Evening star., 1950-05-24
Continued From First Page

chairman he will succeed Nelson
Lee Smith, a political independent.
Mr.. Mead, who will head the
Federal Trade Commission, is a
former Democratic Senator from
New York, who was appointed to
the commission a short while ago.
Lowell Mason. a Republican, is
now acting chairman of the COM
mission. Mr.. Mcdonald, the SEC
appointee is chairman of that
unit now.
When the deadline for congress
sional veto expired last midnight.
the President had saved 16 out Of
81 reorganization plans submitted
on March 13 as another step to-
ward carrying out. at least in part,
the recommendations of the COM
mission headed by former Presi-
dent Hoover.
The last three plans to be chal-
lenged won Senate approval yes
terday by wide margins. The
Commerce Department plan was
sustained 43 to 20. BY the same
VOTE. Housing and Home Finance
Agency was given control over
planning Of Federal public
works.
The last plan. giving General
Services Administration control
over Government Office space out
side of Washington, went through,
SO to 7.
Counting steps taken by Con-
gress last year to improve the ef-
fciency of the Departments of
State. Defense and Post Office,
and creating the General Services
Administration, these new plans
dispose of about half of the pro-
posals made by the Hoover Com
mission.
Hoover Is Pleased.
In New York, Herbert Hoover
was gratif1ed by the progress made
today in carrying out his commits
sion's findings. He said the five
measures that failed were either
revisionS or only parts of the
commissions proposals.
The Citizens Committee for the
Hoover Report. headed by DR..
Robert L. johnson of Temple Uni
versity, called the reorganization
record Of this Congress to date
"the best in the Nations history,
but still not good enough"
More Plans Pending.
The President still has pending
three more plans submitted on
May 8. placing the Reconstruction
Finance Corp. under the Com
merce Department and transferr-
ing some of its home lending &C
tivities to the Housing and Home
Finance Agency. Since the law
allows either branch of Congress
60 days in which to veto a plan,
the fate Of the RFC reorganiza-
ton will not be settled until, July.
All of the plans for the four de-
partments and the four regulatory
commissions that won congress
sional approval have the same
underlying purpose-to centralize
authority along with responsibility
in the department head or the
commission chairman.
Can Reassign Functions.
Through the years, Congress
has. from time to time, conferred
independent statutory authority
on subordinate bureau chiefs in
the departments. The effect of
these reorganization orders is to
transfer to the department head
all functions now possessed by
nearly all of his subordinates. The
department head will then have
authority to reassign functions
among his subordinates in the in
terest of the most efficient organ
iZation.
Two classes of functions are not
touched by the new reorganization
plans. These are the functions of
hearing examiners appointed un-
der the Administrative Procedure
Act and the functions Of Govern
ment corporations operating in
the affected departments.
The biggest fight in Congress
was the one that resulted in kill
Ing the NLRB plan. The Hoover
Commission had made no recon-
mendation exclusively affecting
that agency. The Truman order
proposed to abolish the Office of
the independent general counsel,
Robert N. Denham, and transfer
his functions to the board.
Senator Taft, Republican, of
Ohio led successful fight to kill
the plan on the ground 1t was an
indirect attack on the Taft-Hart-
ley Act. Mr.. Denham has been
at odds with the board over the
enforcement of that law. E
Five Killed i'm Row.
The Treasury plan fell by the
vayside mainly because the banks
objected to placing the independ-
ent office of controller of the
currency directly under the Secre-
tary Of the Treasury. Even Treas
ury Secretary Snyder told Con-
gress he doubted "the advisability"