Evening star., 1936-03-23
More Reorganization.


II began holding some conversations
with interested and informed persons
concerning what appealed to me as the
necessity of making a careful study of
the organization of the executive branch
Of the Government"
President Theodore Roosevelt held
similar conversations with interested and
informed persons. President Taft's con-
versations with similarly interested and
Informed persons brought into being the
Commission on Economy and Efficiency,
which developed into the Bureau of
Efficiency, now dead. Under President
Harding, as the result of many CONVEX
Sations, there was created the Joint Con-
greSSional Committee on Government
Reorganization, with Walter Brown as
chairman. President Coolidge trans
ferred by executive order the Bureau
of Mines and the Patent Office from the
Department of the Interior to the Depart
ment of Commerce. President Hoover,
after extensive conversations and some
work within the different departments,
concluded that the only effective way to
reorganize the executive branch of the
Government was through executive
orders issued with the permission of Con-
gress to go ahead and do what he
thought best. President Roosevelt made
several references during the campaign
to the need for consultations and reor-
ganizatiOn in the Government service
and Congress granted him broad author
ity along such lines through the econ
omy act. One of the results was the
abolition of the Screw Thread Com
mission.
This year Senator Byrd of Virginia
has been active in his demands that
something be done about reorganization
and the Senate has just created a spe-
cial committee and appointed advisory
experts to look into the matter. Dr..
Luther H. Gulick and Louis Brownlow
were two of the five experts so chosen.
The Byrd resolution was introduced
February "a and passed only few days
ago. But President Roosevelt, in his
letter to the Vice President and the
Speaker, says he began thinking about
the same thing last October. So the
President apparently has first claim to
the idea, which entities him to choose,
as two members of his three-man COM
mission, DR. Luther H. Gulick and Louis
rTrl..
the creation of House committee that
will work with his own commission and
Senator Byrd'S committee-all the re-
porting to be done to the next Congress,
next January, after the election.
While the Presidents reorganization
proposals are aimed specifically at ex-
amining the greatly enlarged executive
establishment resulting from New Deal
recovery activities and determining what
temporary agencies can be abolished,
merged with other agencies or given a
permanent status, all reorganization
schemes finally come up against the
same thing, namely, that the only reor-
ganization which saves money is the
reorganization that results in discharge
OF personnel. And the discharge of
personnel always gives politicians a
severe headache, for it hurts people back
home.
The more committees and commissions
involved in reorganization, the less
chance there is for any effective reor-
ganization. Neither house of Congress
is willing to surrender its own preroga-
tives in matters relating to the public
pay roll, and Congress is not willing to
give the President the arbitrary author
1ty he really needs. The latest reor-
ganization plan will be watched with
interest, but not with any great amount
OF confidence in the results.