Mr. TABER. Any time you are ready, butt in on me with that other information. I will try to go along for a while on the other matters I have.

ECONOMIC RESEARCH AND STATISTICS

What is this set-up that you have that is blooked out as a program of economic research and statistics, $503,000? What page would that be on in the justifications?

Mr. DENIT. That would be under the Office of Reports.

Mr. TABER. At what page?

Mr. MAVERICK. It starts on page 14.

Mr. TABER. That does not run anything like that figure.
Mr. DENIT. The figures on page 14 represent salaries only.

Mr. TABER. You have it here $503,000.

Mr. DENIT. That amount is from the green sheet and covers $223,266 salaries; $80,061 miscellaneous objects; and $200,000 surveys. Mr. DENIT. Further information may be found under the discussion of the field offices, the field summary, appearing on page 53.

Mr. TABER. What do you do in that set-up? I would be interested in knowing that.

Mr. DENIT. That set-up is very important to the Corporation, because it conducts, first, the statistics operation. In order to conduct our program effectively we must know what the needs of small businesses are and what condition all business finds it is in. Therefore we make surveys and we take surveys made by other organizations, analyzing them statistically. Then, too, the Office of Reports maintains statistics by means of which we know how many plants we are helping, how many have been registered with us, how much work our men are doing for the investment that we are putting in personnel. Mr. TABER. Do you not have a record of that, without having to pend all that money? How could you spend all that money just getting that information?

Mr. DENIT. The part of the information as to economic surveys cannot be cheaply performed.

Mr. TABER. What is the kind of survey that you conduct?

Mr. DENIT. The survey personnel would take a locality, a representative industrial locality, and circularize or personally contact a representative number of plants in the locality, ask them a listed number of questions as to their present conditions, what their needs. are, what the Smaller War Plants Corporation could do to help them onstructively; and much of the findings from our surveys constitute a basis for the information reported to Congress in our bimonthly reports.

Mr. TABER. How many people do you have involved in this op⚫ration?

Mr. DENT. We are only in the Budget for 50 people in the departental service and 42 people in the field. Bear in mind that the 42 ed people are spread around the 14 regional offices.

Mr. TABER. What do they do? Do they go around to see people? Mr. DENIT. NO. In the main they tabulate the various operating forms which the Corporation is using. In other words, plants register with us on a form that gives essential data as to their present invenfores, what their open capacity is, and all that sort of thing. The information is tabulated and recorded, so that the field office is in

position to help the plant and know the plant's condition at the time contract opportunities are afforded.

Mr. TABER. Is there not any other means in the Government of gathering this information?

Mr. DENIT. Wherever other means are available we use them. Mr. TABER. Does not the Census of Manufactures in the Department of Commerce, when that is taken, provide this information? Mr. DENIT. It will provide certain information which is very important to us, and our representatives collaborate with the Bureau of the Budget and the Department of Commerce in determining what shape the survey should take to be of maximum benefit to us. We even use industrial surveys where we can, Mr. Taber. We try to arrange to get survey material and analyze it to see if there is anything in it we can use.

Mr. TABER. How do you keep 50 people in that department busy on that kind of a job?

Mr. DENIT. We have really kept more than 50 people busy. During the past year, as I indicated to Mr. Cannon, we abolished one large machine tabulation set-up in Chicago. The problems of small business involve substantial research, and we try to keep abreast of current trade publications and industrial trends. We cannot effectively meet the demands of small business unless we are absolutely up-to-date on every phase of industry development which would have a small plant effect.

Mr. TABER. I am still unable to see just how you can keep all those people busy. I am afraid you would have a lot of chairwarmers around.

Mr. MAVERICK. We kept a lot more busy last year, and we cut them down to bare essentials.

OFFICE OF REPORTS PERSONNEL

Mr. TABER. I would like to see a break-down of these 50 types of positions, such as this budget break-down, by grades and classifications of employees for this whole operation.

Mr. DENIT. We will be glad to put that into the record, sir. (The information requested is as follows:)

TRAVEL SET-UP

Mr. TABER. Among the civilian activities of the Government you have the largest travel set-up of any agency except the Fair Employment Practice Commission. The F. E. P. C. is the only one that goes ahead of you. Why did you let the F. E. P. C. get ahead of you? I cannot understand that.

! Mr. DENIT. Mr. Taber, in his opening remarks the chairman mentioned that of necessity our travel costs are disproportionately high. We recognize that. We justify it on the types of program that we have. The small plant operator is not in position to journey to farremoved places to obtain types of assistance. We go to him; and we have one of the widest spread organizations, from the field organization standpoint, in the entire Government.

We have 14 regional offices and 102 district offices, and that requires naturally an unusual amount of staff traveling in order to supervise national programs over all those offices effectively.

Mr. TABER. Now, how many of these people are in travel status? How many of all your people are in travel status?

Mr. DENIT. I think we have put them in the justification.

Mr. CANNON. How many people actually travel in the organization? Mr. TABER. That is, at Government expense.

Mr. DENIT. Subject to correction, I can give you a fairly accurate figure. I would say 40 percent.

Mr. TABER. Of your whole crowd?

Mr. DENIT. Yes; 40 percent travel some, and 20 percent travel a great deal. They have to get around and are in almost constant travel

status.

Mr. TABER. There would not any of these people on the roll at salaries less than a couple of thousand dollars have the right to travel, would they?

Mr. DENIT. No, sir.

Mr. TABER. You would not expect it, anyway.

Mr. DENIT. No, sir. We do not have any clerical employees perform travel.

Mr. TABER. Well, you have quite a number of them in the field. If I have the figures correct the number of these so-called analysts and managers and specialists and that sort of thing would run maybe 00-or, maybe 500, out of the 1,400. The rest of them are pretty argely clerical help.

Mr. DENIT. Mr. Taber, there is a detailed analysis that is responsive to your line of questioning on page 80 of the justification.

Mr. TABER. Page 80.

Mr. DENIT. And that shows that of departmental travel we estimate travelers, and in the field 517; or a total of 583 traveling personnel. Now, they are per annum people.

In addition to that we have some consultant personnel and, it is mportant to note that the W. O. C. consultants receive only travel. or per diem compensation.

In other words, the $10 a day that we pay the W. O. C. consultants is charged in its entirety to the travel account, it is not charged to personal services, and we have found it necessary to use a number of h employees.

Mr. TABER. You have about 640 on that basis who are traveling. Is that about right?

Mr. DENIT. We have 614 which we estimate will travel next year. Mr. TABER. Six hundred and fourteen.

Mr. DENIT. Yes, sir.

Mr. TABER. Well, now, you have a request in here for $476,000, and that means about $775 a year, for each one average.

Now, that is quite a considerable figure.

Mr. DENIT. These figures are based on experience.

Mr. TABER. That one set-up is the only one I can find that exceeds

you.

Mr. DENIT. Well, I think probably that is right and I feel, frankly, that that is as it should be, because the program of the Smaller War Plants Corporation is unique in government.

Mr. TABER. Plus the O. C. D. They do but their number is quite small. They have 80 people traveling and they run $1,050-they have 80 people in their whole set-up and they have an average for each employee of $1,050 for travel fund.

Of course they are running real wide.

Mr. DENIT. Well, I think the real test of travel expenditures that might develop is the relationship of the immensity of the job to be done to the number of people with which you have to do it, and if our travel costs are high I think that is testimony merely to the fact that we are doing the job for small business as we are set out to do. Mr. LUDLOW. This figures out how much for each person in travel status?

Mr. DENIT. Well, there are various items that we have entered there, Mr. Ludlow.

The average cost of departmental travel which is limited to 66 people is $1,996. That is based on actual experience.

For the field the average is $560.

Mr. RABAUT. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. CANNON. Mr. Taber.

LOAN BUREAU OPERATION

Mr. TABER. You have a loan bureau set up, $888,000. What is that expected to do the next fiscal year?

Mr. DENIT. Well, the experience for the month of March, which we believe to be a representative experience, there was no peculiar condition, they handled 209 loan applications.

Mr. TABER. Two hundred and nine in the month?

Mr. DENIT. Yes, sir.

Mr. TABER. You had how many on the pay roll in that period?

Mr. DENIT. Well, let me amend that. They closed 209 loans. I do not know what the total applications were, offhand.

Do you know that, Mr. Prince?

Mr. PRINCE. I think I can find that here.

Mr. DENIT. In any event, the indications are, Mr. Taber, that our lending volume will be greater than ever, and March is a representative guide of that.

Mr. TABER. Two hundred and nine loans in the month of March. Is that about it?

Mr. DENIT. Closed loans: yes, sir.

Mr. TABER. How much would they total?

Mr. PRINCE. $40,892,034. Then I have a cumulative report.
Mr. TABER. All right. Let us have that.

Mr. PRINCE. The loans and leases together

Mr. TABER. Loans and leases, that means what?

Mr. PRINCE, Purchase on rental.

Since the inception of the corporation through March 31 we had approved or committed upon or closed 3,860 loans.

Mr. TABER. From July 1 to

Mr. PRINCE. July 1, 1942.

Mr. TABER. Down through March 31, 1945?

Mr. PRINCE. 1945. We actually did not get started

Mr. TABER. That means 234 years.

Mr. PRINCE. Yes. We figure

Mr. TABER. That would mean about an average of 115 a month. Mr. PRINCE. About 120 on an average. Of course it has gone up gradually. We started out with one loan and then we built right on up. Mr. TABER. Well, how many would you think you had done in the period from March 1 to March 31 this year?

Mr. PRINCE. This year, I have that right here.

Mr. TABER. How much, how many?

Mr. PRINCE. That was 209.

Mr. TABER. Two hundred and nine. And how much money?
Mr. PRINCE. $40,892,034.

Mr. TABER. Two hundred and nine loans and forty million.

Mr. PRINCE. Yes. That is loans and leases both.

Mr. TABER. Loans and leases forty million.

Mr. PRINCE. $40,892,034.

Mr. MAVERICK. That is 1 month.

Mr. PRINCE. One month.

Mr. TABER. And your loan section, does that do the collecting, too, or does it not?

Mr. PRINCE. Well, the Defense Plants Corporation does the collection for us under the statute but we follow it.

Mr. TABER. You follow it?

Mr. PRINCE. Yes.

Mr. TABER. That means these loans were approximately $200,000 apiece in March, not quite, but almost.

Mr. PRINCE. On the average.

Mr. TABER. Yes. How big do they run?

Mr. PRINCE. Well, let's see-I do not know that we have

Mr. TABER. Suppose you put in the record the big one and the little one.

Mr. PRINCE. For that month?

Mr. TABER. Yes, sir.

Mr. PRINCE. All right, sir.