The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-10-07


 RAsoa a& tions experts, di-
 rectorS of infor. nation, departments of education, co-ordinators or whatever you will. They exist under all these and other official and unofficial names. But no one has given out the dope of how many there are.
 There is in the Office of Govern rnent Reports a section known as the United States Information Ser- vice. One of the OGR functions is to take all the information handouts and press releases put out by the government agencies and boil them down for the information of all the government agencies. But USIS has no idea of how many information specialists there are.
 Then there is the United States Civil Service, which grades and classifles all government employees. But USCS can only guess at how many Information specialists there are in government service today, for the reason that many of the men in the top jobs don't avail them- selves of the opportunity to get civil service rating by taking whats call- ed an "unassembled examination" which isn't any examination of it. ness at all, but a mere listings of experinece and qualifications. THE NUMBER IS
 IN THOUSANDS
 At the end of 19Ss the Civil Service attempted & tabulation of those who had been classified as information specialists, and came up with an approximation that there were about 26o0 in such work all over the country. Six hundred of them had qualified for the higher ratings such as chief of an infor- nation section or assistant chief, with salaries of from 8, 300 to $l0,- 900 a year. The other 2,000 were classified as clerical workers in in- formation sections, AZ per cent of them making over 5000 a year.
 Trose figures, now nearly three years old, don't begin to tell the story, but they provide the only official public estimate to date on the size of the huge information machine set up within the frame work of the federal government, grinding out answers to questions that have been asked and often to questions that haven't been asked.
 At the request of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Appro- priations, the Bureau of the Budget has prepared a confidential report on information sections of the gov- ernment, but so far that report has not been given out, and If 1t Is no more complete than previous con- fidential reports of the kind have been, 1t will not begin to tell the story.
 CONFLICT WITH
 LAW CITED
 One thing that makes 1t ex- tremely difficult to get any official estimates on the size of this human machinery of information spreading Is that there is a law against 1t, passed by Congress back in October, 1913. An examination of this law, paragraph 54, title 5, U. s. code, re- veals this significant sentence:
 No money appropriated by any act shall be used for the compensa- tion of any publicity expert unless specifically appropriated for that purpose"
 The term publicity" as used in this act has been interpreted to cover activities which might be said to advertise functions or services rendered by any government agency, or which might be put out with the ideal of obtaining public support for the continuation or expansion of existing departmental activities. What Congress particularly had in mind, back in those distant pre- World War days, was the fear that government agencies might get busy and try to solicit pressure from in- terested groups which in turn would bring pressure on Congress to in- crease appropriations for some par ticular activity, or prevent Congress from reducing an existing appropri- ton.
 In 1913, when that law was pass ed, the word propaganda" had not come into common use. That was reserved for 1914 and the outbreak of the war, when the kaiser'S pro- paganda machine started spooning out the grease that has been skid ding the world slatwise ever since. But even if congressman didn't have word for it in those distant times, they knew what 1t was and what it might do, ever when spread upon the domestic fields.
 Today, however; this ant:-govern- mental l-propaganda law is practical ly a dead letter. It is cited now and then in hearings before the Appropriation Committee when some federal department of cabinet rank, or some independent agency is pre- senting its budget and its request for funds to continue operations. But in every case, the government agency will reply in effect that it has no publicity experts. that 1t is engaged In no propaganda-like ac- tivities. Technically, that may be a correct answer. But it still cannot screen the actual existence of the huge public information-spreading machine in Washington principally. but scattered all over the country in practically every one of the thou sands of administrative branch of- fees which the federal departments maintain.
 FROM CONVENIENCE
 TO CANCER
 The existence of this complicated service of information can be justi- fled on many counts. the principal one being that in a democracy, the citizens are entitled to know what their government is doing. And many government agencies, in the nets of