having a Department of Conservation? I say frankly if I did not believe in conservation I would not want a Department of Conservation, and I think the burden is distinctly upon any man who opposes the creation of any such department to prove that he is a conservationist. The exploiters of our natural resources so far have found this kind of a situation: There are overlapping, jealousies, and unnecessary expenses, because the various conservation activities have been scattered among different departments of the Government. Statements, which seem to me palpably absurd, have been made a number of times, especially by former Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania, who is the spearhead of a campaign of propaganda which is Nation-wide, seeking to prevent the setting up in a department of conservation the conservation activities of the Government, or, at any rate, those which appear to the President and Congress as being appropriate to set up in such a department. They argue, if you please, that creating a department of conservation will have the) tendency to scatter conservation activities. Well, they are scattered They could not be scattered any more than they are at present. We have the Department of the Treasury; we have the Department of Agriculture; we have various other departments which, within their fields, deal with cognate subjects. What does the Department of the Interior mean, after all? In its widest significance, it means everything within the boundaries of the United States. It means everything except the State Department, but, in effect, it is meaningless. "Conservation" has come to be one of the major concerns of government. There is nothing more important. Our lives and our welfare as a nation depend upon the prudent use of our natural resources, saving what we can for future generations, preserving, building them up, but using as we go along what we really need to maintain and advance our civilization. That is conservation, as I see it. There is nothing more important. We ought to recognize it as a major function of government, and I think, if we once do that we will have taken the greatest forward step toward the preservation and conservation of our natural resources that the Government has ever taken. I regret that it seems necessary to combat this argument which has been so assiduously advanced by so many people. It seems clear to me that someone is interested in building up propaganda. This is not news to members of the United States Congress, it is nothing new, I mean, to them to find their desks covered with more or less form letters, telegrams, and petitions whenever certain activities of the Government are mentioned. Now, it gets down to this reality in the end-and this question is involved as well-whether we are going to be governed by a lobby or whether questions affecting the welfare of the people and the sound conduct of our Government are to be guided by a rule of reason. Mr. Pinchot has been several weeks in the West viciously attacking the Department of the Interior. If he and others had their way there would not even be a Department of the Interior. They would wipe us out. They would put us on the block, and they would not even give us the benefit of clergy before bumping us off. They seem to be forever against the notion that anyone should set up a department of conservation and concentrate within that department the main conservation activities of the Government. I want to make perfectly clear that I do not have the slightest idea, if this bill passes, what the President would bring into the proposed new department, or what he would take away from the proposed new department. If he has committed himself on that subject to anyone I do not know of it; certainly he has not to me. I do know that he had general powers of rearranging and of transfer for, I think, 3 months, was it not, under the Emergency Act? The CHAIRMAN. More than that. At least a year. Secretary ICKES. Yes; it was more than a year. I know he did not make some of these transfers then that people seemed to be so alarmed that he may make under this bill. If he does make any transfer, if the Congress feels that he was not well-advised in making it, the Congress has the veto power. I do not think that is an issue at this time. The CHAIRMAN. Of course, that is true. Of course, the argument is made in addition to that, Mr. Secretary, that while Congress could by a majority vote, disapprove any order of the President, and if the President, after that action was taken, was still of the same opinion and vetoed it, that it would then have to have a two-thirds vote to override the veto, as in any other case. Secretary ICKES. Just like any other bill. The CHAIRMAN. Just like any other bill. Secretary ICKES. Exactly. There is nothing extraordinary about that. There is nothing that threatens our institutions or undermines our Constitution, or gives us a different form of government. The CHAIRMAN. You said the President has not made known to you any view he has relative to this subject, or indicated in any way what action he would take if the Congress gave him that power. Secretary ICKES. Absolutely not. I do not think he has made it known to anybody, as a matter of fact. There has been talk up here about the possible transfer of national forests from Agriculture to the proposed Department of Conservation. Let us face that issue in a very general way. I am not going to argue it in detail because we have not yet reached that bridge. Suppose that should happen I do not know whether it will or not suppose it should happen, the impression is created, deliberately created, that such a transfer would wipe out forestry. If forestry should be transferred to any department other than Agriculture the whole organization as it now exists would go over there under civil service. It is unthinkable that the Secretary of Conservation, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Commerce, or the Secretary of any conceivable department would change the method of operation. They would take it over as it is. Now, with all due respect to these critics, the present Secretary of the Interior has not been notable as a spoilsman. No bureau or agency in the Department of the Interior has been decimated. We have not discharged good men or reduced them in rank for political reasons. We have taken pride not only in maintaining the standards that we found when we took over the Department but in improving those standards. Take any division in the Department of the Interior. Some of them have been moved unduly, but I am not complaining about that, certainly I am not complaining in advance. Take the Indian Office, if it should be moved over to Agriculture I would not expect the Secretary of Agriculture to turn it upside down, to reverse all the policies, to fire all the employees, even if he could, and put in new ones. The Indian Office would function over there substantially as it functions in the Department of the Interior. Forestry, if it is transferred from Agriculture, will function substantially in the new department as it has functioned in Agriculture. A man can be just as good a forester in Conservation as he can in Agriculture. |