executive responsibility and accountability. Among the results should be better service to all. We feel sure that adoption of such legislation will result in the efficiencies and economies predicted by the Hoover Commission. As we see it, the adoption of the bills before you will constitute a major contribution to the present and future welfare of this country.

We all favor the goal of an efficient and economical Federal Government. We are confident that your committee will recognize the great merits of the plans before you for achieving that goal.

Thank you.

Mr. HARDY. I would like to ask one or two questions here. All of us share the objective of improving efficiency in Government. I am not sure that I fully subscribe to the expression that great economy and efficiency has been achieved through reorganization plans which have been made effective.

I wonder in the light of the statements here indicating that the Jaycees do believe that great economies have been effected through the plans which have been put into effect, if we might have some illustrations of those that Mr. Adam has in mind, because, frankly, I have been disappointed.

Mr. ADAM. All of the evidences that we have had have tended to back up our feeling in support of the Hoover Commission recommendations.

I would specifically mention Marx Leva, Assistant Secretary of Defense under Secretary Forrestal. I believe he then continued that position under Secretary Johnson, also under Secretary Marshall and, I believe, shortly after Secretary Lovett took over he returned to practice of law here in Washington. Marx Leva testified in Philadelphia before a Jaycee group and 650 citizens, in addition to the Jaycees present, that every indication he had seen until that time the Unification Act had fulfilled the hopes and ambitions of the legislation that was involved when it was put into effect.

We have had testimony of that type from men in Government who have lived with some of the changes involved.

Of course, we have been naive enough to accept that type of evidence as sufficient to feel that some of these economies have been effected.

We also realize that it would probably take a longer time to effect some of the economies that have been suggested than what would work out on paper, so to speak.

Mr. HARDY. I have considerable respect to Marx Leva and for his position under the various Secretaries that he worked under. However, I would personally discount to some extent his testimony about the efficacy of the Unification Act, because he was too close to it. I cannot share with him any great feeling of satisfaction over the accomplishments from the standpoint of efficiency and economy of the Unification Act, notwithstanding the fact that I served as a member of this committee at the time that it was considered and passed. I had great hopes, too. I also had great hopes in the accomplishments which would grow out of the Hoover Commission. and I supported wholeheartedly the passage of the original legislation which set the Commission up, but I confess a disappointment in tangible results that have grown out of both of those legislative

enactments.

I am in entire accord with the objectives, but I feel a sense of frustration and disappointment that I cannot feel any great accomplishment has been made. I dislike being a pessimist, but the realities of accomplishment do not seem to me to be great.

Mr. ADAM. May I ask Mr. Coates, who has been working with the Jaycees to enlarge upon the feeling of the Jaycees?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, you may.

Mr. COATES. I would be very glad to interject this thought. Congressman Brown was here earlier today and he expressed, I think, considerable satisfaction with the progress of the reorganization program.

Mr. HARDY. I am sorry that I did not hear my good friend Mr. Brown, but again I might attribute to him the same element of skepticism that I felt toward Marx Leva. Of course, it would be expected that he would have a personal concern about this matter. I am in no way disparaging his testimony. I am sorry I did not hear it. I understand he indicated considerable accomplishment. I do not share that conviction; that is all.

Mr. COATES. I would like to suggest that, perhaps, we should keep ourselves in a mood of being simultaneously dissatisfied and somewhat reassured by the progress we have seen to date.

Mr. Hoover's letter, I think, brings that out. In other words, we have and have had high hopes for the reorganization program. We have good reason for feeling that it has much, much further to go. Therefore, we should not be satisfied. At the same time, perhaps, we should not allow ourselves to become wholly discouraged by the fact that the complete miracle of the program has not yet been realized.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that your views may be prejudiced or changed by the fact that as a member of the Armed Services Committee you have lived so close to that one particular question from day to day?

Mr. HARDY. I would be the last to indicate that I am an exception to the human characteristic of being able to err.

Mr. BROWNSON. I would like to thank Mr. Adam for his testimony. I may have a suggestion that might be helpful to you.

At the start of this Hoover Commission program it was my impression that nowhere in the United States had more people actually read the Hoover Commission Report than was true in the Junior Chamber of Commerce. I was impressed because everybody else was quoting them, nobody had read them, and the Junior Chamber of Commerce had studied them carefully.

I think possibly there is some truth in what my distinguished colleague, Mr. Hardy, says. It might now be well for the Jaycees to look into some of the committee work that has been done in Congress in these areas, checking some of the recent hearings of committees working in the fields covered by these reports and hearings and bringing themselves up to date. I think that would stimulate a new interest on the part of Jaycees who have sort of regarded these Hoover reports as the Bible which has not been revised since. Actually, there has been a lot of preliminary investigative work done by committees of the Congress. I do think that some of your committees on the national and local levels could check into some of the published hearings and some of the published reports of the committees of Congress who have been working in these areas to provide a whole new field of

operation for them, because like all other progress in Government, in my opinion, the Hoover Commission wanted its reports to accomplish more than a static reform made and marked down as done. I know that Bob McCormick feels the same way. It is something that has to be continually surveyed and resurveyed. On that basis I think you might be able to reactivate the vital interest of the Jaycees by having them trace the progress of what has been accomplished as reported in the Senate and House hearings of committees that have been dealing with and delving into this field.

Mr. HARDY. I would like to add a word on what Mr. Brownson has just said. I think that the interest which these Jaycees have taken has been one of the finest things I have seen since I have been in Congress. It has been stimulating. I think it has done the country a lot of good.

My comments were intended to convey more clearly what my friend from Indiana expressed very nicely, not any inclination toward being sidetracked from the objective, but the more I have seen of this, the operation or the effects of the plans which have been put into effect, the more frustrated I have grown and the more convinced I have been that while the objectives in all of them are meritorious the prescribed solutions have not in practice worked out as they should. This does not mean that we should in any manner diminish our efforts toward bringing about improvements, but to try to correct the fallacious manner, if it is fallacious, which has thus far been suggested.

Mr. BROWNSON. I know that many members of this committee would be very happy to work with the Jaycees within such areas as we have covered in our own investigations in helping them to get that information.

I have more than a passing interest in the vital work of Jaycees, having belonged for 15 years, until the old age that the chairman speaks about crept up on me 2 years ago.

Mr. BURNSIDE. I, too, wish to compliment the gentleman for his statement and, certainly, for the work that the Jaycees have been doing.

I think that since I was a former professor of public administration and constitutional law I would like to see them continue that type of work because there is, certainly, room for study from now on.

The CHAIRMAN. At the bottom of page 1, Mr. Adam, you say that the Jaycees recognize that most of the Hoover Commission recommendations have not yet quite been carried out and are most controversial from a congressional standpoint. Why controversial from a congressional standpoint?

Will you explain the background of that statement?

Mr. ADAM. There are many groups in our country, as we all know, that have an ax to grind of one type or another.

I have here a copy of a release which I read in a paper recently of organizations that are, for example, opposing the 30 Hoover Report bills. There are 106 organizations mentioned as opposing one or more of the Hoover Report bills. In almost every instance these organizations have a particular geographical financial or specific interest of their own that they are willing to protect, and every part of the Hoover Commission Report to them is an admirable change or suggested change in the Government except the one that would affect their particular interest. It is like a piece of pie. If you have

an apple pie, and you happen to bite into a piece of it and you find a dead fly, there is no reason to throw the rest of the pie away. Let us eat it. Therefore, we suggest as Jaycees on a community level that we are not interested particularly nonpartisan in any of the axes that any of these associations have to grind. We say, a plague on both of their houses. Let us put it through. If it does not prove to be beneficial we can always change it. That is what I refer to where I mention that many of these self-interests are powerful groups lobbying for their own interests rather than for the whole interest of the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. I think you have touched upon the difficulty that the Congress has found in passing legislation to reorganize the executive departments throughout the years. They have been trying to reorganize since 1920, yet we have had but few laws passed by the Congress along those lines. That is why the authority was given to the President, charged with the responsibility of streamlining it by a plan which would be acceptable, but we find that those plans are opposed ofttimes by the same groups that would have opposed the laws if they were presented by the Congress. Of course, under the Presidential plan it becomes law within 60 days if it is unopposed by a resolution to reject. And if it is opposed then there will be a hearing in Congress within that 60 days or a short time thereafter. That is not true on legislation that we attempt to pass as a Congress, because it goes into the committees, is opposed. And one-half of the time it dies a natural death because of the power of self-serving groups who lobby against legislation that would be for the benefit of the public. Nobody wants to be reorganized. I can appreciate that.

I do want to give you credit for having put your finger upon the thing that kills a lot of good legislation that would be for the benefit of the country but may be against the wishes of some special organized groups.

Mr. HARDY. I want to raise one other question. On page 2 of your statement you point out the principle that related activities be grouped together. I think that most anybody will agree with that as a general principle, but do you not conceive that the very size of some of the groups might be against efficiency and economy through grouping? Take industrial practices, for instance, General Motors Corp., with all of its activities which are related activities, and yet there are a good many individual corporations which are autonomous. Mr. ADAM. I think that Mr. Rowe touched upon that. Were you here at the time that he spoke?

Mr. HARDY. No, I am sorry I was not.

Mr. ADAM. He touched upon that particular question and gave a very clear definition of the organizations whose activities he felt. should be grouped together. I think that there would be factors that would determine one way or the other whether that would be true. For example, I attended a dedication of a new television station in Philadelphia within the last 10 days. They take great pride in the way that they have set up their departments, so that related activities were nearby or close enough together to create efficiencies and economies in the running of that station that have never been approached before in the history of any station in the country. One company up there is using their set-up as an example for proposed stations that are under consideration throughout the rest of our country.

Mr. HARDY. I believe we are talking about the same thing but in a different way. Would you not agree with me that there is a point at which centralization becomes inefficient rather than efficient? Mr. BROWNSON. You mean the law of diminishing returns. Mr. HARDY. That is right, exactly.

Mr. ADAM. That is right.

Mr. HARDY. When you get into these governmental activities, they get so big, when you combine them, I do not know where the point is, but I think that is one of the dangers in this whole proposition. Frankly, I think that is the trouble with our Unification Act, the basic trouble with it, that it is so big that it has gotten to the point where centralization creates inefficiencies rather than efficiencies I do not know where that point is. But I do think we need to guard against overcentralization.

Mr. BROWNSON. I do not think they have produced enough centralization to test out that theory yet in the armed services.

Mr. HARDY. Instead of being a unification act it might have been a divorce proceeding, I am not sure myself.

Mr. BURNSIDE. Certainly, we do not want to see the different agencies competing with each other to run prices up. I want to get that word in at this point.

The CHAIRMAN. You referred to a list to illustrate a point. I am wondering if you would permit that list to be part of your testimony? Mr. ADAM. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That will be made a part of the record at this point.

(The press release dated Tuesday, June 3, 1952, is as follows:) NEWS RELEASE OF CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR THE HOOVER REPORT, JUNE 3, 1952

WASHINGTON, June 2.-Twenty-nine Hoover Report bills-all sponsored by the Citizens Committee for the Hoover Report and all opposed by at least 1 or more among 106 organizations-face the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments in en bloc hearings opening at 10 o'clock tomorrow (Tuesday) morning in room 1310, New House Office Building.

The most controversial legislation provides for removing the civil functions of the Corps of Army Engineers to the Department of the Interior. This is the first time during the approximately 3 years existence of the Citizens Committee that this red-hot recommendation will be heard by any committee of the Congress. This constitutes one of the top issues in the organization's platform "to take the pork barrel out of Government."

In a move rarely employed in the history of the Congress, the House committee last week took decisive action to hold immediate hearings to clear its entire slate of all Hoover Report legislation over which it has jurisdiction prior to the adjournment of Congress.

Chairman William L. Dawson (D. Ill.), of Chicago, made clear that his group emphatically wanted the record to be clear on the fact that this pending legislation will not be allowed to die pigeonholed. Irrespective whether the vote is favorable or unfavorable a definite vote will be registered, he added.

The Citizens Committee will present an imposing array of proponents for this legislation and will open its testimony with a statement of support from former President Herbert Hoover, who will be unable to appear in person.

Other important witnesses include Charles B. Coates, of Verona, N. J., acting chairman of the Citizens Committee; former Hoover Commissioner James H. Rowe, Jr., of Washington; former Hoover Commissioner Arthur S. Flemming, of Delaware, Ohio; Alva H. Adams, of Philadelphia, Pa., vice president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce of the United States; George H. Watkins, of Chicago, secretary of the University of Chicago and chairman of the Cook County Citizens Committee for the Hoover Report, who will represent the Illinois citizens of the group; and either Representative Clarence J. Brown, of Ohio, or former