Mr. UMSTEAD. No. What is it contemplated that the personnel of the regional offices will be when the staffs are brought together and set up?

Mr. COLLIER. I can give you that in a moment.

Mr. BENNETT. We have two types of regional offices.

Mr. COLLIER. I have the figures right here. The total personnel in the 11 regional offices will be 1,008. Of course, that will include a great many people who will spend their time in the field doing inspection work.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Does that 1,008 include personnel now in the Service, or, rather, persons who were in the Service before the regional offices were established?

Mr. COLLIER. It includes a large number of them.

Mr. UMSTEAD. How many additional or new positions will the regional set-up require?

Mr. COLLIER. It is difficult to tell how many new people will have to be brought in from outside the Service; but, insofar as possible, we will use people selected largely from those who have been trained by us.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I do not think you understand me. I want to know what increase numerically in your personnel will be necessitated by the establishment of the set-up of the regional program. Mr. COLLIER. If we assume

Mr. UMSTEAD (interposing). Let us not assume anything.
Mr. COLLIER. If we assume the manner of carrying out

program of this type, the same number of people will be required to do a certain amount of work and accomplish a certain amount of expansion, and so forth, whether we locate them in regional offices or on projects.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Wait a minute. You understand, of course, that if you had not set up the regional plan, you would have brought a Budget estimate up here, as you have brought it up, giving the estimated number of people necessary to conduct the work of this Bureau during the fiscal year 1937.

Mr. COLLIER. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Now, you have come here with estimates based upon a regional set-up, something which has not heretofore been operated. I am asking you what the difference will be in the administrative personnel and the supervisory personnel with the regional set-up from what that personnel would have been if you had not had the regional set-up.

Mr. COLLIER. I cannot give exact figures on that.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You could not have the regional set-up for the year 1936.

Mr. COLLIER. That is true, but we need it. For the fiscal year 1937, we have, in preparing these estimates, attempted to set up our personnel to accomplish the most effective program in the most economical way that we knew how to do it.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I am not asking you about that. I am trying to find out from you what the establishment of the regional office means with reference to additional personnel. You ought to be able to answer that.

Mr. COLLIER. I can give you a comparison between the total personnel estimated for next year and the total personnel we have this year.

Mr. UMSTEAD. That will not answer my question, because you have already stated that there are many things which will cause a normal decrease in the Washington office force.

Mr. COLLIER. I might include the people in the whole Service. If I were to undertake to give you a statement as to what number of personnel would be involved in the whole Service where the regional offices have been established, as compared with the total number of personnel that would be required under some other kind of set-up, I would require detailed information as to exactly what the other kind of set-up was.

Mr. UMSTEAD. No; I mean the same kind of set-up that you have already developed. I am not asking about some hypothetical set-up. You have a set-up in this organization, and you had been operating until a few months ago without any regional offices, had you not?

Mr. COLLIER. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Regional offices have been created in many instances where you have not yet been able to put in regional staffs?

Mr. COLLIER. That is correct, to a certain degree.

Mr. UMSTEAD. It is correct. You have not had money, and will not have it until the passage of the deficiency bill, with which to build up the regional staffs; is that not true?

Mr. COLLIER. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You have, for example, a regional office at Spartanburg, S. C., but you do not have a regional personnel or staff for it.

Mr. BENNETT. We have a part of it.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Do you have a number of people attached to that office that were taken from various State offices?

Mr. BENNETT. No, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. When did you add the regional personnel there? Mr. BENNETT. Before we went under the civil service, on December 21, we added a number of people.

Mr. UMSTEAD. How many people did you place in the Spartanburg regional office?

Mr. COLLIER. I do not have the present number of employees at the Spartanburg regional office.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Were they drawn from other branches of the Service, or from posts which did not have to be replaced, or were they new appointments?

Mr. COLLIER. I think most of them were drawn from other branches. Some were new appointments. I do not know the details. of that particular personnel.

Mr. UMSTEAD. If some of them were new appointments, is it not a fact that the establishment of regional offices is going to increase the administrative overhead of your Bureau?

Mr. BENNETT. Possibly it will. We are looking to a long-time program.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Did you not base the whole decentralization or regional program upon the Forest Service set-up?

Mr. BENNETT. No, sir; we did not base it upon that. We obtained ideas from the Forest Service set-up, the United States Army set-up, and from other sources, and from our knowledge of the fact that erosion does not respect State lines. For that, and other reasons, we have 141 projects. We have constantly flowing into our Washington office requests from those men in the field for every conceivable kind of material that needs to be purchased. If we undertook to handle from Washington the details of those projects, I have the feeling that it would be putting a terrific burden upon us, and I have the feeling, also, that we should, as nearly as possible, carry some part of this administrative work out close to the filed work, or out where it is going on.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Since you have, by your answer, opened up the whole question of the proposed change, I will ask you this: You modified the regional office plan as first proposed, did you not?

Mr. BENNETT. As the work progresses we change our ideas.

Mr. UMSTEAD. In the beginning, as it was first set up, it was the purpose of the plan to place the control of individual projects in the States under the regional offices, was it not?

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, sir; I think that was the idea we had in the beginning.

Mr. UMSTEAD. That would have meant that each project would have reported to and received orders from a far distant regional office in some other State, unless it happened to be the State where the regional office was located.

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. That plan was modified?

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You now provide a State coordinator in each State where there are enough projects to justify it?

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. The State coordinator, as I understand it, is a member of the regional director's staff, under the present set-up? Mr. BENNETT. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. The regional director has certain authority over the program in each State within his region?

Mr. BENNETT. He has a cooperative authority.

Mr. UMSTEAD. They have been officials of your Bureau. As it is under the present set-up, it is not the purpose of the regional offices to take away from the State coordinator the control of the soil erosion-control program within his State?

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, sir; we are expecting the State coordinator to do the actual job. We are expecting the State coordinator to do the actual work in the State, and we will hold him responsible for the job.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I further understand from your officials and from you that under the present set-up the State coordinator will have charge of the individual projects within his State, and that he will have authority to supervise the work of those projects, and will have authority to coordinate them with the work being done by the Emergency Conservation camps, so as to make it a well-rounded State program: Is that correct?

Mr. BENNETT. That is partly correct.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Wherein am I in error there?

Mr. BENNETT. We wish him to have authority conjointly with the regional offices.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I have not so understood it. I had understood that the State director would have the authority that he has had heretofore in cases where projects were existing in the State before the regional office was set up-that is, authority to control, supervise, and direct those projects.

Mr. BENNETT. That is true insofar as that work goes.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Wherein is it not true?

Mr. BENNETT. In the connection with the procurement of material, the putting out of bids, and in the fiscal work. We have said to the regional offices:

One principal purpose of your office will be to relieve this State man of a lot of detailed fiscal matter.

There is always an enormous amount of fiscal work. We have to keep books, and have everything pass through the Comptroller General's Office. We have to conform to a tremendous amount of Government procedure, legal procedure, and so forth, and we do not want to have the State man responsible for doing a lot of that work and devoting his time to it. We want him to devote his time to other matters, because, if he does not, he will not be doing so much of the work as he is supposed to do.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Do you mean to say that you propose that the regional directors' office is to handle the details and small matters and leave the important matters to the sole control of the State director?

Mr. BENNETT. No, sir; but that is one of the purposes of the regional conservator.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I understand from you and from others in your Bureau-and I was given definite assurance-that the autonomy of the State program would not be affected.

Mr. BENNETT. That is correct.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I have been assured by you that it will in no way diminish or affect the work of the State director, except insofar as the regional director is the representative of the Washington office. Mr. BENNETT. Not only that, but he will still be the State director, and enabled to do a better job.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Will the State coordinator continue to have control and authority over the State office and the projects being carried on within the confines of that State?

Mr. BENNETT. We will hold the State coordinator responsible for doing a good job.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You do not answer my question.

Mr. BENNETT. In my answer, I meant to say "yes."

Mr. UMSTEAD. I have seen some orders issued by regional directors which tended to show that, in spite of this assurance, the regional director is actually, in minute details, undertaking to control the operations within the States in his region.

Mr. BENNETT. My understanding is that he would be undertaking not to control them, but to help move them along so that they can more expeditiously carry on efficient work.

Mr. UMSTEAD. If your answer to my previous question was cor rect, why should a person employed in a State office be carried, not

as an employee of that office, but as an employee on the pay roll of the regional director?

Mr. BENNETT. We have concentrated these men in the regional office to help us do a better job within the region, and to coordinate and carry the information that may be developed on one project in one State to the next State, or to two or three States, perhaps. The purpose is to carry it immediately to the men to whom it will be helpful.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Dr. Lowdermilk, I believe you had a large part in the preparation of the plan for the regional set-up, did you not? Dr. LOWDERMILK. I had some part in it.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You had a large part in it, did you not? As a matter of fact, you prepared it, did you not?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. No, sir; I do not believe I prepared it.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Who prepared the chart you showed me in your office one day, showing the relation between the regional office and the State offices?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. It was done under my direction.

Mr. UMSTEAD. The original thought behind this change, was to give the regional offices absolute control over every State in the region, was it not?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. The original idea was to make the regional offices supervise the work within the region.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You have not answered my question. On the chart which you showed me in your office in October 1935 it was clearly indicated that each individual project would not report to, or have any dealings with, the State office but would go direct to the regional office.

Dr. LOWDERMILK. That was the original draft; yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. That confirms the point made by me that the original purpose was to place every project within any State in a region under the absolute control of the regional director, does it not?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. The man in charge of the work must also be in charge of the men under him on these various projects.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Now, your answer to my question clearly indicates that, although you have modified your plan on paper, it is still the underlying purpose of your Bureau to have the regional directors put in absolute charge of every project in the region, is it not?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. Through the State coordinator.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You fashioned this regional plan of administration largely on the Forest Service organization, did you not?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. Not altogether.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I said largely, and that does not mean altogether. Dr. LOWDERMILK. That organization, together with the organization chart of the Reclamation Service and various other Government bureaus. We studied them for quite a while.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You have been in the Forest Service for many years, have you not?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. For many years.

Mr. UMSTEAD. That has been your life work?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. When you had to draw up a regional set-up, it was natural that you should turn to the thing that you knew most about.