Dr. LOWDERMILK. I think I was fair enough to search through a number of organizations.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I know, but you stated here frankly, in discussing the office set-up, that it was based largely on the Forest Service set-up. Dr. LOWDERMILK. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. The Forest Service set-up, or the Forest Service, deals in more than 90 percent of the cases with federally-owned lands, does it not?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Here you are dealing with privately-owned land. Dr. LOWDERMILK. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. And you must have the cooperation and the voluntary assistance of every farmer in the project area to make it a success?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. We recognize that fact very strongly.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You, I believe, used the expression to me that this work ought to be carried close to the farmer.

Dr. LOWDERMILK. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You cannot carry it close to him when you take it further away and put it in a regional office, can you?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. We are still further away when everything is in Washington.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You still have to pass on everything finally in Washington, do you not? The Washington office is charged, under the law, with the responsibility for the administration of this act. Dr. LOWDERMILK. We are finally responsible,

Mr. UMSTEAD. All you have done is to set up an intermediary agency over the State director, placing there the authority heretofore exercised by the State office, and you have therefore moved it further from every farmer in the State, have you not?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. I do not quite follow that. We look upon this plan as delegating authority from the Washington office to the regional office, not taking it from the State.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You tell me that and others tell me that, but when the orders are issued from the regional director to the State director a child could understand that the State director is stripped of authority and, furthermore, that his staff, all except three people, have been placed on the pay roll of the regional director and are no longer considered as the State coordinator's employees; is that correct?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. I do not believe that is quite correct on this particular matter.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Now, if you take every employee in a State office, where you have a rather large amount of this work progressing, and put them on the pay roll of the regional director, do you think that leaves the State coordinator in charge of his personnel and in charge of his office, with the same authority he had before?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. If it is as you state it. There is one pointMr. UMSTEAD. If it is as I state it, what is your answer? Mr. LOWDERMILK. Yes; that is true, as you have stated it. Mr. UMSTEAD. I have a letter-I do not have it here-but I received a letter a few days ago, and I showed it to some members of your staff, in which a regional director stated to a State coordinator that thereafter only three of his employees would be on his pay roll,

or rather under his direction, and that the rest of them would be carried upon the regional officer's pay roll and staff.

I am very much interested in this matter. I spent much time for 3 months last fall sending telegrams and writing letters, trying to retain in the States control of their soil-conservation programs. I did it because I thought that, if it was removed from their control, it would destroy the efficiency of this whole set-up, in which I am so greatly interested, as you know.

In spite of the assurance which I have had as to the modification of that plan, and I think I may make bold to say that what I did had some effect on the modification of that plan. In spite of these assurances I have had, it is perfectly clear to me from the statements made by you and others that in reality this regional office will have complete control of every State within the region, and, if that is so, I am dead against it. My experience has been that the further you remove a program that is being carried out for the benefit of farmers away from them the more difficulty you have in making it effective.. Dr. LOWDERMILK. Our idea was to place the responsibility for the work in the State upon a single man in the State, just as we would put responsibility on a man in charge of constructing a dam. He is immediately responsible for it, and he is also responsible to his superior higher up. He is responsible for carrying out the details of the construction of that dam, for example.

Likewise, the State man in charge of the work in that State is responsible for preparing the plans and the direction of the personnel and the recommendation of personnel which will be approved by the regional conservator.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You have even got a provision in the set-up now that the regional director must approve every contract with a farmer, that it must be sent to the regional office, and that the files of said contracts must not even be kept in the State office; is not that so? Mr. LOWDERMILK. I am not acquainted with that particular development. I have been West for quite a while.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You just set up the plan, turned it loose; let it go, did you not?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. I would not put it quite that way.

ORGANIZATION OF WORK IN NORTH CAROLINA

Mr. UMSTEAD. In North Carolina-and I am using this purely to illustrate, because I am equally interested in the success of this program all over the country-we have, including the additional small projects which were added to the old program this past year, 8 projects. Every one of these projects has a project manager in control of it. If I make any mistake in describing the set-up, you

correct me.

We have in the State 20 emergency conservation camps doing soil-control work. Those camps have, in addition to the regular personnel, technical advisers furnished by the Soil Conservation Service. They are doing a splendid work. The projects all over my State are meeting with general approval. The farmers are interested in them; the citizens who live in the towns where watersheds and water supplies are affected are interested in these projects.

We have our bureau of extension inspection, the State agricultural college, and an advisory committee. All of them are interested in this program in the State, which is centered around the State office. The people have become soil-erosion conscious by reason of the combined efforts of the farmers, the citizens, the inspection service, the advisory committee, the State director, the project supervisors, the camp superintendents, the counties which have purchased terracing machines, and all other factors which have entered into the program. They look upon the State office as the center of authority, as the coordinating factor. The State director tells them where to go and what to do. He has directed surveys under the direction of the Washington office.

What I am interested in is preventing anything which would destroy the nearness of that program to the hearts of our people, which would remove from my State the control of that program which is being put on by the expenditure of Federal money, placing it in a regional office out of the State, for the purpose of carrying out some fantastic scheme of organization which will build up in each region a large regional staff which will add to the administrative expenses of this organization. I will add this, that I think you gentlemen have a very strong argument which you have ad vanced, and I am fair enough to say so, in the accumulation of data and in the use of your inspecting staff throughout the country. I readily concede to you that the information secured in one State may be very valuable and necessary in another State and that through your regional offices you would be better able to use that type and kind of information. I am conceding that because I think it is a fact. I do not think it will lessen numerically your inspection staff over the country. I do not think it will even cut down your traveling expenses in the long run.

Frankly, after thinking about it for 4 months, that is the only valid argument I have been able to find, except that you, like all other bureaus, want to spread out and want to pattern yourselves after some other agency and make the garment far larger than the pattern.

Dr. LOWDERMILK. May I make one or two observations in reference to that?

Mr. CANNON. Certainly.

CONTINUATION OF DISCUSSION OF SET-UP OF REGIONAL OFFICES

Mr. LOWDERMILK. In the first place, we are dealing, let us say, with the Piedmont region. The Piedmont region extends over a number of States. It is a very important region, where the problems are quite uniform in many respects. Suppose we give each State coordinator absolute authority to do as he likes, without regard to his neighbors in the next State, dependent only on inspection in Washington.

It is possible for us to have different measures applied in several States because of the different make-up of different men, as you may realize. In other words, State lines would separate different applícations and different measures. Such is quite possible. We want to avoid that.

The other matter is the inspection from Washington. Frankly, I do not see why anybody wants to come to Washington. If a man is an expert in problems of a certain region, the best way to destroy his authoritative position in that region is to bring him to Washington.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I have tried very hard to go along on this plan, and I am not saying yet that I am convinced that there is not some merit in it. I do not mean to leave that impression.

But I do mean to say that, if it intends to do what it apparently is about to do, it will be a disastrous blow to the Soil Conservation Service.

If your main thought in developing a regional office is one of inspection, why do you not confine the regional office to a regional inspection office rather than spread it out through the whole field of your endeaver? Why do you not have scattered throughout the country at convenient points headquarters for your inspection service, who, after all, have to report to Washington? You have to act upon their report.

If you confine it to that inspection service, I would be inclined to think it would be a practical thing. But I cannot understand why you want to destroy the control of your State offices and subject them to another office, through which everything must pass before it finally gets to Washington to be acted upon.

Dr. LOWDERMILK. We must make the State director responsible for what is done in the State.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You cannot do that if you put him under the regional director. Your regional director would be responsible, and not the State man.

Dr. LOWDERMILK. The regional director would hold the State man responsible.

Mr. UMSTEAD. For doing what he directs, and that is just the thing I am opposed to.

Dr. LOWDERMILK. There may be many cases in which we will reverse our State man's recommended program.

Mr. UMSTEAD. That is all right.

Dr. LOWDERMILK. We cannot approve everything the State man presents to us.

Mr. UMSTEAD. That is all right. It would be an awful system if you did not disapprove some things which the State directors do; but you have to pass on it finally where it involves any question of policy.

Dr. LOWDERMILK. Yes, sir.

Mr. UMSTEAD. Then why have a middleman there?

Dr. LOWDERMILK. This middleman is to take care of the tremendous load of work that comes to us, pouring into Washington, which simply overwhelms Mr. Bennett and the rest of us.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I still do not understand why, if it is for the purpose of facilitating inspections and efficiently using the information gained by those inspections, you could not have regional inspection offices with an interchange of information gained by inspectors passing upon the work done by the various State directors, making corrections by orders issued from this office upon the report of those inspectors, without having a regional set-up to pass upon every

letter and pass upon every order and pass upon every contract, and pass upon every recommendation made by a State director. I just do not follow you that far.

Mr. BENNETT. I do not think we are going that far.

Mr. UMSTEAD. You had better examine some of your orders that have been sent out.

Mr. BENNETT. We will do that.

SOIL AND MOISTURE CONSERVATION OPERATIONS, DEMONSTRATIONS, AND

INFORMATION

Mr. CANNON. We will take up the item for soil and moisture conservation operations, demonstrations, and information:

Soil and moisture conservation operations, demonstrations, and information: For carrying out preventive measures to conserve soil and moisture; including such special measures as may be necessary to prevent floods and the siltation of reservoirs, the establishment and operation of erosion nurseries, the making of conservation plans and surveys, the dissemination of information, and other necessary expenses, $24,604,974.

Mr. BENNETT. The following statement is presented to explain this estimate:

1 Includes the appropriation for "Plant reserve stations", Bureau of Plant Industry, fiscal year 1936 ($483,198) transferred to the Soil Conservation Service in 1936, under authority of the act of Apr. 27, 1935. The item is omitted as a separate appropriation in the estimates for 1937, but provision for continuance of the work is included under these estimates.

This figure excludes $423,562, which is erroneously reported in the schedule "National Industrial Recovery, Interior, soil erosion prevention (transferred to Department of Agriculture)", constituting as it does a duplication in part of the amount shown as obligated in 1935 under the schedule "National Industrial Recovery, Agriculture, Plant Industry (transferred to Soil Conservation Service)."

WORK DONE UNDER THIS APPROPRIATION

General. The work to be carried out under this project involves those phases of the activities of the Soil Conservation Service which are directed toward actual physical prevention and control of erosion as distinguished from inves tigations into the causes of erosion and methods of its control. The projected work contemplates the prevention and control of erosion under an integrated plan of procedure involving a variety of methods and types of activity. Every advantage will be taken of various facilities for expediting procedure and distribution of cost through cooperation with other agencies of the Federal Government, the States, and subdivisions of States.

Conservation surveys to determine the extent and distribution of erosion.This project includes the preparation of conservation surveys to determine the distribution and extent of erosion in the United States and in individual States and counties as the basis for adequate planning of the national program of soil and moisture conservation. These surveys are essential to the development of the program of the Soil Conservation Service and to the adjustment of the program geographically so as to distribute equitably among those regions most in need of erosion-control measures the benefits of the work to be undertaken. The surveys will also be of great value to other Federal agencies and to State