both Houses of Congress, we would have found the proper medium for settling claims, which would go before a judicial body rather than before a political body, and one Member who perhaps had some grievance, or perhaps was a conscientious objector, could not block, as has been so frequently done in the past, legislation that is obsolutely fair, just, and equitable. I realize that in the last year or two we have had more of that than we have had perhaps in 12 years with which I am familiar with the action of the House, and I think perhaps a mild change in the rules, under those conditions, might be wise, because a man who is unreasonable in his objections is just as unfair, just as unjust, sometimes just as ridiculous as he possibly can be.

But my purpose in coming before the committee was merely to suggest that if you find in your wisdom that a change is absolutely necessary, that you do not make it too broad or too radical in its character, and also to suggest that there are already two bills before Congress for their consideration, neither one of which I have a great deal of hope for, for the reason that the House is terribly handicapped-I do not know whether that is the right designation to use, but anyway we will let it go at that terribly handicapped, inasmuch as these bills are considered, as a rule, in committee and on the floor of the House strictly on their merits, whereas in another body, to which I can not refer on the floor but can here, many of these claim bills are passed simply as a matter of courtesy.

Mr. Cox. Where do you mean?

Mr. UNDERHILL. In the Senate. An influential Member, or a popular Member over there, comes before the committee and presents his views, and they do not look into the facts, but report the bill out favorably and the bill is passed as a matter of courtesy. That is a fact which can not be denied. That is what you gentlemen from North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and Illinois, have to contend with, and I use those four illustrations because as a matter of fact this practice is not indulged in by the Senators from those particular States. In many of the States, however, the Senator just says to his constituent, who is also you constituent, "Well, I got this through the Senate. You go and see your Congressman." I think that perhaps President Coolidge summed that up pretty thoroughly and fairly well when he said that the House never would be able to get the Senate to forego that patronage; that is the way he expressed it, and I think that is a pretty good expression, that "patronage.' is really a part of a Senator's perquisites or favors or patronage. It does not obtain in the House. My chief concern after long years of service, four of them as chairman of the Committee on Claims, is to see that the Treasury of the United States is properly protected. The CHAIRMAN. Are you prepared to state to what extent you think the present rules of the House should be relaxed?

Mr. BANKHEAD. On the unanimous consent calendar?

It

Mr. UNDERHILL. No, I am speaking of the private calendar. I am confining myself to that. On the private calendar I think that the extreme limit would be three objectors on the second reading, but I would much prefer, however, to have it two objectors; that would meet the situation as it exists to-day, but three would be an extreme limit. It is very difficult, in considering the private calendar, to get

three men to oppose a bill. None of us want to be unpopular. We all would like to be good fellows, and, strangely enough, I have been placed on two committees which, to say the least, have not been popular.

Mr. CRISP. Mr. Underhill, you have been on the Committee on Claims. Now, to what extent can the House of Representatives depend on the favorable report of the Committee on Claims? In taking up legislation absolutely on its merits, to what extent can we rely on a favorable report from the committee?

Mr. UNDERHILL. That is a rather embarrassing question. If you go back two years or a little more, I would say that you could rely, as a rule, pretty nearly 100 per cent upon the report of the committee. That was due to the fact that the committee had the defined policy from which it never deviated, and every Member, high or low, was treated absolutely alike. The greatest difficulty, however, which exists under the present method, is that it is not possible, mentally or physically, for any committee of this House to give proper consideration to the tremendous number of private claims which come before the committee.

Mr. CRISP. You divide it up among subcommittees?

Mr. UNDERHILL. It is divided among subcommittees, and the way it is divided, every member is a subcommittee, and it depends entirely or largely upon how much investigation that member will make. If he is a member of some other committees, he has not got much time to do it, and he may merely take the report, he may merely take the say-so of the member who is interested. But it is quite necessary that the chairman himself should make an investigation of every one of these bills, and during the four years that I was chairman of the committee, there never was a bill reported from that committee that did not have my personal investigation.

Mr. Cox. Mr. Underhill, you are familiar, I presume, with the two resolutions before the committee, one introduced by Mr. Crisp and the other by Mr. Purnell, relating to this question?

Mr. UNDERHILL. I am not familiar with either of them.

Mr. PURNELL. The one which I introduced represents the views of the Republican caucus, if you are familiar with the action taken in the caucus.

Mr. UNDERHILL. Then I will change that. I am absolutely opposed to the recommendation, if it is a recommendation of the Republican caucus. I knew it was useless to oppose it at that time, but I understood that the Democratic Members, who would be in the majority, had no intention, at that time at least, of changing that rule.

Mr. Cox. Would you turn to line 11, on page 2, of House Resolution 47, and then take the Crisp resolution, beginning on line

Mr. BANKHEAD. Mr. Crisp's resolution does not read the same way as that one.

Mr. CRISP. It is a similar resolution.

Mr. PURNELL. The one which our caucus adopted makes it mandatory for the House to go into Committee of the Whole for the consideration of private claims.

Mr. UNDERHILL. It says later on:

After such debate, if five objections are made to the consideration, the bill shall be passed over.

Now, five is simply out of the question.

It would just block every avenue of protection that there is now to the Government.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Is it your oppinion that we have had enough days on the private calendar?

Mr. UNDERHILL. No, sir, positively not. The Committee on Claims works hard. They introduce a large number of bills, and, as a rule, not over 50 per cent of those bills have consideration by the House. They have not got the time, they have not had the time. That is another reason why we should change the method. I am strongly of the conviction that further extension of the $1,000 limit to the Departments would be absolutely safe and perfectly in order. Mr. GARRETT. What is the limit now?

Mr. UNDERHILL. $1,000.

Mr. GARRETT. Was it not originally $2,500?

Mr. UNDERHILL. No, sir. The proposition was for $3,000, and the Senate amended it to $1,000. That was the first change in claims

legislation for over 50 years.

Mr. BANKHEAD. That is regulated by statute, is it not?

Mr. UNDERHILL. Yes, sir.

Mr. GARRETT. Do you think the limit ought to be raised?

Mr. UNDERHILL. I think the limit should be raised to $3,000. They had no difficulty with it whatever, so far as the policy that has been adopted is concerned. There has been no abuse of the policy, and there has been a tremendous lot of good that has come out of it.

Mr. BANKHEAD. Do you know whether any effort has been made in recent years to change that law?

Mr. UNDERHILL. Yes, sir; I introduced a resolution; two years after the first small claims bill was passed, I introduced a resolution increasing the amount to $3,000, thinking I might get a compromise of $2,000, but it was thrown out in the Senate.

Mr. BANKHEAD. What committee was that referred to?

Mr. UNDERHILL. The Committee on Claims.

Mr. BANKHEAD. And the committee refused to act on it?

Mr. UNDERHILL. No, sir; I think our committee acted on it but the Senate did not.

Mr. BANKHEAD. Did it pass the House?

Mr. UNDERHILL. No, sir. As I recall it now, this is what happened: That it was first introduced in the Senate and the Senate turned it down. I knew that the House would accept it, and there was no use in introducing it in the House, however, if the Senate would not work on it.

Mr. GARRETT. In cases where a claim is filed for $1,000 or less, is the decision of the department a finality?

Mr. UNDERHILL. No, it is not final, Mr. Garrett. The decision is usually accepted but if anyone feels that he has not been treated. fairly or equitably he has still the right to come before Congress. Mr. GARRETT. What I had in mind was this:

Would not that virtually put the whole matter back to where it was?

Mr. UNDERHILL. It does not prejudice the claim any more than the present procedure. In every instance the bill is referred to the Department and the department makes a report on it, and as a rule

the department's report is followed. There have been certain cases. For instance, the Post Office Department always sends in a report in opposition to bills to reimburse a postmaster for the defalcations of an employee of the office. I brought before the House and explained to them the proposition that it was a radical departure and that the committee no longer would consider those recommendations, but would go contrary to them on the ground that the postmaster had no right to hire or fire his help, and therefore he ought not to be held liable on his bond for the defalcations of some of his employees who were sent to him by the Civil Service Commission.

Mr. GARRETT. I want to ask you this question, because I know you have thought a good deal along this line. Nobody can sue the Government, of course, unless Congress provides the necessary authority to enable them to do so?

Mr. UNDERHILL. They may sue the Government in contracts up to millions of dollars.

Mr. GARRETT. That is under a special act of Congress?

Mr. UNDERHILL.. Yes, sir; any contractor can sue the Government. Mr. GARRETT. That is where the contract is with the Government. I mean, in cases of damage, and things like that.

Mr. UNDERHILL. Yes, because there was the admiralty bill which was passed six years ago, I believe.

Mr. CRISP. That is covered by a general statute.

Mr. UNDERTHILL. Yes, sir. But otherwise than under those circumstances, nobody can sue the Government. The Government can only be sued in those two instances.

Mr. GARRETT. What we want to do is to get rid of a lot of private bills that have to go to the Committee on Claims. Now, suppose we should raise the limit to $3,000 for damages that are caused by any agent of the Government in any of the departments.

Mr. UNDERHILL. That is property damages, you understand, not personal injuries, only property damages.

Mr. GARRETT. Well, suppose we make it both personal injuries or property damage because there are a lot of small damages that $3,000 would cover, but where the claim approaches $3,000, in most cases they would not be satisfied with the investigation and decision of one of the departments, or one agency of the department. That is my experience.

Now, could you work out something so that if they are not satisfied with the decision of the department on a particular matter, up to that limit, they could go into the various district courts who have jurisdiction to adjudicate such cases, wherever they may be located? Of course, I understand the judges of those courts would all kick on that because it would mean a crowding of their dockets with a number of small lawsuits. But it would at least relieve us of a great many small claims. Of course, where a man is not satisfied with the result of the action of the court, he could come back with a private bill and you could not cut off a Member of Congress from introducing a private bill if he wanted to do it. Nevertheless, if it was the practice that the department was given the power to adjust claims up to a certain limit and if private bills were not passed when introduced for that purpose, you would not have much chance in Congress. with these small bills and to that extent it would relieve Congress.

Mr. UNDERHILL. My bill provided, Mr. Garrett, that for everything up to $5,000, a suit could be entered in the district court, but over $5,000 it would have to go to the Court of Claims, and the suit would have to be brought there. It would relieve Congress of a lot of bills which have their origin in the offices of claims attorneys here in Washington and who, in the past, have had a very substantial income from old claims that they have dug out from time to time. Mr. GARRETT. I think you are right about that.

Mr. UNDERHILL. Through lobbying and friendship and legitimate means I will not claim that they have done anything that was wrong or unethical, but they got their claims through. The small claims bill reduced the number of bills that were introduced in Congress from over 6,000 to a trifle over 4,000, on an average. Mr. GARRETT. That is a considerable reduction.

Mr. BANKHEAD. Would you mind looking up that bill that you introduced and letting us have a copy of it? I think this committee would be inclined to give pretty serious consideration to an effort to revive that legislation.

Mr. UNDERHILL. I will look it up.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Underhill, would you care to express yourself here as to the merits of the proposal which the Republican caucus adopted?

Mr. UNDERHILL. Yes; I have already expressed myself as not opposed to the second and fourth Saturdays and another day being devoted to the Private Calendar. I do not think the method further provided for is quite the right method. But I am absolutely opposed to increasing the number of objectors to over three; and I prefer to have it two.

Mr. GARRETT. Do you think this provision in the proposal removes any of the objections? Under this suggestion it provides that the Private Calendar be called on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month. That is mandatory. The bills shall be called up in the order in which they appear on the Private Calendar. That is mandatory. If there is objection made, then there is 20 minutes debate, 10 minutes for and 10 against, and the chairman is charged with strict enforcement of this limitation.

Now, do you think that ten minutes debate following an objection might tend to relieve this condition, so as to justify the subsequent requirement of five objectors?

Mr. UNDERHILL. I think with 20 minutes' opportunity for a man to express himself and more opportunity later on to set forth his views when it is being discussed fully-and I say this in the kindliest spirit-that will give time to get hsi words back to his constituents. That is the chief object of that.

Mr. PURNELL. If a man can not in that time show some good justification for the consideration of his claim, it might be concluded as a generel rule that it has no merit.

Mr. UNDERHILL. That is true; but as a rule the man can show a pretty strong claim in equity with reference to his claim, and the danger then lies in the small attendance and the impossibility of getting the number of objectors to block the bill when there are so many present interested in bills of their own. You can not under those circumstances get more than one or two men to object.