Evening star., 1947-02-09
US. Lawyer Merger
Seen as Bucktruckinq
Attorney Generals Suggestions
Would Reverse 1882 Act
By Gerard D. Reilly

Attorney Generals Suggestions
Would Reverse 1882 Act
By Gerard D. Reilly
Among the interesting developments
of the week In the congressional
quest for economy were the suggestions
ELECTED by the Senate Committee on the
Civil Service from the Attorney General
Although Mr.. Clark, not being grad
uate Of Brockings Institution or the Chi
caeo School Of Public Administration,
would undoubtedly be regarded by the
professional government reorganizers as
somewhat of dilettante in the field, his
ideas were described by the press as
holding his Senate audience enchanted
This was particularly true of his re-
organization program for Government
lawyers. When asked by one Of the
Senators as to why it was necessary for
the Government to have so many lawyers
scattered about the various departments
and agencies, he is reported to have
said that the same thought had often
occurred to him and that 1t would
probably be more economical, If all the
Government lawyers were placed in the
Department Of Justice.
Should Mr.. Clark's suggestion be
adopted 1t would mean that the cam
paign for Government economy has in
deed run full cycle, for the last economy
act passed by Congress resulted in the
adoption of plan precisely the reverse
of the Attorney Generals proposal
Tenure in the Senate being what it is
in these uncertain days, apparently no
one in the hearing room was aware of
the history Of the Fourth Economy Act
of 1892. This measure, passed In the
closing days of the Hoover admins
tration, gave the President broad au-
thority to consolidate, divide and shuttle
bureaus and divisions in the interest
of balanced budget, and his successor
operated under 1t during the first year
and a half of the New Deal.
One of the most lasting reforms ac-
complished under this statute was the
decentralization of the Government legal
system. Up until that time, the solic-
itors de, the chief legal officers of
most of the executive departments were
officers of the Department of Justice
with the rank of Assistant Attorneys
General, and their subordinates were
also employees of that department
These gentlemen, however, were housed
with the various departments to which
they were accredited, for officers and
bureau chiefs, even in those days, were
so enmeshed in ganglion of statutes
and regulations that they had come to
depend upon having lawyers at their
elbows. Under an executive order in
the fall of 1888, the solicitors and their
assistants were formally severed from
the Department of Justice and made
employees of their respective clients.
During the ensuing year I had an
opportunity to study this innovation
at close hand. Having transferred from
q New Deal agency to the solicitor
of Labors Office, one of my first as
signments from the solicitor was to
prepare report to the Director of the
Budget on the superior efficiency and
economy of the new system. At that
time the Department of Labor occu-
pied an ancient building on G street
and the solicitors suite had a pleas
antly musty atmosphere, somewhat
reminiscent of the Boston law Office
where was first employed. Upon the
shelves of my Office were two imposing
sets of legal volumes, bound in buck
ram, one entitled Opinions of the
Solicitor assistant Attorney GeneraD
of the Postof1ce" and the other "Opin-
ions of the Solicitor of Labor. This
latter set proved to be disappointment,
since the opinions dealt almost ex-
clusively with workmen's compensation
cases-a field in which the solicitor no
longer had any official interest as the
Employees Compensation Bureau had
long since become an independent
agency under some reorganization act
in an earlier administration. The post
office volumes were apparently purely
decorative. All of them, however, were
in the process of being solemnly re-
labeled as Property of the Department
of Labor"
~ +
Although there was a school of
thought among the older men in the
Office that the transfer had made re-
lations with the Department of Justice
somewhat more strained and formal,
it did not appear that these relations
had been intimate even at the time
when the legal system was an un-
divided whole. In those days, the
solicitor always began his correspond
ence with fellow division heads in the
Department of Justice in the some
what chatty style of II have the honor,
Sir, of referring to immigration file No.
55611" and ended with the assurance
of g" remaining, Sir, always with
the deepest respect" About the only
economy, visible to the naked eye,
however, was some minor saving in
paper and stenographic effort, as the
current solicitor, an informal fellow,
had abandoned this elegant epistolary
style.
1t will be interesting to see if any
genuine integration results If the Clark
plan becomes reality. For unless one
is inclined to take organizational charts
seriously, the proposed reorganization
would seem to be aptly characterized
by the old saying, "the more things
change, the more they seem the same"
Getting Healthier
From the Baltimore sun.