NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD The purpose Section 403 would create a National Resources Planning Board. of the Board (S. 404) is to review, revise, initiate, and propose plans and planning policies dealing with the "natural and human" resources of the Nation. We question the advisability of creating a National Resources Board, believing that the problems involved in the proper utilization of our planning, land, water and similar resources can, and should be handled by divisions of the Department of the Interior. ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS Section 502 of title V authorizes the President to appoint six administrative assistants to perform such duties as he may prescribe. We believe that the President should be given an adequate staff but believe that additional assistants should be additions to the President's secretarial staff and not be designated as executive officials. This would need no congressional policy action, but might possibly require a slightly larger appropriation; this would not create by statute a specific number of executive offices which might become permanent or policy forming in character, regardless of either increased or decreased need. REORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 1937 SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON Washington, D. C. The committee met, Senator James F. Byrnes, presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Mr. Kaplan. STATEMENT OF H. ELIOT KAPLAN, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY NATIONAL CIVIL SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kaplan, will you give the reporter your initials, and state the organization that you represent? Mr. KAPLAN. H. Eliot Kaplan. Executive Secretary of the National Civil Service Reform League, 521 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The CHAIRMAN. Do you desire to make a statement to the committee as to certain features of this bill S. 2700? Mr. KAPLAN. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to hear you. Mr. KAPLAN. The National Civil Service Reform League is concerned solely with the personnel provisions of the bill 2700 for organization of the Federal Government. There are some very good features in the bill, such as the extension of the classification of the reclassification law to the field and other services that are not now covered by the Reclassification Act of 1923. There is a distinct step forward in the provision for a single administrator for the civil service in place of the Civil Service Commission. The bill purports to make many extensions of the civil service, so far as the competitive classified civil service is concerned, but we are, frankly, disappointed in that the bill is somewhat vague and contradictory in parts as to just what extension is really made after you get through reading title II of the bill. For example, it appears, upon a reading of the measure, that no real extension of the classified service is made, if we were to interpret and construe the provisions of the bill literally and legalistically. It purports to give the President authority, by Executive order, to place all positions other than policy-determining to the classified service in his discretion, and then it reserves apparently to the Congress to determine what positions shall be kept in the excepted class. By statute, of course, it can do it at any time, but there is a reservation in the bill that positions which are now outside of the classified service by law shall remain in the unclassified service. Particularly vague is section 204 of the bill. Now it would extend the classified service to the temporary emergency agencies, where 139 they are not temporary, but there is no indication as to who is to determine what is a temporary emergency agency as distinguished from a permanent agency. I think the bill ought to be clarified in that respect, otherwise there is no limit in that determination. Any place may be considered temporary, if it is 6 months to 10 years. We have had some temporary agencies in some of the States that have gone on for 7 or 8 years already. Now with respect to the Federal corporations I do not doubt but that the drafters of the bill The CHAIRMAN (interposing). Mr. Kaplan, as to that, have you in mind the agencies which are established by statute and whose existence is limited? You call that a temporary agency, do you not? Mr. KAPLAN. I suppose technically you might refer to them as temporary agencies. The CHAIRMAN. For instance, we have several corporations, as you know, the existence of which corporations is limited to 2 years. Mr. KAPLAN. Yes, I appreciate that. The CHAIRMAN. In the section to which you refer that very purpose is sought to be accomplished. Mr. KAPLAN. I presume that is the case. The CHAIRMAN. I do not mean civil service, these agencies which are established by statute, but the existence of which agencies is specifically limited by statute. Mr. KAPLAN. I presume that is the intention of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. They are not permanent agencies of the Government. That is the intention of the bill. Mr. KAPLAN. It does not so state. The CHAIRMAN. It depends upon the construction which can be given to the phrase, "emergency agencies." Mr. KAPLAN. I appreciate that, but we have also had the experience that agencies are extended from year to year as temporary, and they just go on as temporary for a long, long time. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead, sir. They are temporary. They do not exist but for a year, and they die at the end of the year unless there is action by the Congress specifically continuing the agencies. Mr. KAPLAN. That is quite so, but I see no good reason why the civil-service rules cannot apply to the so-called temporary agencies if we choose to do so. They have been extended in many other jurisdictions. The CHAIRMAN. There are many reasons that occur to me which I will not state at this time. I do not want to interrupt your statement. Go ahead. Mr. KAPLAN. Now with respect to the extension of the classified service to the Federal corporations, it appears that the bill intends to give the President the authority to extend the classified service to the corporations, but the way the bill is framed, the language of the bill makes it rather obscure as to whether the President has that authority, because under the present laws practically every one of the Federal corporations' employees are excepted from the civil-service rules, and if you take the language of the bill strictly it would mean that all the employees remain in the excepted class, because it puts them in the classified service, or permits it only if the statutes themselves do not otherwise provide, as I read that section of the bill. It then excepts all positions that are not already subject to the Civil Service Act. That is quite a host of positions. Then we come to the positions that require confirmation by the Senate. We appreciate, and I am sure you Senators do also, that there are many positions where the law now requires confirmation by the Senate which have nothing to do with the determination of policies. Some of the positions to which that prerogative of the Senate of confirmation have been extended have been, frankly, arbitrary, if you permit me to use that term, and I do not mean it as any reflection, I do not mean it acrimoniously. It has just grown up through tradition and through extensions of the Congress itself. Now there is no good reason that I can see why positions, merely because they do require confirmation by the Senate, should be excepted from the civil-service rules, any more than other comparable positions already in the classified service. For example, there is no good reason why deputy collectors of internal revenue should be excepted from the civil-service rules, and certainly none of the positions, or at least the major part of the positions already required in certain bills by the Congress to have confirmation by the Senate, such as the Social Security Board positions paying over $5,000, or if the Wagner-Steagall housing authority bill should become law in its present form, the positions there excepted, or the Black-Connery hours and wages bill, if it should become law in its present form as passed by the Senate would except all positions paying over $4,000, because that requires confirmation by the Senate. The bill, besides adopting the President's recommendation that policy-determining positions should be excepted from the classified civil service, which we agree in principle with, introduces a new element which heretofore has not been invoked, except in some of the State and municipal services rather unsuccessfully, and that is this element of confidential relationship of subordinates to heads of departments. Now, theoretically, practically every position of any consequence in government vests in the incumbent of the position some kind of confidential relationship to the head of the department. In my many years of experience with the administration of the civil service over the country I have heard that argument of confidential relationship invoked until it is almost threadbare. Every time they have sought to exempt positions and they had no better pretext to offer, they would suggest the confidential relationship that exists. When you analyze that theory of confidential relationship you can get down to the conflict in practically every office, because when you look at it realistically many of the matters that are dealt with between the head of the department and his immediate deputies and important administrative officials ultimately get into the hands of even the file clerk, and he or she can see that so-called confidential record or information. My point is that there really is not, or at least should not be, such a confidential relationship in public administration anywhere. The CHAIRMAN. Do you think the file clerk would be under the immediate supervision of the head of the department? Mr. KAPLAN. I take it that all subordinates would, in some direct or indirect way, be responsible to the head of the department. Of course, he would not be under his immediate supervision. The CHAIRMAN. Do you think the file clerks are under the immediate supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury? 9757-37-10 |