ecutive departments, or R. S. 170 (5 U. S. C. 51), forbidding compensation for extra services except as expressly authorized by law. 8. By reason of section 5 (e) of the Reorganization Act of 1945, enactment of S. 140 might preclude any further transfers, under the Reorganization Act, to or from the Department. Unless this result is desired, a saving clause should be inserted. The Bureau of the Budget advises that there is no objection to the submission of this report to your committee. Sincerely yours, WATSON B. MILLER, Administrator. The CHAIRMAN (continuing). I also include a letter from the Secretary of Labor, who approves, in principle, the general purpose of S. 140, but calls the attention of the committee to certain sections of the bill which might conflict with functions of the Labor Department unless amended. (The letter from the Secretary of Labor is as follows:) Hon. GEORGE D. AIKEN, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Washington, February 27, 1947. Chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, DEAR SENATOR AIKEN: This is with further reference to your letter of January 20, 1947, requesting my views concerning S. 140, a bill “To create an executive department of the Government to be known as the Department of Health, Education, and Security." I approve in principle the general purpose of S. 140. The language of the bill, however, raises several questions to which I should like to direct your attention. The language of sections 3 and 4 of S. 140 might be deemed broad enough to provide a statutory basis for needlessly and expensively duplicating useful and necessary health, educational, and security functions of the Department of Labor in the labor field. Governmental functions in these fields, which are peculiarly related to the problems of workers, can, I believe, most appropriately and efficiently be discharged by the Department of Labor. In fact, such functions must continue to be exercised in this Department as an inseparable part of its duty to promote the welfare, working conditions, and employment opportunities of wage earners. I also note that section 6 (a) would transfer the Office of the Federal Security Administrator and the constituent units of the Federal Security Agency to the new Department of Health, Education, and Security. I assume that the transfers contemplated by sections 6 (a), (b), and (c) are limited to those agencies presently within the Office of the Federal Security Administrator and the Federal Security Agency. I think I should make it clear that the Department of Labor, however, has consistently taken the position that the Bureau of Employment Security should be in this Department. For this reason I do not wish my approval of the general purpose of S. 140 to be construed as indicating that that agency should be included in the new Department. Section 6 (b) would also transfer to the proposed Department the Committee on Economic Security and the Federal Board of Hospitalization. The Committee on Economic Security is an interdepartmental committee which is composed of the Secretary of Labor, Chairman, the Secretaries of Treasury, Agriculture, and Commerce, the Attorney General, and the Administrator of the Social Security Administration. This Committee was established by Executive Order 6757 of June 29, 1934. The Committee's functions have been to study and advise on the whole problem of economic and social security. In view of its interdepartmental character it would appear inappropriate to include this Committee within the new Department. Likewise the Federal Board of Hospitalization, as an interdepartmental committee created under the Bureau of the Budget to consider the whole problem of hospitalization and to prevent unnecessary duplication of funcions and facilities, may more properly be continued as such without transfer. The Bureau of the Budget advises that while the general objectives of the bill are in accord with the program of the President, this advice is not to be construed as involving any commitment with respect to each and every recommendation contained in this report. Yours very truly, L. B. SCHWELLENBACH. The CHAIRMAN (continuing). So I am sure the members of the committee will see that we have a very large-sized problem before us. This meeting called this morning is a preliminary hearing in anticipation of general hearings which will be held on the bills pertaining to this whole subject a little later. This morning we will call first upon the sponsor of the bill, Senator Fulbright, who introduced the bill in behalf of himself and Senator Taft. Senator Fulbright. STATEMENT OF HON. J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS Senator FULBRIGHT. Mr. Chairman, I have a very short statement which I would like to read to the committee. The CHAIRMAN. Take all the time you want, Senator. Senator Taft will not be available until 11 o'clock. Senator FULBRIGHT. I have also a few interpolations I shall use in the discussion of this statement. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate this invitation to appear before you and testify in behalf of this bill to create a Department of Health, Education, and Security, with Cabinet status. This is the second bill to create such a Department which Senator Taft and I have jointly introduced. In the last days of the Seventyninth Congress we introduced S. 2503. We did so in order to provoke discussion, give the opportunity for thorough study and have the benefit of comments of all interested persons. In the interval between the Seventy-ninth and Eightieth Congresses, the bill did lead to considerable discussion. We have found it advisable to make very few changes in the bill, and it is substantially in the form of the first draft. In this case Senator Taft and I are in complete agreement on the importance and desirability of establishing the proposed new Department in the Cabinet. The measure is designed simply to promote good government. What type of agency ought to handle Federal public health functions, educational activities, social security and the like? Should it be an independent agency, a whole battery of scattered units or an integrated department with Cabinet status? We think the answer is the department this bill would create. What might appear to some as perhaps controversial issues really do not exist with respect to this bill at all. This bill does not present any issues as to what the functions of the Federal Government should or should not be with relation to health or education or public welfare. In considering the bill, this committee and the Congress are not asked to decide what health programs should be adopted, or what is the proper scope of Federal activity in the schools, or whether social security benefits should be available at the age of 50 or 70. These issues were involved in the past when bills were introduced proposing that the Federal Government adopt specific programs for Federal activity. These issues will continue to come up when new programs or amendments to old programs are proposed in the Congress from time to time. Concededly they involve differences of political philosophy. But, not one of those issues is before this committee in this bill. It is simply a question of setting up permanently, and by legislative action, an efficient, economical, unified administration to handle such programs as the Congress has approved or may approve in the future. The creation of an executive department headed by a member of the President's Cabinet to administer the Federal programs in health, education, and social security is by no means a new idea. As the chairman has pointed out, during the past 25 years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the establishment of such a department has been recommended on a number of occasions. In fact, measures approving the creation of such a department have actually passed both Houses of Congress, but unfortunately this agreement in principle fell short of creating the department due to differences in detail between the measures adopted by the two Houses. S. 3331 was passed by the Senate on March 28, 1938. H. R. 8202 was passed by the House on August 13, 1937. I may say, from the differences of opinions that have already arisen in consideration of this bill, it is evident that this same danger of a division on details confronts us. The Federal Security Agency, since the effective date of Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1946, has administered most of the Federal activities proposed to be transferred to the new Department of Health, Education, and Security. That was a long step forward. I am told that it answered some of the problems of State agencies. The unification of previously scattered functions in the Federal Security Agency has also made possible economies which result from coordination and simplification. However, the unification to date is purely an Executive act. In order to assure the performance of these economies, the Congress should enact legislation such as S. 140 to preclude the possibility of functions in the fields of health, education, and security again being scattered among numerous small individual units on a piecemeal basis, with duplication of effort and the unnecessary employment of personnel. This bill would bring the present functions of the Federal Security Agency, which, after all, is an independent agency, within the traditional framework of responsible government. I think any Cabinet department is likely to be a more responsible body than an independent agency. It is more responsible to the President because its head meets frequently with the President and other Members of the Cabinet, instead of only when he is in trouble or when the President sends for him. He can run his job in better coordination with other departments, particularly where two or more departments have related problems. I think, too, that a Cabinet department is more responsible to the Congress than an independent agency. Sometimes an independent agency becomes a little too independent. The Cabinet officers and the other officials of established departments of the executive branch are, I think, by and large more fully aware of the fact that they are only part of only one of the three coordinate branches of our Federal Government. The Congress has already recognized that the Federal Government has a necessary part to play in the types of activity which the proposed Department would administer. I doubt whether today anybody would seriously want to terminate the activities of the Public Health Service, or the Office of Education, or the Social Security System. A few people might ask, though, whether these functions of the Federal Government are important enough to warrant the creation of a new Cabinet office. For my own part, I answer that question strongly in the affirmative. We all know that in some States and communities the health level of the people was so low that rejections for selective service were an alarming percentage of the men in the eligible age brackets. So, national defense is directly involved. I noticed sometime ago, and I made a note of, a statement by Dean William F. Russell, of Columbia University, in which he said 650,000 physically fit men in the draft-age bracket were so illiterate that no branch of the service would accept them. He said, and I quote: If these men were educated, even through the eighth grade, they could go into the service and defer the drafting of thousands of keymen in essential industry. I also wish to quote a statement from a publication by the National Education Association based upon figures procured from the Selective Service System. This is a quotation from their statement: We pride ourselves upon our schools, but the blunt truth is that in many regions and at many points our educational program is utterly inadequate. At least 600,000 men have been rejected by the armed services for illiteracy, inability to read and write at the fourth-grade level, or failure to meet War Department minimum intelligence standards. At least 250,000 of them had no other defect. The first selective-service registration was signed with a mark by 360,000 men who could not write their own names. Selective service reported in July 1944 that 5,000,000 of the 22,000,000 registrants between 18 and 37 are not physically fit to assume their responsibilities as citizens in war. We all know that unless certain educational advantages are available to all of our citizens equally, a certain percentage of the population will simply not have the fundamental ability to exercise the franchise intelligently; and our whole system of government is dependent on an alert, intelligent, and well-informed electorate. So, I think one might well say that if we are to prevent the recurrence of war, we certainly need a more intelligent and healthy electorate. Or, on the alternative, if we must fight another war, we likewise need a more intelligent and a healthy citizenship. So, I do not think there is any real argument about the necessity for improvement in both of these fields, and I do not think you can differentiate or departmentalize the activities that relate to health and to education. They are interdependent in a very real sense. The dignity of each individual citizen, and his right to a certain basic security in his old age, are cornerstones of our system; for without a sense of dignity and security men can turn, and in other countries have turned, in desperation from ideals of democracy to totalitarian forms of government. The problems, then, in the fields of health and education and social security are basic problems of our Federal Government. This does not mean that they should be controlled and operated from Washington. This bill very specifically provides that the Department shall preserve and protect to the highest possible degree the independence and autonomy of the State and local agencies functioning in the fields of health, education, and security. It does mean, though, since we all know that many States and communities badly need help, that it is hard to think of anything more important to the general welfare of the United States or anything more obviously justifying administration on the very highest Government levels. The job calls for people as wise and as able as can be found. Let us then do our part to create a top-rank agency to do this job of top importance. Mr. Chairman, I have already given to members of your staff, I think, several letters relating to this problem, but I received this morning, just a few minutes ago, by special delivery, a letter from John Thomas Taylor, director of the national legislative committee of the American Legion, enclosing a copy of a resolution adopted at the San Francisco national convention on September 30, 1946, relating to this problem. I do not think that particular resolution had been made a part of the record or given to the committee, so I would like to have it included. The CHAIRMAN. Will you tell the committee the nature of the resolution? Senator FULBRIGHT. I will read the resolution, if the committee would like. It is very short. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead. Senator FULBRIGHT (reading): Whereas our children's future has always been, and is increasingly recognized as, one of our greatest national responsibilities and obligations to posterity; and Whereas the fundamental strength of a nation lies within its people, and the most basic and most difficult task of any country is the conservation and development of its human resources; and Whereas The American Legion realizes that emergent, if not critical, times are now pressing in ever-increasing force upon our people, and that our great National Organization of The American Legion must take steps to meet problems with which we are being confronted on the national, as well as the state, level: Therefore be it Resolved, That we endorse the growing feeling that the administration of the Federal Security Agency be raised to cabinet rank; and be in further Resolved, That we here record our firm conviction that only through such action will the best interests of veterans' children and of all children of this nation be effectively guaranteed at this time in our history when our future lies so clearly in the hands of the oncoming generation. I have other letters, but I do not want to unduly burden the record. The CHAIRMAN. Well, Senator, the letters that you consider of sufficient importance I am sure the committee would approve having |