Mr. McNEELY. They generally originate with the bureau.

Mr. CRAMTON. Aren't they frequently put out without the bureau passing on them?

Mr. MCNEELY. No, sir. We get the information from the bureau and then I write the news release and take it down to the bureau chief and he O. K.'s it, and then it goes to the Secretary, and he O. K.'s it.

Mr. CRAMTON. What is the principal purpose of the bureau; to give the public knowledge of what is actually going on, or what you think they ought to think is going on?

Mr. MCNEELY. We try to avoid any propaganda. We try to give out the things that are important to the public.

Mr. CRAMTON. Do you have any instructions issued to you?
Mr. MCNEELY. No, sir; none whatever.

Mr. BURLEW. May I say that the Secretary sees every press release and O. K's it. It is not necessary for him to see many paper men, because they go to Mr. McNeely's office and get the information. It saves a great amount of work on the part of the Secretary's office. Mr. CRAMTON. The reason I asked information is that it is very easy to make a strong case in behalf of such an organization, and it is very, very easy for such an organization to be abused.

Mr. BURLEW. There is no doubt about that.

Mr. CRAMTON. It is very proper that information as to the activities of the various bureaus should be easily available. It is very undesirable that the public funds should be used to glorify individuals or a department, or to give out misinformation. My interest in your work has been aroused by two glaring cases of misinformation given out through these news releases for the purpose of glorification, apparently, of officials of the department. One of them was the Landis interview.

Mr. MCNEELY. That should never have been gotten out.

Mr. CRAMTON. Just a moment. A grossly incorrect statement, obviously intended to gloss over the situation as to the Alaska railroads, and to give the people of the United States an absolutely incorrect idea of the facts. In other words, instead of conveying information to the public, it was conveying gross misinformation.

The second, more recently, was in connection with the American Falls reclamation project, the payment over of a couple of million dollars, approximately, which was glorified as the accomplishment of the Fact Finding Commission, whereas the Fact Finding Commission had nothing more to do with it than had Einstein. The same misinformation was then played up conspicuously in New Reclamation Era.

Of course, that sort of glorification, using the public funds as a means of propaganda in behalf of the activity of a department, is not at all what should be.

Now, I have not studied these news releases. A great many of them, of course, deal with matters I would not be sufficiently familiar with to be able to judge, but there were two coming within my personal knowledge, very glaring examples of what a press bureau has no business to do, and hence I felt we are entitled to some information as to how much is being spent on this sort of propaganda.

Mr. MCNEELY. Mr. Cramton, if you only make two mistakes a year

Mr. CRAMTON (interposing). I say that I don't guarantee only two mistakes, and I don't propose-I say to you right now-I don't propose that you will, if I can help it, conduct an organization there with public funds that will make two glaring, inexcusable mistakes of that kind in a year.

Mr. MCNEELY. I have all the originals with the initials of all the people including Mr. Landis.

Mr. CRAMTON. I think it is safe to say that probably the number is not limited to two, but I say this: I haven't made a study of your releases, but this happened to such subjects that I have given a good deal of attention to.

Mr. BURLEW. Mr. Cramton, I don't believe there is a department more careful than we are. All of them have offices of information. Some are run with many more people than we have, and probably no Cabinet officer gives more attention to it than Doctor Work. Mr. McNeely has his regular rounds through the bureaus. He inquires if they have anything new. Usually the facts are prepared in the bureau and Mr. McNeely writes the release, making it more concise. He gets the approval of the bureau officers before the item goes to the Secretary.

Mr. McNEELY. That news release of Mr. Landis, he gave it out in the West before he gave it out in Washington. He made the statement that the railroads were on a paying basis, or would be, and then when he came here we got this statement from him. The Secretary hesitated a long while before he finally approved our giving it out. We realized later on that it should not have been issued.

Mr. CRAMTON. Well, I want to emphasize especially that so far as I am personally concerned-of course, I can not speak for the committee I have no objection to the furnishing of information, but I am entirely opposed to any organization for propaganda.

Mr. BURLEW. Mr. Cramton, if you will notice our press releases, you will find we do not advertise anybody. It is the exception if we do, and it is unintentional. We cut practically everybody's name out of the press releases, and you will rarely find anybody eulogized. Mr. CRAMTON. I think that is true. The publication of the Reclamation Record, does that come under you?

Mr. MCNEELY. No, sir.

Mr. BURLEW. When Mr. McNeely and I first went to the Interior Department we had something to do with it, starting it on present lines.

Mr. CRAMTON. It is my recollection that at one time Governor Davis disavowed any knowledge of what was being published in that

organ.

Mr. MCNEELY. Well, that is because he had an editor handling it in the Reclamation Bureau.

Mr. BURLEW. We tried to make it more readable. It was a sort of Government document before we changed its form along the same line as we adopted in publishing the Postal Supplement in the Post Office.

Mr. CRAMTON. Well, I think that is all.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1924.

BUREAU OF MINES

STATEMENTS OF MR. H. FOSTER BAIN, DIRECTOR, MR. E. B. SWANSON, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR, AND MR. D. A. LYON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

GENERAL STATEMENT

Mr. CRAMTON. We will take up the Bureau of Mines. Before we take up the detailed items of the estimates we would be glad to have any general statement you care to submit as to the work of the Bureau of Mines.

Mr. BAIN. The estimates herewith submitted call for a total of appropriations amounting to $1,876,560, as compared with $1,900,468 appropriated in the act of June 5, 1924, a net decrease of $23,908. There has been considerable readjustment of the various items directed toward furnishing the maximum amount for increase of the safety work of the bureau without overrunning the total. By reducing the allotments for general expenses, Alaska, mineral mining, oil gas and oil shale, and mineral leasing, and postponing purchase of the remaining steel mine rescue car, it has been possible to increase the funds available for study of mine accidents by $40,232 and for operation of mine rescue cars and stations by $19,540. By further increasing, as here proposed, the allotment for upkeep of buildings and grounds at Pittsburgh in amount of $7,600, the two technical appropriations will be relieved by nearly an equal amount now charged to them, making a net increase for safety of approximately $67.000. The only other increase is $11,720 in the testing-fuel appropriation, an increase necessary to provide for fuel-inspection work to be done for the Navy to avoid duplication.

Last year it was stated to this committee that a thorough study of the needs of the work as regards safety would be made and plans for such enlargement as might seem necessary would be submitted. This has been done, and the figures herein presented represent the amount which, in the judgment of the Budget Commission, can be allowed toward the expansion of the safety program at this time. It will be noted that this calls for no additional money, and despite the provision for increased safety work there will be an actual reduction in totals. While in my personal opinion the reductions in the various allotments necessary to accomplish this happy result run dangerously near the margin necessary for good administration and more money rather than less could to great public advantage be used, we of the bureau are prepared to do our best, as always, with the money granted and will hope that next year it may be possible for the Govrenment to allot larger sums to meet the more imperative needs.

The actual effect of the various reductions in the separate appropriations will be discussed in connection with the items as they come up. Since, however, the purchase of a mine rescue car would have stood as an independent item, a word of explanation here may

be proper. It will be recalled that last year an appropriation of $10,000 was made for such a car and that according to a plan arranged some years since and heretofore followed consistently another and the last should have been asked for this year. The car for which an appropriation was made last year is now being built and should be available in January, though it was a number of months before any contractor could be found who would bid within the sum available. In view of the restriction on funds the request for the final steel car is not being made. Instead, a wooden car, formerly belonging to the Public Health Service, has been obtained upon transfer. A thorough survey of this car shows that it is structually sound and for $5,000 to $6,000 it can be put into good condition for several years' service. It is proposed, if the necessary money for repairs can be saved out of this year's or next year's funds, to refit this car and assign it to one of the districts where experience indicates that disaster runs will rarely, if ever, be necessary. As an instruction and demonstration car it should be adequate until the present emergency has passed, and this will permit the early abandonment of both of the cars now in service that are considered antiquated and unsafe. No separate request is being made for money for repair of this car, but if any reduction be made in the sums that are asked for this is one of the things that will necessarily be abandoned.

The plan herein outlined contemplates that this year, as was true last year, separate provision will be made in some manner for the payment of the field bonus and reclassification expense in the field. The sum of $112,800 for that purpose for the current year is carried in H. R. 9561, and under Executive orders current expenditures are at the rate of the combined sums carried in that bill and the act of June 5, 1924. There having been no intimation to the contrary, these estimates have been prepared in the expectation that a substantially equivalent sum will be made available for the year 1926. If this is not contemplated and $112,000 or thereabouts additional must be pared off the appropriations proposed in the present_bill, the whole plan becomes unworkable, since the further cutting down of the various appropriations would, in a number of instances, result in uneconomic units of work-the general expense and overhead even when reduced to a minimum would be out of proportion to the working force. The total amount that it is possible to allot to this work must naturally be decided with reference to the needs of the Government as a whole, but if it is necessary further to reduce that total I recommend strongly that the reduction be accomplished by dropping distinct units of work rather than systematically starving all of them.

The process of reduction of force and centralization of staff into fewer, larger, and more economic units, where there will be less overhead in proportion to volume of work, has already gone far in the Bureau of Mines. Among the changes of this sort made within the past 12 months may be mentioned the following:

(1) The field station at Ithaca, N. Y., devoted to studies of alloys, and which had accomplished work on steels and brasses of direct importance to the Army, Navy, and industry, has been abolished

along with the section at Pittsburgh engaged in similar work on aluminum. Instead the minimum of work absolutely necessary in this field is being accomplished by transfer of funds to the Bureau of Standards and the stationing in Standard's laboratory of a liaison metallurgist of the bureau.

(2) The work on fundamentals of processes conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in cooperation with the milling committee of the American Institute of Mining Engineers has been abandoned and in its place the absolute minimum of the projected program is being carried out at the Salt Lake station of the bureau.

(3) The Shreveport (La.) office of the oil-leasing work has been abandoned and that district is covered from the Dallas (Tex.) office. This results in saving of rent and clerk hire at the expense of slightly increased travel, but with a net gain.

(4) The St. Louis office has been closed. While this makes no saving in rent, since the chamber of commerce furnished the office, it releases a clerk and makes minor savings.

(5) The supervising mining engineer at Duluth has been withdrawn and the most necessary part of his duties transferred to a resident engineer, who serves coincidently as car engineer. At the same time the office space was reduced with a saving in rent.

(6) The coal-washing work conducted for a number of years at Urbana, Ill., has been stopped and the staff there is now, in effect, that of a resident engineer rather than a full station as contemplated by the law of March 3, 1915. This is regarded as a temporary measure pending ratification or the reverse by Congress, but meanwhile has released funds and personnel urgently required for other service.

(7) The Fairbanks (Alaska) station, established under the terms of the act of March 3, 1915, and later by congressional action consolidated with other Alaska work, has been closed. This action is, of course, subject to disavowal by Congress, to which it is here reported, but is in the interest of economy and efficiency and has the approval of the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce. The testing equipment of the station has been transferred to the Alaska College of Agriculture and Mines, and that part of the personnel retained has been put on urgently needed field work. With the money saved by this consolidation it has been possible, through the cooperation of the Alaska Railroad, to equip and to man without special appropriation a simple but sufficient mine rescue car for use on the Government's own railroad and at the Government's own mines, that have heretofore lacked such protection.

These are cited from among the numerous similar changes made in organization to show that a sincere and effective effort has already been made to economize by cutting off smaller units of work and to bring about good business organization.