Please don't try to get me into a position of saying what the 90th Congress ought to do about this, because that was what we have the ad hoc committee to make the recommendations for. I don't know. Mr. LATTA. Now, another question you raised, I think, when this matter was being debated on the floor for consideration of a special committee on the 19th of October last was the question of this committee not having any rules or regulations to follow. You raise that again today. If we gave your committee this power, would you have any rules or regulations or guidelines to go by?

Mr. HAYS. We already have some in existence. I would assume we would establish whatever we thought was necessary. When we went into the Powell investigation, we did establish rules and regulations to go by. One was that the meetings would be held in either executive or public session as to witnesses requested.

Another was that all the witnesses would be sworn and would testify under oath.

Three, a rule that I don't think the press reported very much. We didn't call these people in. Again we didn't act as prosecutors and say, "Where were you on the 17th of May 1966 ?" We notified them in writing and in prehearing conferences with the attorneys of what questions they would be asked relative to travel.

We told them that their names were on tickets bearing a certain date and they were alleged, according to these tickets, to have traveled to New York, Miami, Chicago, whatever it was.

"If you have a diary or anything else, that will be helpful to you to answer the question, whether in fact you did take the trip or didn't, you bring it along, because we are trying to get at the truth."

I don't know if that has been done here before or not, but we thought it was objective and fair.

Mr. LATTA. Are these the rules and regulations you had in mind when you were raising objections to the creation of the select committee?

Mr. HAYS. Those were some of them. The ex post facto was another. The main thing that bothered me, I didn't want the committee to draw up a vague set of ethics and resolutions. I commend you read the ones that Mr. Bennett got the Congress to adopt. I don't know how many times he got before our committee and asked us to get them printed for which I later got castigated, but they are pretty vague. I don't know how you go about enforcing them. If I have anything to do with them, they will be much more specific and people will know pretty surely that they are either in violation of them or not.

Mr. LATTA. I think that is a good statement. Congressmen should know something about them, know whether or not they are violating the rules.

Mr. HAYS. There is one of them you can't quarrel very much with. Do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. I am for that a thousand percent.

How do you enforce it? Do you go around each Member's office and set up a time card system? I have had a little going over in the press. I made the statement—you know, some of the press in some of these interviews were saying, "Well, there are plenty of people on the Hill that don't do any work and what do you have to say about that." I said, "Gentlemen, I have always felt that the people who work up on

the Hill work harder than they do anywhere else, in town." I said, "Frankly, I have walked through a good many of these agencies downtown and I have felt tempted to paraphrase Churchill and say as far as Government employees in general are concerned, never have so many done so little work for so much money."

But how do you enforce this?

Mr. LATTA. If a new Select Committee on Ethics and Conduct is created by the House, do you firmly believe that they could not come up with rules and regulations that would be to the satisfaction of Members of the House?

Mr. HAYS. No.

Mr. LATTA. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hays, if I understand you correctly, you think that there is a necessity for something to be done or some additional laws, precautions to be taken-I don't like the word "guidelines”that would tighten up the situation?

In other words, there is a demand for something to be done but that you think that it should be done through a standing committee rather than as a select committee?

Mr. HAYS. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. I hope I don't overstate you.

Mr. HAYS. No; you are exactly right. I think, Mr. Chairman, that we have already done about 90 percent of the things that need to be done in the recommendations and rules that we have put through, outside of the Members' private lives. I don't know how far the Congress wants to go in that.

Mr. Bennett says he does not want to go at all, and I am in accord with that. I think the rules that we have already set up as to auditing procedures, payment of vouchers, and so forth, will make it absolutely impossible for anybody to do what was done in this case, because they have to send a record in before we pay the bill, and if the travel seems out of line or any member of the committee says it is out of line, we are not going to pay the bill until we look into it. Before, it was pretty much a matter of pro forma business. Mr. LATTA. I have one further question.

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead, Mr. Latta.

Mr. LATTA. This pertains to the duties of your committee, not just the ethics business. Do these chairmen have the power, if they want to just sign a voucher or whatever needs to be signed, to take off to go to San Francisco, to Seattle, or any place else and say "Well, I am going on business," any time they want to?

Mr. HAYS. Certainly. You and I and the rest of us gave it to them. We gave to the Operations Committee $725,000 over and above their statutory amount. You know the law says they can have four professional and I believe it is six stenographic employees. Anything over that, they have to get special permission for. We have given them $725,000 to hire extra people and to take trips or do whatever they want within their area of jurisdiction.

I don't see any way, short of what we have done which now requires a monthly report, if you don't trust the committee chairmen to see that he sits on this. Now, you know that the practice varies among committees. The Committee on Foreign Affairs of which I have the honor to be a member, and chairman of one of its subcommittees,

is chaired by my good friend and yours, and my good personal friend and neighbor, Dr. Morgan. If I recall correctly, the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over aid, over State Department personnel, and foreign operations, foreign buildings, USIA, and to some degree, if anybody does, over the other agency, which I will not mention by name because they are not supposed to exist, although they have gotten in the press, we spent $147,000 in the last 2 years. Maybe we could be accused of not doing our job. But you are in a bind there. I am chairman of the Subcommittee on State Department Personnel for Foreign Operations, including foreign buildings. If I did the job of oversight the way it ought to be done, I would be out of the country 10 months of the year.

You can imagine what my friends from the press would say if I were out of town 1 month out of the year.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hays.

The committee will go into executive session for a moment. (Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the committee went into executive session.)

APPENDIX

STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE CATHERINE MAY, FOURTH DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON ON HOUSE RESOLUTION 71

Mr. Chairman and my distinguished colleagues, I wish to go on record in support of the pending resolutions before the Committee on Rules which would re-establish a Select Committee of the House of Representatives to be known as the Select Committee on Standards and Conduct.

My bill, H. Res. 71, was introduced the opening day of the new Congress, January 10, 1967.

Mr. Chairman, public office is a public trust, and I am sure that most Members of Congress recognize this by maintaining the highest standards of personal conduct. They recognize that the office a public servant holds belongs not to that individual but to the nation or state, as the case may be.

One of the greatest concerns which we all share is the damage done to the public image of the Congress by the questionable practices, intentional or not intentional, of a few. These actions of the few have, quite understandably, resulted in a great public indignation, and if we neglect what I consider to be the real problem-a need to tighten up Congressional standards and procedures out of which abuse of public office tends to grow-the public would have the right to be even more indignant.

A committee similar to the one proposed in the pending resolutions was created in the waning days of the last Congress and I was privileged to have been appointed to serve on that Select Committee. It was recognized, however, that the creation of that Select Committee came so late in the year that time was insufficient to carry out its responsibilities.

I have high hopes, Mr. Chairman, that this new legislation to create a Select Committee on Standards and Conduct will meet with swift approval.

STATEMENT OF HON. G. ELLIOTT HAGAN, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, FIRST DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I wish to take the occasion of this meeting of the House Rules Committee to reaffirm my wholehearted support of the current move to establish a permanent "Select Committee on Standards and Conduct" of Members of the United States House of Representatives.

In the opening days of the 90th Congress, I introduced a measure, House Resolution 197, which is now before this Committee, calling for the establishment of such a select committee in this Session of Congress. I personally believe that the urgency in this matter cannot be over-emphasized. Unfavorable allegations and disclosures in recent months involving certain Members of Congress have only added to the general public's growing disillusionment with Congress. The American taxpayers have an inherent right to expect and demand the most exemplary standards from their elected representatives at the highest level of government. The aims and goals of such a select committee, as I visualize them, would be of a preventive, rather than a punitive nature. I concur with my colleague, the Honorable Charles E. Bennett, in his contention that any part of the House Administration Committee, because of its partisan complexion, could not properly function in this critical area. I urge your expeditious consideration of

this vital matter.

53

STATEMENT BY HON. HORACE R. KORNEGAY, SIXTH DISTRICT, NORTH CAROLINA

Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee, it is a distinct honor for me to have the opportunity and the privilege of presenting a statement to this Committee in regard to the matter now before you.

I am grateful to you for your courtesy in allowing me to present my views and I shall ask your indulgence for only a brief period to offer some of my observations on the most important subject any of us in the 90th Congress now face: the public image and the character of the Congress and the self respect of those of us privileged to serve in the Congress.

The reputation and the respect for the Congress and its members have suffered a reversal in the court of last resort, public opinion, and we are all now on probation in the eyes of the American public.

A much celebrated case of one particular elected Member of Congress has reflected to the discredit of every single member of the House of Representatives— and to every good public servant, everywhere. The public opinion polls—and certainly the correspondence that you and I receive-bear out the low esteem now held for as individual members and the great body we have the honor to serve in.

The American public has been shocked by public revelations concerning the apparent lack of ethics and morality in some areas of our Government including the Congress.

The American public wants and deserves a Congress composed of individuals whose conduct is both ethically and morally proper. I also subscribe to that philosophy for it is my opinion that those of us in the Congress who are responsible for passing upon laws that we all must follow should be as clean in our own personal conduct as Ceasar's wife.

Therefore, I ask you to give your usual considerate attention to House Resolution 64, which I have introduced, and I commend this measure to you for your deliberation. H. Res. 64 is similar to H. Res. 18, offered by the Gentleman from Florida (The Honorable Charles E. Bennett) who has worked long and tirelessly in this endeavor, and to several other resolutions now pending before you.

Passage of legislation, such as H. Res. 64 which bears my name, or of similar legislation, would help restore the confidence of the American public in the Congress. Establishment of a Select Committee on Standards and Conduct in the House of Representatives is the very minimum the public expects of its elected representatives. The Congress enacted a Code of Ethics in 1958, but the code needs enforcement authority. The 89th Congress enacted legislation setting up such a committee, but gave it a short span of life, which died with the formation of the current Congress. It is my fervent hope and my humble plea to you on this Committee that this Congress will make this committee permanent and give it the tools it needs to do the job that is long behind schedule. Again, I thank you for your time and your courtesy.

Hon. WILLIAM M. COLMER,

Chairman, House Committee on Rules,
The Capitol.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D.C., February 20, 1967.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I regret that previous commitments prevent me from appearing before the Rules Committee on Tuesday, February 21, 1967 at which time the Committee will hold a hearing on all bills to establish a House Select Committee on Standards and Conduct. I request that this letter be made a part of the record of that hearing.

On February 15, 1967 I introduced H. Res. 255 to establish a House Select Committee on Standards and Conduct. This legislation is identical to resolutions introduced by Congressman Charles E. Bennett and other Members of Congress. In my view, it is vital that this legislation be approved by your Committee and enacted by the House of Representatives. Although a Select Committee on Standards and Conduct was established pursuant to H. Res. 1013 in the 89th Congress, it never really had time to commence its assigned task.

Legislation establishing standards of conduct for Members of Congress and employees of the Congress is long overdue. Disclosures of questionable actions by some Members of Congress and congressional employees during the past sev