APPENDIX II. Mr. HENRY K. BUSH-BROWN, FEDERAL BOARD FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, Arts Club of Washington, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. BUSH-BROWN: I am attaching hereto some figures I spoke to you about when you were in my office the other day. I think these are extremely interesting. You understand, of course, that they do not in any manner represent the total of rehabilitated cases but are fairly representative so far as results go. Very truly, yours, R. T. FISHER, Assistant Director for Vocational Rehabilitation. Partial list of rehabilitated cases-Placement and average salary. Daily rates extended to year of 306 working days. Foremen average approximately 15 per cent higher Approximately 70 per cent work 8-hour day Partial list of rehabilitated cases-Placement and average salary-Continued. The CHAIRMAN. We have with us a number of representatives of the Government here, and we will now hear Mr. Lamkin. STATEMENT OF MR. UEL W. LAMKIN, DIRECTOR FEDERAL BOARD FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Mr. LAMKIN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I should like to have it distinctly understood that I am here because you asked me to appear. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. LAMKIN. Mr. Bush Brown came to see me again yesterday. The CHAIRMAN. How much time do you desire, Mr. Lamkin? Mr. LAMKIN. I will try to be as brief as I can, but when you get into the matter of training soldiers there are a great many questions that probably will occur to you. There are two things that I think the American Congress expects of its administrative officers in carrying out the work of the rehabilitation of disabled men. The first is that the work shall be done and done right, and the second is that it shall be as economically administered as possible. In the first place, the board believes that the work can best be done by using existing agencies. Mr. JACOWAY. There are members of the committee who may not know who the witness is. He gave his card to the stenographer. Mr. LAMKIN. My name is Uel W. Lamkin, and I am the Director of the Federal Board for Vocational Education. Mr. JACOWAY. I understand. Mr. LAMKIN. We are using, so far as possible, existing agencies. When existing agencies can not give the necessary training, we are willing to make a contract with any agency which may be organized for the purpose of doing it. If an agency does not exist and if we can not make a contract with a private agency to do the work, we will undertake to establish an institution ourselves and to maintain it and give the training in Government owned and controlled institutions. As far as this immediate proposition is concerned, we have had it up before us for over a year. The CHAIRMAN. You have been over the property? Mr. LAMKIN. Our representative has been over the property. This is true, there is no department of the Government that has authority to transfer to the Vocational Board Government-owned property. In other words, the Department of Agriculture can not transfer this property to the Federal Board. I have made this statement to a dozen other committees of the House, and I should like to make it again to the Committee on Agriculture, because I want Congress to understand the situation. Within the next 30 days, for instance, the War Department will declare as surplus a million dollars' worth of property that can be used in the vocational schools. The War Department can not transfer that to us. We, being a governmental board, can not go into the market and bid on it. We have got to go into the outside market-while the War Department is selling their stuff on the outside market and secure bids from private concerns to furnish us with material which the Government now owns, and which is being put on the market as surplus property. Mr. KINCHELOE. By an act of Congress that property could be turned over to you? Mr. LAMKIN. Yes, sir. We have presented it for more than a year. Mr. KINCHELOE. There has to be legislation along that line authorizing the department to turn it over to you? Mr. LAMKIN. Yes, sir. Mr. KINCHELOE. What is the objection? Mr. LAMKIN. There seems to be no objection, except that we have not been able to get the desired action. The matter is now before the President for an executive order, authorizing it to be done. Mr. KINCHELOE. I think, personally, that it is a crime that it is not done. That stuff will be sacrificed and you fellows must go in and pay one hundred cents on the dollar? Mr. LAMKIN. We have to do it. The CHAIRMAN. The property is desired by you? Mr. LAMKIN. It is. We have gone to the warehouse where the War Department has the stuff and we have attached tags to it and they will turn it over to us when authority is given. The War Department is holding it rather than putting it on the market. Mr. ASWELL. In your opinion, has the President the authority to authorize it? Mr. LAMKIN. I do not know. I am officially advised that the President has it up with the Attorney General, but I do not know. Mr. KINCHELOE. What committee of Congress would have jurisdiction of the matter? Mr. LAMKIN. The Committee on Military Affairs. Mr. KINCHELOE. This surplus stuff which will be sold by the War Department will not bring 10 cents on the dollar, the very stuff which you need to help the boys, and you will have to go into the open market and pay 100 cents on the dollar. It is a crime on the taxpayers of the country. Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. When will be the sale? Mr. LAMKIN. Some time in the next 30 days. We can not wait. You are putting it up to this board to get the work done, and if we can not get the stuff from the Government departments we are going into the open market and buy it. Mr. GERNERD. This is the first time I have heard of it. Mr. LAMKIN. I understand. It has been before the Military Affairs Committee of both the House and Senate. Mr. PURNELL. How much more will it cost you, approximately, if you have to go into the open market and purchase this material? Mr. LAMKIN. Three or four times as much. I have on my desk now tentative requisitions for $2,300,000 worth of property that is going to be needed in the next year by the board. Mr. KINCHELOE. And if this property was sold it would bring about 20 cents on the dollar? Mr. LAMKIN. I imagine so. Mr. KINCHELOE. And assuming that you want $2,500,000 worth of material, if the necessary authority can be given to use the property of the Government it would result in a saving of $2,000,000. Mr. LAMKIN. I should say so. The CHAIRMAN. What property? Mr. LAMKIN. Machine tools, equipment, etc. More than a year and a half ago Mr. Treadway, of Massachusetts, on the floor of the House, when in Committee of the Whole, offered an amendment to an appropriation bill providing that the Secretary of War should have authority to transfer to the Federal Board such equipment as was necessary for us to carry on our work. That was limited by an amendment on the floor of the House to the amount of $250,000 only, which we had the War Department transfer to us. Since that time we have had the matter before the Military Affairs Committees of both the Senate and the House. The CHAIRMAN. If this bill authorized the transfer of the property to your board, would that give the desired authority? Mr. LAMKIN. Yes, sir; I want to say to you, frankly, that so far as this bill is concerned, the Federal Board does not want this property for these reasons: In the first place, it is inaccessible and I think its being inaccessible has some merit; and in the second place, it would cost us too much to maintain it for the number of men we could put there and train. Mr. JACOWAY. You are referring to the physical ground and not to the equipment. Mr. LAMKIN. There is nothing here but the physical ground. There is nothing in this Mount Weather proposition that we could equip. To answer the question further, may I go one step further and make myself plain. If the Government wants to transfer this property to a private concern with whom we can make a contract to pay a reasonable amount for the training of these men, and the private concern will raise enough funds to make up the difference between the cost of training the men and what the Government could reasonably pay for training the men, we are willing to make that kind of contract with them, but we feel that so far as the Government itself is concerned, it would cost too much money for the Government to operate it. The CHAIRMAN. Have we not an investment there already of $209,527.70. Mr. LAMKIN. All right. The CHAIRMAN. And that property ought to be utilized by the Government or some disposition made of it in some way. Mr. GERNERD. Provided, Mr. Chairman, the cost of maintenance is not way out of proportion. Mr. JONES. I notice the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of Agriculture, have recommended the sale of this property. Mr. LAMKIN. We can not buy it. Mr. ASWELL. You can not use the buildings as they are? Mr. PURNELL. Mr. Lamkin, what do you say as to the general policy that this would sanction of dividing responsibility with your department for the training of these men. Mr. LAMKIN. I will say in reply to that question, I think there would be no divided responsibility. We would make a contract with the corporation. As far as this particular question is concerned, it seems to me the question hinges on whether or not the Congress wants to turn over to the Soldiers' Institute Governmentowned property. Looking at it from the viewpoint of the Federal Board, we would make a contract with that Soldiers' Insritute, the same as we would make a contract with Columbia University, for the training of certain men in certain lines of work and if they did not train the men in those lines of work for, the tuition which we would pay-and I am frank to say, we would not be willing to pay more than $30 or $35 a month tuition- -if they could not train the men for the tuition we would pay, then we would withdraw our men from the institute. Mr. JONES. You would want the concern with which you made the contract to be financially responsible? Mr. LAMKIN. We certainly would want them to be financially responsible and would not make a contract with them unless they were financially responsible. Mr. KINCHELOE. Let us see about the practicability of this particular case. I understood the gentleman who just left the witness stand, in answer to Mr. McLaughlin's questions, to say that the Soldiers' Institute has no funds to operate this institution at all, and if they have not, of course, you could not make any contract with them. Mr. LAMKIN. Of course, they would have to show that they were financially responsible before we would make a contract with them. Mr. ASWELL. I understood the proposition was to train soldiers other than the disabled soldiers. Would the Federal Board pay tuition in those cases? Mr. LAMKIN. No, sir. Mr. KINCHELOE. You take no cognizance Mr. LAMKIN. We take no cognizance except of the disabled soldiers. Mr. TEN EYCK. I want to refer back to a previous statement made by you in which I am very much interested relative to the transferring of some of the property of the War Department to your bureau for the benefit of training the soldiers. I can realize perhaps why they may not have voted favorably upon Mr. Treadway's bill, because it was turning over the rights of Congress to the War Department, to be unlimited in what they turned over to you; but I do feel |