Page images
PDF
EPUB

Mr. HOOVER. That is true.

Senator O'CONOR. Would you be good enough to give us the benefit of your thought as to the relative advantage or disadvantage of the creation of a separate department, rather than the transfer of the related transportation functions and components to the Department of Commerce?

Mr. HOOVER. It was our thought that it was bad governmental policy to set up a Government department for a special industry. While these functions were related to each other, they related to other issues that they could be handled better in an existing department. The proposal was to combine the Government air, the highway, the railroad, and water transportation questions all in the Department of Commerce, excepting of course the regulatory functions which are not touched, the object, first, being to secure some coordination between these transportation services. The Commerce Department deals with commerce in other aspects than transportation, and with industry in other aspects than transportation. Therefore, we felt that the Department was the better setting for such an agency. Senator O'CONOR. Would you think that it would be desirable to have the President complete and first establish the proposed transportation services within the Department, and then to transfer them as a unit, rather than to have it done in this would be the preferable method?

way; which do you think

Mr. HOOVER. I would naturally like to have seen the transfer, so far as the President's authority goes, of all of the transportation agencies into the Department of Commerce, That would have mostly completed the setting up of this function. There are some matters connected with this new transportation division in the Department which will require legislation.

Senator O'CONOR. I was just wondering what assurance the Congress might have that if this plan were approved that the consolidated transportation program would be submitted.

Mr. HOOVER. That assurance I cannot give you.

Senator O'CONOR. I can well understand that. I thought it ought to be understood that, of course, further action is necessitated. I think that is all.

Senator MCCARTHY. Mr. Hoover, in regard to the Department of Welfare, there have been a great many arguments made in the past that the health functions should be separate from the welfare functions, and that each should be separate from education. I have the feeling that in the President's present plan sent down to us that he has ignored the Hoover Commission recommendation to a very great extent. Would you like to give us any thought on that? What he has done may be a step forward. He has given Cabinet status to a very important function, but he seems to have made some very unfortunate groupings. Would you care to comment on that?

Mr. HOOVER. I do not think the President has ignored the recommendations, because the whole problem of reorganization is so greatly interlocked. For instance, in order to carry out the Commission's recommendations, it is necessary to set up a United Medical Service Administration in the Government before the health functions in the Federal Security Agency can be transferred. The creation of that Agency, I am advised, will require specific legislation before the President could transfer agencies to it. The whole reorganization is

very much interlocked. Some transfers recommended by the Commission can be made by the President, such as the Indian Bureau to the Federal Security Agency and some of the labor bureaus could have been transferred out, which do not appear in this plan. That, of course, is a matter of the President's judgment. He has the major responsibility. I am only pointing out to you what the Commission's conclusions were.

Senator MCCARTHY. Do I understand, then, that your thought is that plan No. 1 is definitely a step forward and that when we pass the necessary legislation to make it possible, that can be improved to the extent that it will conform substantially to the Hoover Commission's recommendations?

Mr. HOOVER. They can be if the rest of the program is carried out; yes.

Senator MCCARTHY. One further question. As you know, we have introduced 19 of the bills that embody the recommendations of the Hoover Commission. I believe it will take a twentieth, having to do with Government corporations, and such like, to cover all of the Hoover Commission recommendations, or most of them. Three of the nineteen have been enacted. That leaves 16 to be acted upon. Do you agree with me that it would be a mistake for this Congress to adjourn until we have acted on a substantial portion of the Hoover Commission's recommendations, and if we do adjourn, that then the various committees continue their work on these Hoover Commission bills, if I can call them that, and if the legislation is ready then, that the President call the Congress back into special session? In other words, it is important enough to try and save the 2%, 3%, or 4 billion dollars that your Commission has said we can save, and many of us think it is rather conservative as an estimate, that it is important enough that we do stay in session to accomplish most of those recommendations?

Mr. HOOVER. I would like to see the whole process move as rapidly as possible, but I would hesitate to make a suggestion that so many Senators and Congressmen should not have a little breathing spell between sessions.

Senator MCCARTHY. No other questions.

Senator LONG. Mr. Hoover, when you appeared before the committee the first time, as I recall it, you seemed to feel that a substantial amount of positive legislation from Congress is necessary to put these plans into effect.

On the other hand, I was under the impression that these reorganization plans would have the effect of law; that they would actually have the effect of legislation unless the Houses turn them down. Do you actually feel that these reorganization plans would not be constitutional or would not be valid if they were in conflict with legislation already on the books?

Mr. HOOVER. Oh, no. They have the effect of law under the authority given by the Congress.

Senator LONG. Of course, the latter law would then be in effect, would it not? In other words, if the reorganization plan had the effect of law, it would supersede any legislation that was already on the statute books.

Mr. HOOVER. Well, I assume that legislation on the whole of one of these questions might supersede one of these plans.

Senator LONG. That is what I had in mind, which caused me to wonder whether it is actually necessary for Congress to act any further if the President sent down the proper reorganizational plans.

Mr. HOOVER. I have been advised by all of our legal friends, that it would be utterly impossible, for instance, to reorganize the Post Office or the Armed Services or to provide a new accounting or budgeting system and a new personnel system in the Government without special legislation by the Congress. The President's authority, I am advised, does not extend that far.

Senator LONG. It just occurs to me that there might be some difficulty here in moving in two directions at the same time. Do you find any conflicts in the President's plans as submitted with the recommendations of the Commission that you headed?

Mr. HOOVER. No; there are no substantial conflicts. These are steps in the same direction.

Senator LONG. Do you think we can actually get effective reorganization of these departments if we are at variance with the President's thinking in this matter? In other words, do you think it can be done without his full cooperation and help?

Mr. HOOVER. I would not want to say that. My conviction is that the President wishes to see the reorganization carried through. Naturally, people will disagree on details while they may agree on broad proposals. On the fundamental question of reorganization I have no doubt you will find the President is most cooperative in the whole reorganization program.

Senator LONG. What I had in mind, for example, is the difference in the proposals here on the organization of the Department of Welfare; that includes various agencies, I believe, that you had not recommended be included in one department. I understand, for example, you had not recommended that these other functions be included with the education and social-security functions.

Mr. HOOVER. We recommended that a new agency, for instance, be set up, to be called the United Medical Services, that would embrace the public health and hospital services of the country. That, I am advised, could not be done without a special act of Congress. Therefore, it is no criticism of the President's plan to point out that those bureaus cannot be transferred at the present moment.

Senator LONG. Do you think it would accomplish much if we attempted to pass some of these 19 bills that have been introduced, if they are actually at variance with the President's thinking on the subject?

Mr. HOOVER. I would hesitate to answer that question, because I have been the Chairman of the Commission that has made exhaustive studies, and where the majority and often the unanimous vote of that Commission has proposed definite forms of organization, I will stick to those forms in spite of anybody.

Senator LONG. It is very obvious already that the President will follow a large number of recommendations of your Commission. However, it just occurs to me from the plans that have been sent down, we have indications that he will not follow all of them. He will follow some and possibly may disagree with some of them.

Mr. HOOVER. I do not quite agree that there is such a differencs between the President and myself. The President has been most cooperative in the whole work.

Senator LONG. I notice you stated here that a portion of the labor organizations have been transferred to the Labor Department. Do you have any others in mind that should be transferred under this plan?

Mr. HOOVER. I mentioned this morning there were three others that we think should be transferred. They do not all come from the Federal Security Agency, which the President was dealing with. It may be that some future plan will cover those. I have no information

on that. We recommended that four different functions should be put in the Labor Department which are not yet there. The plan before you does not deal with the Labor Department. The plan before you is only incidental; certain bureaus are transferred from Federal Security to Labor.

Senator LONG. Thank you very much.

Senator IVES. Mr. Chairman, I think what I should like to bring up at this time is a matter which is of paramount interest to Senator Humphrey as well as myself. So I would suggest that the two of us collaborate in any questioning to bring out the high points of what we are trying to find out.

I am referring now to Reorganization Plan No. 2, which, as I understand, Mr. Hoover, you have approved insofar as it goes. Perchance you do not think it goes far enough, which thought I can understand. In connection with the plan as proposed, it has been charged that the Department of Labor, by virtue of its major purpose of promoting the welfare of the wage earner, would be prejudiced in favor of the employee to the detriment of the employer, in operating the Bureau of Employment Security. Therefore, the proposed transfer would have a tendency to destroy confidence of the employer in the administration of the bureau. This was one of the chief issues at the time Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1948 was rejected by the Congress. In that connection I should like to ask you a few questions, if I may. First, is it your opinion that transfer of the Employment Service to the Department of Labor would have an adverse effect upon the employer's confidence in the impartial operation of the Service, and upon his participation in it?

Mr. HOOVER. I do not think any reasonable employer would have prejudices on that account. In any event, I do not see any difference which will arise in the administration of a bureau wherever it is. I do not believe that an employer ought to have any less confidence in the objectivity of the Labor Department than the Federal Security Agency. If there is such criticism, the employer ought to realize that these bureaus placed in the Labor Department will be under the more vivid searchlight of public opinion, than if in the Federal Security Agency, whose major purposes are not related to the subject.

My own view is that both sides would be better protected. I also go a little further than that, Senator. The Congress set up here a great many years ago the Labor Department with the idea of developing certain agencies that would be helpful to the laboring classes in the United States. During the last few years there has been a steady denudation of functions from that Department. It has been reduced until it has a budget I think of about $11,000,000 a year, and has perhaps two or three thousand employees. Yet it has an overhead structure that is costing as much, and is as extensive as many agencies in the Government with 100 times the expenditure and 100 times the

number of employees. In other words, the Labor Department has been so denuded of its functions and so attenuated that we had better abolish it or set it up as an effective agency.

Senator IVES. I do want it understood, in the questions I raise, they are not raised in any spirit of criticism on my part. They are only for information; and that only.

I think you have largely answered my next question, but I pose it just the same. Do you believe that any employer then would have any justification for preferring administration of the Employment Service by a so-called neutral agency, which would have no inclination to be prejudiced in favor of either the employer or employee? For example, the Federal Security Agency in which the Service is presently located. That happened to be, I might say, one of the major arguments or considerations at the time Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1948 was before the Congress. They felt that the whole set-up then being in the Federal Security Agency it should remain there, rather than be placed one part in the Department of Labor and the other part left there, and they preferred to have it left there, because they thought there would be a more neutral approach by an agency of that character than by the Department of Labor, which they thought would be prejudiced. I think you have answered this in part, but not entirely. Mr. HOOVER. I think that is probably true at the time that action was taken, and that that was the reason for the action. But I think it is no longer a reason. The Labor Department has many other functions in relation to labor. It has the cost-of-living services and several other services that bear directly or indirectly on the agencies we propose should be transferred. I do not believe that the Labor Department is a prejudiced Department advocating one aspect of American life any more than the Department of Commerce.

We have to believe that the departments of the Government are going to act on behalf of all of the citizens of the country, and that the searchlight of the public opinion and the action of Congress will keep them on that track. Certainly I do not like to see a poor administrative structure just because of prejudice.

Senator IVES. Mr. Hoover, there is one more thing I should like to ask here. I think you have pretty well covered the questions I had in mind, although I am sure that Senator Humphrey will have additional ones to ask.

In this connection, the President's reorganization plan does not itemize anticipated economies, but states, and I quote here, "It is probable a significant reduction in expenditures will result."

The Bureau of the Budget estimated in 1948 that consolidation of the Bureau of Employment Security into the Department of Labor would effectuate administrative savings of approximately $250,000; in the Federal Security Agency savings of approximately $246,000. But opponents of the transfer to the Department of Labor charged as much as $500,000 would be saved by eliminating the regional employment offices if the services were consolidated in the Federal Security Agency.

My questions are as follows:

First, in your opinion, would transfer of the Bureau of Employment Security to the Department of Labor effectuate any sizable economies, and if so, could you estimate the amount?

« PreviousContinue »