mission, such Executive order shall not become effective until after the expiration of sixty calendar days from the opening day of the next succeeding regular or special session.

(Whereupon at 12 noon the committee recessed until Tuesday, Aug. 3, 1937, at 10:30 a. m.)

List of council-manager cities in Pacific Coast States as of Mar. 1, 1937

298

316

337

353

369

386

404

422

431

442

455

464

468

City

The State of Washington has never enacted State legislation authorizing cities to adopt the council-manager form of government and consequently, no city in the State has ever adopted it.

Only one city in the Pacific Coast States, Santa Barbara, Calif., has ever repealed the council-manager plan after adoption. The growth of councilmanager cities in California and Oregon is further indicated in the following table, compiled from the above lists:

REORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1937

SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION,
Washington, D. C.

The committee met at 10:30 a. m., Senator James F. Byrnes, presiding.

to order. Colonel

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Greeley.

STATEMENT OF W. B. GREELEY, SECRETARY-MANAGER, WEST COAST LUMBERMEN'S ASSOCIATION

The CHAIRMAN. Colonel, on what subject do you desire to make a statement to the committee?

Mr. GREELEY. I wish to make a statement, sir, on section 2 of the bill as affecting the authority to transfer and rearrange Federal agencies, and the section relating to the renaming of the Department of the Interior as the Department of Conservation, as I regard those two sections directly connected in the case of the Forest Service, and I wish to testify specifically upon the effect of the understood plan of reorganization upon the Forest Service.

I also would like to say a few words about section 203 in respect to the appointment by the President of all positions of a policy-determining character and what I regard as the effect of that section not only upon the Forest Service, with which my own experience runs, but on the Federal executive services as a whole. Shall I proceed?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; you may proceed.

Mr. GREELEY. My name is W. B. Greeley. I am now secretarymanager of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association, living in Seattle, Wash. I do not appear here as representing the lumber industry of the Pacific Northwest with which I am now connected. I wish to testify as a former Government employee in the classified civil service of the Department of Agriculture. I was a member of the Forest Service for 24 years-1904 to 1928-and was chief of that organization during my last 8 years therein.

I have been requested by the president of the Society of American Foresters, of which I am a member, to express its views on this measure. My appearance has not been requested by any other person or agency.

I wish to make it clear that my primary reason for appearing is as a former employee of the Forest Service, in the hope that from my personal experience and contact with many of these problems I may give you something that will assist the committee.

Senator MCNARY. During what period were you chief forester? Mr. GREELEY. From 1920 until 1928. I am concerned with the effect of this proposed law upon the United States Forest Service. Under authority conferred upon the President by section 2, it could be shifted to another Department; or dismembered, like Poland, and its fragments strewn among other agencies; or it might be abolished completely.

In this case of the Forest Service, the authority to transfer or dismember is necessarily associated with the proposal in section 402 to rechristen the Department of Interior as the Department of Conservation. It is generally understood that, with this change in name, the Secretary of the Interior seeks the transfer of the Forest Service to his Department. In a hearing before the House Committee on Public Lands, on H. R. 5858, June 2, 1937, a representative of the Interior offered an amendment for the transfer of the Forest Service to the Interior Department, lock, stock, and barrel. He stated that such amendment was "believed to be in furtherance and not in derogation of the President's reorganization recommendations."

So I take it that that question of transferring the Forest Service to the Interior Department is, due to the language of the bill, made an issue before this committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Who did you say made that statement, Colonel?

Mr. GREELEY. That was the Assistant Solicitor of the Interior Department, Mr. Rufus G. Poole, in a statement made to the House Committee on Public Lands on June 2, 1937.

Whatever the intent in this regard, the purpose of my appearance is to express the conviction that the Forest Service should remain wholly in the Department of Agriculture. This should be a national policy established by law; not left to executive discretion.

These are my reasons, very briefly stated:

In the first place, forestry is a productive use of land. It is the growing and harvesting of crops just as definitely as is agriculture or animal husbandry.

In the continental United States there remain 500 million acres that have always been forest land and whose only economic usefulness today is the growing of timber. This area is partly in old forest, partly denuded from logging or fire, and partly in young trees. But it is all real forest-growing land. The acreage I have given you includes no parks and no scrub woodlands or Alpine forests of inferior quality for timber growth.

The United States is passing out of the period when virgin timber is worked like a mine. Timber is becoming more and more a crop, and forests are taking more of our land, not less. The United States is becoming more of a forested country. Aside from the 500 million acres which have always been in forest there is an estimated 75 million acres of old farm land which has reverted to forest, or which is in process of reversion, and every report of a land-use commission, or a planning agency that I have seen recommends further withdrawals of land from agriculture and the placing of more land in forest crops.

The present forest acreage is greater than all of our agricultural crops combined, excluding pasturage. The present forest acreage represents over one-quarter of the entire land area of the United States; and its effectiveness in producing wealth, in providing employment, and in supporting people is a national problem of land use, a pro that is second only to agriculture.

Now, it is the task of a number of Federal services now grouped in the Department of Agriculture to make this timber-growing quarter of our soil fully productive. That is a task of the Department of Agriculture just exactly as it is the task of the Department to make its agricultural lands as fully productive and as profitable as possible. Of all of these agencies in the Department of Agriculture the Forest Service is but one. There are many others. For example, there is the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, which deals with soil qualities and their classification. There is the Soil Conservation Service, which aids in the control of erosion and the prevention of the deterioration of productive soils. There is the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, which protects forests from insect pests. There is the Division of Pathology, which protects forests, just like agricultural crops, from tree diseases. There is the Biological Survey, which consists constantly of the propagation and management of wildlife. There is the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, which assists the Forest Service in studying and in interpreting the whole economic background of land use and crop protection.

There are two other groups in the Department of Agriculture which I would like to name specifically as vital allies of the Forest Service in its job of keeping land productive. The Bureaus of Plant and Animal Industry each have an active part in the research and management of range lands on the national forests, and in developing the whole system of open-range use. The Agricultural Extension Service provides powerful and indispensable cooperation in educating and assisting farmers in timber culture and profitable timber marketing. One hundred and eighty-five million acres of forest land, more than one-third of the total, is in farm woodlands. That is over one-third of our total forest area. The development of this crop is just as vitally the concern of good agriculture and agricultural economics as that of any other staple crop.

The Forest Service has been grouped with these other Federal gencies in the Department of Agriculture because its work is primarily the production, protection, and harvesting of soil crops. Not only is forestry closely linked with agriculture and often a direct part of agricultural practice, but the growing of all forest crops requires the same or similar scientific and technical facilities and trained personnel as the growing of farm crops. This is equally true whether forests are planted, as from the 22 tree nurseries now maintained on the national forests and planting 140,00 cres annually, or whether they are reproduced by tested methods o selective cutting and natural reseeding.

Forestry is a relatively new science in the United States. It has made notable headway in the last 30 years. From my own experience, I want to testify to the constant and valuable aid to forestry which has come from the other technical and extension agencies in the Department of Agriculture. As a forester and representing the largely prevailing judgment of the foresters in this country, I strongly oppose any realinement of Federal services which would disrupt or break down this natural scientific connection between forestry and agriculture.

Now, just how does the Forest Service discharge its part of the common task of the Department of Agriculture in keeping the timbergrowing one-fourth of the United States productive?

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