Evening star., 1951-03-09
A SenseIess PROPOSAL

Congress ought to take long, critical look
at the Federal decentralization program Just SUBJ
mtted by the Budget Bureau. Decentralization
is something entirely apart from dispersal. 1t is
one thing to plan the orderly expansion of the
Government departments into nearby areas; it
is something else to propose the permanent re-
moval from the National Capital of substantial
segments of the executive establishment and to
scatter them haphazardly over the Nation.
The decentralization program partially un-
veiled to the Senate Public Works Committee has
little nothing to do with national security. The
security of the country surely will not be en-
hanced by the transfer of 5000 $4,000 employees
of the Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce and
Labor Departments, or of other non-defenSe
agencies. Only 1900 employees of the Defense
Department are included in the first group slated
to go. Most of the vital defense Offices would
remain right here.
Nor does the list of activities to be exiled
indicate that the selection was dictated solely
by considerations of governmental efficiency.
Ignoring the sad lessons of World War II (the
inefficient splitting of the Patent Office between
Washington and Richmond, for example,, the
decentralizers seem bent on going ahead with
plans to disperse parts of agencies all over the
map Sections of the Bureau of Employe Com
pensation would be distributed among dozen
cities including Honolulu Portions of the Bu-
reau of Mines would be sent from Washington
to eight cities. So on down the list. It would
not be surprising if the next move would be to
appoint new army of co-ordinators to try
and tie the decentralized Offices together.
Certainly efficiency will not be improved by
forcing drastic turnover in personnel of the
decentralized agencies. 1t is estimated that
scarcely so per cent of the employees affected
will leave Washington. survey by The Star
sy~Jf4 1%NA
than pull up stakes here. They cannot be blamed
for that. Decentralization is harsh reward for
veteran employees who have established homes
and raised families in Washington and its
suburbs.
II decentralzatlon,1 as now contemplated,
will not materially contribute to national security
or improve governmental efficiency, why is it ad-
vanced at this time? 1t will, of course, provide
room for more emergency employees, who are be-
ing hired at the rate of 1000 day. But decen-
tralization should not be resorted to merely to
fnd room for new employees. The cure for the
ofdce-space shortage is more Federal buildings
here, coupled with positive steps to reduce over
stating, overlapping and duplication of functions
Decentralization is apt to promote overstafing,
overlapping and wastefu red tape
The late Justice Sutherland 18 years ago
expressed some views regarding Washington
which The Star believes should always be
guiding principle in weighing such proposals as
decentralization In the case of Hit vs. United
States, the jurist said: "The District is not
an ephemerar subdivision of the toutlying
dominion Of the United States but the Capital
the very heart of the Union itself-to be main
tanned as the permanent abiding place of all its
supreme departments and within which the i'm
mense powers of the general Government were
to be exercised for the great and expanding
population of 48 States, and for a future i'm
measurable beyond the prophetic vision of those
who designed and created it," It is hard to
reconcile the plans of the decentralizers with
Justice Sutherlands sound concept of the Ma
tional Capital