ACTION OF SECRETARY ON SALARIES OF OFFICERS OF CONCESSIONAIRES

Mr. JONES. Now, will you state in tabular form the action of the Secretary of the Interior with reference to officers' salaries? As I understand it, in 1941 I asked you the following question:

Is there a limitation in the contract with the concessionaire to limit the salaries that are paid to concessionaire officers?

I think that you answered

No, sir; this is covered by a special order. When the set-up of an operating concession is approved, they cannot increase the salaries of their executives without the approval of the Secretary of the Interior.

Will you put into the record a statement of the salaries of all the officers that have been changed up and down and the amount in each instance before and after the Secretary acted, which will show a difference in the salaries from park concessionaire officials?

Mr. TOLSON. The order applied only to increases, although there were a number of voluntary decreases through the filling of vacancies and during the war when the facilities were curtailed. In only two cases were increases in salaries paid as a result of the order. They are: Rainier National Park Co., general manager, from $6,000 to $7,500 in 1942.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Co., vice president and general manager, from $1,800 to $7,200 in 1941.

TOTAL POSITIONS IN NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, 1946

Mr. JONES. Now, a general question on the number of man-years in your 1946 set-up of the National Park Service. In adding up the figures in the Budget, I have found that you have 2,121.7 man-years in the Park Service for 1946. Am I correct in that figure?

Mr. TOLSON. That sounds about right.

Mr. JONES. Now, will you place in the record at this point the actual employees in the Park Service, in tabular form, showing the actual number on the pay roll for 1 year, 9 months, 6 months, and 3 months of the 1946 fiscal year?

Mr. TOLSON. The 9 months will have to be estimated.

Mr. JONES. I will turn it the other way around-those that will be on 9 months, 6 months, and those that you anticipate will be put on 3 months.

Mr. TOLSON. Yes.

(The information follows:)

Estimated number of positions to be occupied during the 1946 fiscal year from all funds available to the National Park Service

Permanent positions:

Full year (more than 9 months).

6 months or less...

Total permanent positions...

Temporary positions:

6 months or less.

3 months or less.

Total temporary positions

Total positions.

Employment on other than a position basis (working on an intermittent hourly, daily, etc., basis as the need therefor arises).

Grand total....

Not susceptible to break-down by number of positions.

ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL PARK SERVICE ESTIMATES FOR 1947

Mr. JONES. With reference to general administration of $7,343,215, how much of this will be in personnel and how much in other obliga tions? How much will be for public works?

Mr. TOLSON. By public works, do you mean roads and trails and parkways and physical improvements in the 1947 estimate?

Mr. JONES. Yes; and I would like for you to itemize the general administrative expenses, either the personal or other obligations, for each one of these items on your chart-contract authorizations, Federal-aid authorizations, contract authorizations for roads and trails, Federal-aid authorizations for roads and trails, major repairs, rehabilitation, land, and water rights. Do you have those figures broken

down or not?

Mr. TOLSON. They would have to be assembled. They are broken down by man-years for the 1947 estimates that we have submitted. In other words, under the roads and trails items, you will find a breakdown by man-years of the personnel involved in carrying out that construction program.

Mr. JONES. What is the man-year program for the entire Park Service for 1947?

Mr. TOLSON. For 1947, the estimated total of man-years for the National Park Service is 3,588.2. That includes all permanent and temporary employees. The permanent employees total 2,266.2 and the temporary employees total 1,322 man-years.

Mr. JONES. If you will put this up in tabular form so that I can pick out personnel and obligations, it will be very helpful.

(The information follows:)

Analysis of National Park Service estimates fiscal year 1947

ADVERTISING ON CONCESSION RENEWAL CONTRACTS

Mr. ROONEY. I have another question or two, Mr. Chairman. I want to feel assured about the matter of advertising for new concessionaires to take over concessions upon the expiration of the present contracts. Do you agree, Mr. Drury, that that should be done?

Mr. DRURY. I think everything depends upon the quality of the service that the concessionaires have given and the generally satisfactory arrangements that the Government has with them.

Mr. ROONEY. Do you not think it is for the best interests of the taxpayer to ascertain whether or not there is someone in another city or in another State of the Union who is willing to pay the Government inore money to handle a concession just as efficiently as it is being handled by the present concessionaire?

Mr. DRURY. If you have a long experience indicating that the public has been satisfactorily served by a given concessionaire, it does not seem reasonable to attempt to make a change just on the basis of the supposed amount that they might pay to the Government.

Mr. ROONEY. Following up what you say, if you were to find that private capital was willing to come along and pay off all the Government obligations to the Yosemite Park & Curry Co. and in addition pay an amount five times in excess of what the Government now gets in revenue from the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., you would turn that party down?

Mr. DRURY. I would not say that, but we would have to analyze it very carefully to make sure that they did not try to take that out on the public, because there are a great many ways

Mr. ROONEY. I know that, but that phase of it can be taken care of by requiring the posting of a bond, purely a matter of business, and if they did not live up to the terms of their contract, the bond would be forfeited. Are there not any number of business methods by which that phase could be safeguarded?

Mr. DRURY. This is not a cold-blooded business proposition entirely; it is a matter of serving the public in the national parks. In the first place, as we conceive it, these concessionaires, under a businesslike contract, act, in effect, as agents of the Government in rendering service to the public.

Mr. ROONEY. They practically own the parks themselves, I have been told. Last summer, on our visit to Yosemite, I went off by myself and got to talking with a Park Service employee, and from my conversation with him I gathered the impression that the concessionaire, the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., and not the Park Service, were running Yosemite Park.

Mr. DRURY. That is an erroneous conception.

Mr. ROONEY. I further gathered that the employees of the Park Service were the servants of the Yosemite Park & Curry Co.

Mr. DRURY. I state to you that that is not so.

Mr. ROONEY. I am merely giving you the impression that I gained from the conversation. This may never have come to your attention before now.

Mr. DRURY. I know Yosemite very well.

Mr. ROONEY. Now, to get back to this matter of advertising for new concessionaires. Apparently you and I just do not agree on this, and it will avail us nothing to continue further, but I will say, in con

nection with the answer that you gave me awhile ago, that, in substançe, the following would be a reasonable inference to draw from your answer. If a man comes along and agrees to pay off all the Government obligations on a contract with the present concessionaire and agrees to pay five times as much in revenue to the Federal Treasury as is now being paid, and agrees to run the business in the same manner, as efficiently as the present concessionaire, you would turn that offer down. And on that we do not agree.

Mr. DRURY. I did not say that, Mr. Rooney.

Mr. ROONEY. I say that that is the only fair inference that I can draw from what you did say.

Mr. DRURY. Of course, if the Government could get more revenue and at the same time could be assured that the public would be as well taken care of, naturally, as Government servants, we would have to take the arrangement that was most advantageous to the Government. But on top of that, there is a provision in these contracts which has been recognized for 30 or 40 years, that if they give satisfactory service, the concessionaires who are now established have a prior right of renewal. That does not mean that they have a right of renewal on the same terms. And I can assure you that in renewing these contracts, we are endeavoring to analyze them in such a way that the Government will be the one that gets the fair breaks.

Mr. ROONEY. Do you not think the time has come when we need some new blood in running these concessions, rather than these firms that have had them for years and years with little or no revenue to the Government?

Mr. DRURY. In some cases that is true and in other cases it is not. I know that you are familiar somewhat with what we have done, for instance, in some parks like Mammoth Cave, Ky., where a nonprofit-distributing corporation, National Park Concessions, has taken the concession over, under an arrangement whereby we feel they have rendered very satisfactory service to the public; but in that case, of course, the Government will own all of the assets. And that is the end we are generally working toward.

Mr. ROONEY. Coming back again to the matter of public advertising upon the expiration of a concessionaire's contract, I cannot understand why it is that you say it is not fair to advertise for bids generally and extensively, so that you may get some other private capital to become interested. I cannot understand that.

Mr. DRURY. It might possibly be done in some cases.

Mr. ROONEY. In every case.

Mr. DRURY. Under the law, the Secretary of the Interior is not bound to do that.

Mr. ROONEY. Then perhaps we ought to have a statute which would provide that that must be done.

Mr. DRURY. Let us see what Mr. Demaray has to say about that. He has had a long experience with these concessions.

Mr. DEMARAY. Taking the Yosemite situation, in the event that we should readvertise, or should advertise upon the expiration of this contract, we would have to require the new investor to acquire the assets of the Yosemite National Park company and also require them to provide additional facilities as may be necessary.

Mr. ROONEY. I understand that. What has that to do with it? I said awhile ago that if you advertised setting forth the provisions

of the present arrangements, and stating what was required, is it not possible that someone in one of the other parts of this country would be interested in going out there and taking over this concession, paying off the obligations in cash to the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., and then entering into an entirely new arrangement? That is not an unreasonable supposition.

Mr. DEMARAY. No; that is not unreasonable. But we know that Dr. Tresidder is now trying to dispose of the Yosemite Park & Curry Co.

Mr. ROONEY. I do not see what that has to do with this matter of advertising. I cannot understand why it is not fair and decent, upon the expiration of one of these lucrative contracts, to advertise for the highest bidder and see what is the best price you can get, at the same time investigating the background of the bidder and determining who is the best man to give the contract to, the one from whom you can obtain the most profit for the Treasury of the United States. What fault can be found with that?

Mr. DRURY. May I answer you, Mr. Rooney, by saying that there might be circumstances under which that might be the best course. It would depend upon conditions.

Mr. ROONEY. If you do not advertise, you will never find out.

Mr. DRURY. My only other point is, there are considerations other than the amount of money paid to the Government, considerations that are very important to the national parks; the character and the tone of the operation, the character of the service given to the publiceverything like that.

Mr. ROONEY. What would you say, Mr. Drury, about a requirement in law that upon the expiration of any contract with a concessionaire, the Secretary of the Interior be directed to extensively advertise for a new concessionaire, and ask for bids to take over the concession? What would you say? Would you be opposed to it or in favor of it? Mr. DRURY. I do not believe it would improve, under existing conditions, the character of our concession operations.

Mr. ROONEY. Then you would be opposed to it?

Mr. DHURY. If the Government owned the physical plant, if the Government were to buy out these properties, then it could logically advertise and then scrutinize the qualifications of the various bidders.

Mr. ROONEY. Why should the Government do that? Are we not in far enough now? Why should we take over the plant if we can get private enterprise to take it over?

Mr. DRURY. Those are the things that you object to, the long-term contracts, rate of return, and salaries of officers, which are largely due to private investments.

Mr. ROONEY. What I am objecting to is an unconscionable contract, I have said that ever since I first read the contract; it is utterly unconscionable and the Navy captain referred to it, when I mentioned a certain clause in the contract, as a "super-duper," permitting the accumulation of deficits that arise over the year so that you cannot get anything but $5,000 a year out of the business.

Mr. DRURY. The purpose of that clause, so I am told, was to make sure that the earnings would, to some extent, to a considerable extent, go back into the plant, so that the public could be accommodated.

Mr. ROONEY. So that the concessionaire would be able to build up a marvelous looking investment which would have to be taken into