ship for the management of those resources. We preach this every day. We think it all the time. We, I think, have a very harmonious attitude within the Department as a whole. I think the trouble with some of the reorganization proposals in the past has been that I am not critical in the sense that I think that type of thinking should not be done any time that you propose to do things with one fell swoop you then unite all of the opposition and nothing is done.

The Hoover Commission report was a good example, because they proposed and I think quite wisely-that a Department of Natural Resources be created, but they proposed it in such a sweeping fashion that nothing actually was done. And yet what I am trying to point out, Mr. Chairman, is that in a very quiet pragmatic, piece-by-piece way, in the last 7 years very significant things have been done to make my Department a Department of Natural Resources. I think it is, in fact, a Department of Natural Resources.

The argument that I get both from some of my friends in the Bureau of the Budget and from some of the people on the Hill when you even propose to change the name of the Department is, they say, "Well, all right, you are a Department of Natural Resources. It is not as tidy as maybe any individual would like, but, in fact your Department has the most important functions, most of the functions, that any ideal Department of Natural Resources would have, but if we are going to do this, let us tidy up." If we are going to change the name, we ought to tidy up, so we will take the Indian Bureau out of the Department; and we will take the Office of Territories out of the Department. It is usually laid down as the price for changing the name of the Department.

OPPOSITION TO TRANSFER OF INDIAN BUREAU

Well, to me, we do not have a clear-cut concept here, and we do not live in an ideal world either. My Department has had as one of its first missions its relationship with the Indian people and with their resources. After all, the Indian people of this country own over 2 percent of the land. They have resources. The management of those resources is one of our important functions.

The Indian people also have a close emotional tie with my Department, as Secretary Gardner and I found when we talked with some of the Indian leaders last winter about this whole problem and reorganization of the Indian Bureau.

If you were to say today-to me as an administrator-that you would change the name of the Department, at least take that one step, but as the price for doing that you would insist that the Indian Bureau and the Office of Territories-we have administered historically these programs and I think have done it quite successfully-that they be included in the reorganization, I would think the price too high. I think the way we are going to get the right kind of governmental reorganization, more effective organization, is on a pragmatic approach. This is the reason Secretary Gardner and I came to the conclusion last winter that transferring the Indian Bureau would be a mistake. The Indian people themselves felt it was a mistake and were strongly opposed to it. Indeed, this is still their frame of mind.

PIECE MEAL REORGANIZATIONS ARE MORE PRACTICAL

This brings me back to the pragmatic approach. I am being very candid, Mr. Chairman, and reveal my own thinking. Water pollution: when it was put in HEW back in the early 1950's, or in the late 1940's I guess it was, was put there on the theory that this was primarily a health problem. As the Congress began writing major legislation in water pollution, we could see very clearly and very wisely that although there was a health aspect, it was primarily a resource management problem. This is the reason for the program to go to a Department of Natural Resources. This to me was the best argument for doing that.

As times change, as thinking changes, we will probably see the movement of activities in and out of the Department, but I think this will be done on a pragmatic, piece-by-piece basis.

The Congress last year and this subcommittee was involvedcreated a new Department of Transportation, yet this was not a completely tidy affair. You do not have all the transportation functions in it. The Congress did a pretty good job, but it is still not an ideal Department of Transportation. But we did not say that we were going to insist that this was going to be ideal. We had to make compromises, and, therefore, you came up with the result that was achieved. Therefore, the main point that I would like to make to the subcommittee is that this hearing is useful. I think this is good for the country, to have this discussed in this way. I think it is good to have this table and have everyone present their views. I do not think that we have a status quo situation. It certainly has not been any status quo business as far as my Department is concerned in the last few years. It has been a very dynamic situation. Whether we change the name or not, I think my Department, as I said at the outset, is more a Department of Natural Resources than any government that I am familiar with has today. And I think that this process will continue. How it evolves will depend on the judgment of this committee, on the feelings of the people of the country, and on what kind of organization we want our Government to have.

Having said that and exposed some vulnerable points, Mr. Chairman, I think I will rest my initial statement on that.

PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS ARE ESSENTIAL

Senator RIBICOFF. I followed your argument, Mr. Secretary, and I gather that you like the idea of Department of Natural Resources. I also gather, since everybody is against you and you cannot get the approval of the President and the Bureau of the Budget, that you feel you might as well do the best you can with an unhappy situation, as far as you personally are concerned. This is what I sense from what you said.

However, be that as it may, I have felt, too, that Senator Moss had a very worthwhile objective. I do not think Senator Moss is under any illusion, and neither am I, that we are going to be able to pass the Moss bill this session.

I think Senator Moss felt that the time had come to have some discussion about this very important problem, and I promised himnot because I like him and he is an outstanding Senator-that we

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would carve out some time and start some preliminary discussions, hoping that it would be a burr under the saddle of the executive branch to take an overall look at its natural resources problem. And even if one opposed the Moss proposal, we might still come up with some alternatives and go part way.

I think probably what is bothering Senator Moss is that there does not seem to be any action toward bringing into your Department some of the functions that rightly belong there.

Now, I do not know whether I am reading Senator Moss right, and maybe he should be making this statement instead of me.

TRANSFER OF RECREATION PROGRAMS FROM ARMY CORPS TO PARK

SERVICE

Now, yesterday we discussed with the Corps of Army Engineers the fact that they are in the recreation business. Last year, some 190 million persons visited recreation areas run by the Army Corps of Engineers.

I gathered from the testimony of the Engineers yesterday that they were doing the best they could. They were not enthusiastic about having this mission, but it was there and they would undertake it.

I think it was indicated by General Cassidy that at one timethe date was not stated, whether it was with you or your predecessorthe Corps of Army Engineers wanted to give their jurisdiction over their recreation areas to the Park Service but the Park Service turned it down.

Was that while you were Secretary, or was that prior to your time? Secretary UDALL. No, I think it was probably prior to that, Senator. And I think there is a very strong case for it.

You see, the National Park Service manages national parks, national park areas, and some recreation areas. The Bureau of Reclamation or the Corps of Engineers as the agency which built the facility manages the works after they are completed, and, also, carries out the recreational aspect. I have never gone into this in detail. I think it deserves close study. I am not saying that I think the National Park Service should necessarily

Senator RIBICOFF. How about the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation?

MANAGEMENT OF RECREATION FUNCTIONS

Secretary UDALL. Well, maybe the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation should have a unit, which it does not now have, which would manage recreational resources on Federal projects, something of that kind. But this is something that I cannot give you a very quick answer to, because, quite frankly, we have not, while I have been Secretary, had a serious discussion of this with the corps. I think the corps central mission always has been that they are a construction agency. They carry out all kinds of construction projects in this country. They have from the beginning of the country. This has been their main mission. It is quite true that outdoor recreation does not fit in with that as a main concept. I think the corps has done a good job. I am not critical of them, but I can understand them feeling that maybe the recreational aspects should be carried out by a department that has that as a main mission.

I think we should look at this, and I was interested in that they proposed it.

Senator RIBICOFF. One of the values of a hearing such as this is that pieces of services come out in greater focus.

Now, basically, the Corps of Engineers does an outstanding job. I am glad that, when it comes to building dams and lakes, they are aware of the need for recreation. They are to be commended for this.

REORGANIZE RECREATION ACTIVITIES

But it would be my hope that if transferring this recreational function could not be done by Executive order, there would be a reorganization plan sent up here. It does not seem to me that it would be very complicated for the Corps of Engineers, for the Department of the Interior, and the Bureau of the Budget to survey the entire problem, to see whether or not on the basis of economy and on the basis of agency function, the recreation areas that are developed as an auxiliary to the main mission of the Engineers are not turned over to your Department. Certainly, these 3 days of hearings would be worthwhile if it were found that this is a function that could be turned over to you.

HANDLING OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

Now, let's get back to the Indians.

Secretary Cohen did testify yesterday as to the findings of Secretary Gardner and yourself, how deeply upset the Indian chiefs were, and their representatives, at the thought that any part of Indian Affairs would be taken away from Interior. And yet my mind goes back to the bad job and I say this advisedly-that Interior did when it came to the health of the Indians. I think this was a national disgrace, the incidence of communicable diseases, the mortality rate at birth of the Indians. This was radically changed when the health function was turned over to the Public Health Service.

This is not a reflection upon the Department of the Interior. There is no reason why the Department of the Interior should be a health

agency.

As to the question of education, it is no reflection on the Department of the Interior that you are not running a good educational system. I believe you to be a very sympathetic man to the problems of the Indians and this is a group in our society that probably has been treated as shamefully as any group that this country has within its midst.

Now I can understand the fear that would arise if another agency tried to take over Indian Affairs when it came to land management. But education is another matter. Why can't education be improved for the Indians even if it remains with you?

Secretary UDALL. I would like to comment on this, because this is a subject on which I have very mixed feelings myself. I am being probably more candid than I should in discussing it in this fashion.

HEW WOULD HAVE TO RUN INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM

There is no question at all. You are absolutely right, that Congress made a very wise decision in 1954 when it transferred the respon

sibility for Indian health to the Public Health Service, because we could not recruit doctors. We did a very poor job. I was not Secretary, then, but I do not think that anybody could have done a good job. And this was a wise decision.

There is no subject that I am interested in more; there is no area where I think we have got to improve our performance more today of orienting people than in education.

The new Assistant Commissioner for Education, who just went on the job a few days ago, I deliberately picked out of the Office of Education in HEW, one of their top people and a very able person.

I told Secretary Gardner and Commissioner Harold Howe that I wanted one of their men. I wanted us to have the very closest cooperation with them.

We found, a year or two ago, when there was a serious discussion within the Administration about transferring Indian education to HEW, that some people opinion in the Office of Education did not want it, and the reason they did not want it was that it would put them in the business of running an educational system-that is, the Indian education system, other than the one that is run abroad in the Army, is the only Federal educational system. I do not blame the Office of Education people at this point, because if they had to take it over immediately, the educators around the country who were being prodded and pushed by the Office of Education to do a better job would say, "Well, how are you doing with your school system?" You see?

PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE IN EDUCATION FIELD NECESSARY

Senator RIBICOFF. If that is the argument, then really I am most sympathetic, because I do not think it would hurt the Office of Education to get some practical experience on how to run an educational system. I think one of the great problems we have really-and I say this seriously, having been a Governor and having been Secretary of HEW-is the fact that we have got a lot of theorists there. Education today in America has many problems and there certainly is much that we can learn in the curriculums field and elsewhere if we are talking about how to bring education to disadvantaged groups. At the moment, all the discussion is centered around the Negro, without realizing there are great segments of our society like the Indians, like the Mexican Americans and many poor whites, who are disadvantaged, too. When we talk about lifting standards, we have to lift the standards of every disadvantaged group. Here is a great opportunity for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to put into practice some of its theories and to learn for themselves the problems of education.

If this is the reason, this is one of the great problems that worries me about bureaucracy that I learned firsthand. We have 15 different agencies and departments in education, and if any segment of HEW is afraid to take this on, I think they have quite a lot of nerve to tell everybody else how to run their own affairs if they have fear in tackling a tough problem.