reports on the State educational agency investigations, and to conclude the Bunker Hill inquiry.

Now, it became apparent when we went into this surplus property for educational and other tax-supported institutions by States that there was a national organization set up of surplus-property managers for the various States. They were holding a convention here when we first began to look into this, and it startled the members of the subcommittee to know that there was a national organization, whose purpose was to perpetuate indefinitely the flow of surplus property to these institutions. They frankly stated that they thought this program was going to increase instead of decrease, that there would be forever a flow of surplus property from the Federal Government that would be usable to the States.

So, on their own statement we thought it very desirable that we go into the matter, and we have written to every State in the Union asking for a report on their stewardship of the program, their custody of the materials either secured as gift or at discount prices.

Mr. CURTIS. Mr. Chairman, when you say "we," did the GAO do that?

Mr. BONNER. No; the subcommittee.

Mr. CURTIS. The subcommittee?

Mr. BONNER. Yes.

During the latter part of the last session it was difficult to get the subcommittee to function, to work, because many of you know that members were away and there was not much legislative program going on. But, anyway, with what staff we did have, we took it upon ourselves, Mr. Harvey of Indiana, and myself and others, to write each State.

It might be a good thing at this point to read the letter that we wrote each State, Mr. Small.

Mr. Kennedy has been very cooperative with us-he is from the full committee-in helping this subcommittee. Mr. Kennedy comes to the subcommittee without any cost, and I want to thank him right now for the aid he has given us. He will cooperate with any of you, and you will find him most helpful, and you will find him dependable in every respect in whatever he tells you, and he will secure any information from time to time that you might desire.

Mr. Small there is clerk of the subcommittee, and I want him to cooperate with each one of you and to receive and secure information that you desire from any agency of the Government with the cooperation of Mr. Kennedy. That is our staff.

Now, Mr. Small, if you will read that letter, a copy of it, that we have sent to the various States.

Mr. SMALL. All the copies were given to the GAO. They took the other letters, and they were all clipped together with the reports which the States sent back.

Mr. BONNER. You have not got a copy of the letter we sent out?
Mr. SMALL. No, sir.

Mr. BONNER. Nevertheless, we wrote each State asking for a report on the handling of this property and so forth. Some of the States answered us fully; some did not answer. My own State, for instance, has made how much money out of the handling?

Mr. KENNEDY. $40,000.

Mr. BONNER. My own State has made $40,000 out of handling surplus property; and I feel that if my little State, which had a very fine gentleman, but he was not such a great go-getter in my opinion, made $40,000 out of this, some of these other States with men that I saw must have made considerably more. So, we are going into that. And, if they went into this as a business proposition, this money might be returnable to the Federal Government, or certainly it should be given to the institutions in the States which were supposed to receive the property at cost rather than to go into the general funds of the State.

Well, anyway, we will go further into that as time goes on.

Our program for the future. There has been no thorough-going study made of the expenditures of the Federal Government used in conjunction with our national road-building programs. These projects involve the matching of funds. Such a study appears to be wellmerited.

Now I point out the road program here, but that can well be said with respect to all programs that the Federal Government contributes to on a matching basis or a contributing basis.

Another field in which we could very ably make a study is Federal aid to education. The Hoover reports have stated that no penetrating study has been made by any responsible group in Government in this regard.

There is, of course, Federal aid to agriculture in many programs, and in the Interior Department, and in every agency of the Government there is some program of Federal aid to States. It might be desirable on the part of the subcommittee to have representatives from these agencies come down and inform us about these programs, and we will decide whether we want to look into them to just see what is going on. We may pick out a sample case somewhere for instance.

The funds of our subcommittee are received from the full committee. The staff of the full committee is available for our use at any time. We contemplate keeping our operations costs to a minimum.

I hope we will set an example of doing a good job, accomplish worthwhile things at a minimum expense.

The program I have outlined will be brought to the attention of the House Administration Committee. This group will be responsible for determining the funds of not only our subcommittee but the funds of the entire committee.

Now, Mr. Kennedy, who is very familiar with all of the past activities, might answer any questions, or I, that any of you new members care to ask.

Mr. Shelley.

Mr. SHELLEY. No questions.

Mr. BONNER. Mrs. Harden.

Mrs. HARDEN. I do not believe I have any.

Mr. BONNER. Mr. Lantaff.

Mr. LANTAFF. No; I cannot think of any.

Mr. BONNER. Mr. Brownson.

Mr. BROWNSON. I have nothing right now.

Mr. BONNER. Mr. Curtis.

Mr. CURTIS. No.

Mr. BONNER. Of course, this meeting this morning is an executive meeting to get together and know each other and try to, for myself,

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tell you what we have been doing. Then I will fully depend on each one of you. It is your responsibility just the same as mine to make the subcommittee a success. Anything that you have in mind that is called to your attention, I wish that you would present it to the subcommittee through Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Small to be brought to the attention of the subcommittee-any studies that you think we ought to make. That is the way I want the subcommittee to cooperate.

Now the subcommittee is ready to visit sample installations, for instance, Fort Bragg or Fort Benning or some other. This trip was all set up last December. Thinking that there might be a change, and thinking that this work had to go on, and for the purpose of economy in avoiding duplication, I, myself just kept postponing it, putting it off. So now we are organized as a subcommittee and ready to go, and I would like to know from the subcommittee members during this month of February, when would be the most convenient time. I realize probably all of us cannot go at the same time, but when would be a convenient week? We must do this and set a date a week or 10 days in advance. Now what would you suggest, Mr. Kennedy?

STATEMENT OF THOMAS A. KENNEDY, GENERAL COUNSEL, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS

dependent on the individual You will no doubt remember

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman, it is circumstances of each of the members. that you never are able to get them all at the same time; so if you could get a representative group who would agree on any given period; they should at least have an interval of 3 to 4 days.

Mr. BONNER. The trip, you mean, would take 3 to 4 days?

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BROWNSON. Of course, most of us on the minority are fairly well tied up until about through the 19th, on account of Lincoln's Birthday.

Mr. BONNER. The 19th is on Monday.

Mr. BROWNSON. Most of us will be back from Lincoln's Birthday. Mr. BONNER. What is the week after that?

Mr. KENNEDY. That is the week of the 19th.

Mr. BONNER. You will just be geting back here, will you not?

Mr. BROWNSON. The next week is the 26th.

Mr. BONNER. You mean you will be coming back on the 19th?

Mr. BROWNSON. Yes; we will probably be back the night of the 18th, most of us.

Mr. BONNER. How would the 21st, 22d, 23d, and 24th be? How does that sound to you, Mr. Shelley?

Mr. SHELLEY. It is all right with me.

Mr. LANTAFF. From what I know now, it is all right.

Mr. BONNER. Of course, we will probably wind up in all probability with three or four going. If I can get as many as three, all right, but I do not want to go with less than three.

Mr. LANTAFF. The 21st through the 24th and 25th.

Mr. BONNER. Yes. How does that sound, Mr. Kennedy? What is your opinion about it?

Mr. KENNEDY. That would be very good. Most installations, of course, are closed on Saturday, so Saturday would be merely a cushion for weather on return.

Mr. BONNER. Is there a holiday in that group, too?

Mr. KENNEDY. That is right; Washington's Birthday comes in there.

Mr. BONNER. I do not think they close the Army posts down on Washington's Birthday.

Mr. BROWNSON. It would be kind of interesting to see how much Army posts are closed down on holidays.

Mr. KENNEDY. Our interest in the matter at this time, Congressman, would not be leveled at whether they are off or on. We are going down to look at certain programs, and they have the requisite duty officers

Mr. BROWNSON. It is entirely possible we might also be interested as Congressmen whether they are off or on. We are supposed to have a small emergency.

Mr. BONNER. With respect to that, we get over into the field of the Armed Services Committee, and I am a little jealous myself about the jurisdiction of committees. I have raised a question once or twice about bills referred to the Armed Services which, in my opinion, should have been referred to the Expenditures Committee on property disposal, and so forth. So we have enough to do without getting into the functions of the Armed Services Committee. Of course, as an individual, that is perfectly all right.

Mr. BROWNSON. That is what I mean.

Mr. SHELLEY. Just observation for educational purposes.

Mr. BROWNSON. That is right.

Mr. BONNER. What do you suggest, Mr. Kennedy?

Mr. KENNEDY. If we start on the 20th, Congressman, we could go through to the 23d.

Mr. BONNER. The 20th is Tuesday?

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BONNER. That is all right.

Mr. KENNEDY. That is dependent also, of course, on the legislative program in the House.

Mr. BONNER. Well, we will set that date; and Mr. Small, I wish you would make a note and have a letter written to each member of the subcommittee that is the date set.

Mr. BROWNSON. I thought you were going to set the 21st. That would give us a couple of days back in town before the trip.

Mr. LANTAFF. It was set because of the week end.

Mr. BROWNSON. That would give you the 21st, 22d, 23d, and return on the 24th. How many days did you prefer to be out?

Mr. KENNEDY. I would just like to draw your attention to this, Congressman. We are going to try to bring along with us, of course, the admiral in charge, possibly the Chief of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts; and with those days as, for instance, Washington's Birthday, they have heavy commitments. But we have stated to officials that in the past policy enunciation is not enough, that they should see field operations; they should go to those places which receive the letters signed by them. It has been illuminating in the past.

Mr. BONNER. Do you think we ought to drop down another week? Mr. BROWNSON. I just wanted to get it clarified as to the day. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Bonner, I think the idea is we have delayed this from

Mr. BONNER. We have delayed too long now. I realize that. This is going to have a great effect around the military posts now. Already what we have done has had its effect, and this is going to have more effect. So you think we had better stay to that date?

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BONNER. The 20th.

Mr. KENNEDY. I think it would be better if you could make it on the 20th.

Mr. LANTAFF. How does the subcommittee travel, Mr. Chairman? Mr. BONNER. By plane. Is that right?

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. We are allocated plane space by the Defense Department.

Mr. BONNER. That is satisfactory to the majority that we set that date?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman, since we have agreed as to the date, perhaps I might give them a little background-just what we are looking for and where we are going and what the program is.

Mr. BONNER. Very well.

Mr. KENNEDY. As Mr. Bonner stated, the General Accounting Office detailed the investigator in charge of the office of investigations, New York office, to assist us in evaluation; the Director of the Budget has detailed a man to represent the budget. So we are entering into this as a fully pronged governmental inquiry.

Mr. CURTIS. Do you have his name, the GAO man?

Mr. KENNEDY. His name is Mr. James H. DeMaras. The budget man is Mr. Ray Ward, and he is Chief of the Property Division. Both of them are highly recommended, and we have worked with both of them in the past; they have recommended themselves because of their work.

Now our method of operation was this: At Mr. Bonner's suggestion Mr. DeMaras departed from Washington and took in a swing of five major military installations.

Of course, as a result there can be a tremendous toning up of an activity.

Now these GAO men were working under pressure because we were at that time intending to depart within 10 days. So within the 10-day limit they screened the activities to the best of their ability and prepared a written report on each activity, generally about 20 pages long. I have taken these reports and have reduced them to a one-page synopsis just to give the highlights of what we have. I have prepared these for you and each will get a copy. It is just the highlights. The reports are here; they are 20 pages long, and we do not have too many copies of them. But if they could be rotated it would be well.

Starting with the Robins Air Force Base, you will note that we divided disposals into two periods-the disposals made after June 25, the date of the Korean War, and the disposals prior to June 25. They had certain standards set up for disposition prior to the Korean War and certain standards were brought about as a result of the Korean War.

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