people, that this was telephoned to our main office on 14th, in Washington, and it was then transmitted out of our main office up to our offices here on the Hill and they were delivered by messenger. Mr. JONES. Now, since we are getting into this, how about, can you tell us what the mechanical process is of making 434 additional copies from the original? How is that done? The WITNESS. Well, it depends on exactly how we are handling it and where they are going. But we have as an example in our main office downtown, if we are going to send them up from there by messenger boy, we have a special, what we call a book machine, where we have 10 transmitters and 10 printers, and it prints out 10 at a time, 75 words per minute, and then it goes on to the next 10 and prints them out. But if we send them up here on the Hill direct from our office or from any other office in the country, they come in on the printer here, they come into our office, the main office in Washington in a perforated printed tape and we merely switch it up to our office. here on the Hill. Mr. JONES. How-when they tell you to send the message to all Members of Congress, or all Members of the House of Representatives, Where do you get that list from, or, How do you keep the list up to date? The WITNESS. I believe we get it up here initially. We get it when the Congress convenes, we get a list and we keep it up to date as it goes along. Mr. JONES. In other words, if there were vacancies in the Congress at the time, would your office have any record of that, so instead of sending 435 messages, would you send a lesser number depending on the number of vacancies that exist in the Congress at the time? The WITNESS. We may not, we may not. Mr. JONES. I see. That is all. Thank you. Mr. HAYS. Mr. Dickinson. Mr. DICKINSON. No, sir. Mr. HAYS. Mr. Nedzi. Mr. NEDZI. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Mr. Steinhauer, on the telegram is a time, 12:14. Can you tell us what that means? The WITNESS. That is the time-if I may look at it to be surethis is the time I believe it was received in the office here on the Hill. Mr. NEDZI. That is the time it was received? The WITNESS. This particular one, yes. Mr. HAYS. Could I interrupt you there and ask you to yield? The WITNESS. You see, they vary, because each one of them comes in separately. Mr. HAYS. Each one comes in separately and has a different time? The WITNESS. Yes. Mr. NEDZI. Do your records disclose when the first one came in? The WITNESS. No, sir; they do not. My predecessor obtained this from Mr. Jones, as I understand it, the one that I have. Mr. NEDZI. Would you have any estimate as to when it would have come in? The point of my question is that Mr. Ayres states in his letter he wanted messenger service by 8 a.m. Now, how soon do you have to get items to be delivered by 8 a.m., if they are to be delivered by 8 a.m.? The WITNESS. Normally our overnight service in a night letter would suffice, in a case like that. Mr. NEDZI. And what is the night letter rate? The WITNESS. I don't know that offhand. Mr. NEDZI. Generally speaking. The WITNESs. As I recall, it is about two-thirds of the normal rate. Mr. NEDZI. So it would be roughly $1,300, $1,400 less than what- The WITNESS. I would say in that area. Mr. NEDZI. Less than what the Government paid for this message? The WITNESS. Yes. Mr. NEDZI. I have no further questions. Mr. HAYS. Mr. Devine? Mr. DEVINE. No, no questions. Mr. HAYS. In other words, if the person who called this in specified night letter, could they have specified a delivery time the next morning on it? The WITNESS. Actually, normally our night letters are not delivered before 9 a.m., but I am sure in most cases up here on the Hill that they are delivered before that time. Mr. HAYS. Well, at this point I would like to insert Mr. Ayres' letter into the record. I think it ought to go in at this point. CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, Hon. WAYNE L. HAYS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D.C., December 17, 1966. Chairman, Special Subcommittee on Contracts, DEAR WAYNE: In reply to your letter of December 14, 1966, requesting my presence at a hearing scheduled for 10:30 a.m., December 19, 1966, I regret that I cannot be present. I am listing below a statement of facts, as per your request, relative to the expenditure of $4,136.85 from the Committee on Education and Labor to Western Union. During the deliberation on the Authorization Bill for the Office of Economic Opportunity several Members of Congress called to the attention of the Education and Labor Committee as a whole, and to me personally, that a number of people were on the so-called Anti-Poverty payroll at high salaries and were actively working against sitting Members in their primary contests. After much difficulty a list of these high priced consultants and employees were made available to the Committee. In view of the lateness of the hour in the debate we felt every member should be apprised of the names that were to appear in the Congressional Record. The evening before the names were to appear in the Record a memo was dictated and a Clerk was instructed to have Western Union, through their messenger service, deliver a copy of same to every House Member before 8:00 a.m. the following morning. Western Union instead of providing messenger service sent straight wires to every member. On learning what they had done I complained bitterly and held up payment trying to get them to admit their error. When they refused, the bill was paid from funds allocated for Committee business. Although the message probably could have gotten across to the Members for less money it proved to be a good investment to the taxpayers as hundreds of $50.00 a day, and up, consultants were dismissed as a direct result of the Committee's exposure of their activities. Although I realize, Wayne, that this may not fall under your direct jurisdiction you might want to take a look at the prices charged by Western Union to deliver wires that never leave Capitol Hill. Thank you for allowing me to make these factual observations. Your Colleague. BILL AYRES. (The above-referred-to document was received in evidence.) Mr. TAYLER. Mr. Chairman, may the following pages of the Congressional Record also be admitted into the record at the appropriate place; namely, pages 16997, 16959, 16960, of the proceedings in debates of the House in the 89th Congress, particularly the remarks of Representative Ayres, of Ohio, Representative Gibbons, of Florida, and Representative Jones of Missouri on those pages regarding the telegram in question. Mr. HAYS. Without objection, they may be entered. I suspect the proper place to have them would be before the examination or just after the witness was sworn. Would you think so, Paul? Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. JONES. The remarks that I made in the Record which appear on 16997 should have appeared on page 16941, because they were the first remarks that were made that day in the House of Representatives, under the 1-minute rule. And consequently, reference to these remarks which appear on pages 16959 and 16960 appear to be out of order because you don't know what they are talking about until you get over to page 16997. Mr. TAYLER. That is why I designated the highest numbered page first for insertion in the record, to keep the proper chronological order. Mr. HAYS. It seems to me the proper place to put these is right at this point after Mr. Jones' explanation. ́And unless there is instructions afterward, without objection they will appear at that point. Mr. DEVINE. I don't have any objection to their appearance, but I do question the propriety of rearranging the order of the Congressional Record. I mean the Record speaks for itself. You want to move some from the back and something to the front, in the order that it was said on the floor of the House Mr. HAYS. No. I suspect they had better appear in order and Mr. Jones' explanation of why they are in that order can appear just preceding it. Mr. JONES. I am not contentious about that at all, Sam. What I am trying to do this is a good example of what happens Mr. DEVINE. I have no objection to them appearing in the report. Mr. HAYS. His statement explains it. So let them appear in their regular order. Without objection, they will appear at this point in the record. [At page 16997:] TELEGRAM WASTES TAXPAYERS' MONEY (Mr. Jones of Missouri asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. JONES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I hate to be critical of some of my colleagues, but in view of a thing that happened today I cannot keep quiet any longer. I received this telegram here and I presume other Members of the House received, similar telegrams. I have inquired of several Members, and it seems it probably went to every Member of Congress. The only reason I am taking this time is to remind the Members what this telegram costs. It is 140 words. I checked with the telegraph company and the rates are the first 15 words cost $1.20, the next 125 words cost 62 cents each, and plus a 10-percent tax. So each telegram sent cost $10.25. Multiply that by 435 Members and you will find that somebody wasted $4,500 of the taxpayers' money, and as a taxpayer I resent that. Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield? Mr. JONES of Missouri. I yield to the gentleman. Mr. GIBBONS. Would you not call this playing politics at the taxpayers' expense? Mr. JONES of Missouri. I do not even know what the contents of the telegram are, but I resent a telegram being sent when they could use either a letter or a mimeograph machine and some of the pages that we have to get this information to us, without wasting $4,500 of the taxpayers' money. Mr. GIBBONS. I can agree with what the gentleman says, especially since this information apparently has been known and is a matter of public record and has been included in the hearings this Congress conducted. It comes as no surprise to any of us who are informed on this program. [At page 16959:] Mr. AYRES. I would not accuse Mr. Haddad of using these funds for political purposes. Of course he is not. We all know that. But I was criticized for having alerted the House to this serious situation, because, out of my own funds I spent $411 to alert Members that they might have a primary opponent. * Mr. AYRES. I thank the gentleman for calling that to the attention of the committee. I should like to refer Members who have not seen the telegram to pages 16879 through 16883, where 450 names are listed in the Record. * Mr. AYRES. There you may find your next opponent. It is pretty easy, when one has the taxpayers' money flowing into a district, with handpicked lieutenants who know nothing about poverty. Members should take a look at the newspaper people involved. We even find Mrs. Riddik, the poor little girl. Everybody thought she was a volunteer until this list came out. She is getting only $60 a day. I do not think she is building any machine. What this Sargent Shriver has been able to do in the way of propaganda has been unbelievable. I commend myself for having spent $411. I will be reimbursed by many Members and many people who realize I am in poverty. When one can invest $411 with the possibility of saving the taxpayers a billion dollars, that is a very good investment. [At page 16960:] Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, I am sorry I could not get the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ayres) to yield to me, because I wanted to compliment him on the great rate that he apparently got from Western Union. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Jones) carlier computed the cost to have been around $4,500. No. They make great political hay at the taxpayers' expense by sending around this $4,500 wire, and they try to convince everybody that they have found something that is a big scandal when it is in the records of the committees of this Congress and then they try to come here to convince you at the last minute about this. Who is crying crocodile tears around here? These are the same faint-hearted voices of doom and despair? We hear them all the time. Mr. AYRES. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Jones) is my close personal friend. He has stated to me that he apologizes for having misread a cipher. The amount was $411.52. Mr. HAYS. Any other questions? [No response.] Mr. HAYS. That is all, Mr. Steinhauer, thank you very much. JULIAN P. LANGSTON, having been previously duly sworn, was recalled and testified further as follows: By Mr. TAYLER: Q. State your name again for the record. A. Julian P. Langston. Q. Mr. Langston, you have already testified and you are the chief clerk of the Committee on House Administration? Q. Mr. Langston, I am going to hand you a voucher on a House of Representatives form for the month of September 1965, from Western Union, in the amount of $4,136.85 for telegraphic service furnished the minority office for the period ending September 30, 1965, and ask you if your can identify that. A. Yes, sir, Mr. Counsel, I can identify this. It is the original of the set of vouchers that come through the Committee on House Administration for normal processing and payment of a bill supported by invoice. Q. Was that voucher paid? A. This voucher was approved and sent to disbursing office, and I see that it was paid on October 26, 1965. The check number is shown on the face of the voucher. Q. And the particular voucher you have in your hand, the original of the voucher, did that.come from the records of the Finance Office of the House? A. The voucher originated in the office of the Committee on Education and Labor. Q. No, I mean where did you obtain it from. A. It reached the Committee on House Administration from the House Finance Office. Q. Very well. That is part of the official records of the Finance Office? A. That is right. Q. Now, sir, I am going to show you Steinhauer exhibit 2 and ask you if you can identify that. A. Yes, Mr. Counsel, I can identify this. This is the Western Union invoice that accompanied the original and two copies of the voucher to the Committee on House Administration. This invoice was retained in the Committee on House Administration files together with one of the duplicate copies of the voucher. Q. Does that is that the supporting data for the voucher that you have already identified? A. Yes. These two documents bear the same control number that was placed on them by the Committee on House Administration. Q. What number is that? A. That number is 3051. Q. Very well. May the voucher be admitted as Langston exhibit-whatever the next exhibit is-No. 6, Mr. Chairman? Mr. HAYS. Without objection, it may be so admitted. |