Mr. VIETHEER. We want that person, Mr. Chairman, to move in on some of the activities the Bureau of the Budget has been recommending for the Department to proceed on, work simplification and that sort of thing. For example, in connection with the coming census we feel the present employment procedures which require five or six different forms for employment just will not work for the hiring of a large number of people in an economical fashion. We would like to move in on that situation and develop a single form. Also we would like to move in on some of the other personnel shops of the Department to reduce paper work.

Mr. FLOOD. What would be the capacity of this new employee? In what classification would he come?

Mr. VIETHEER. Grade CAF-11.

Mr. FLOOD. You are going to have a grade CAF-11 employee do nothing but go over forms for a year?

Mr. VIETHEER. No, sir; it will not all be forms. It will be organization work. It will be work looking toward the simplification of personnel administration in the Department. We have done a lot of simplifying in the central office. We think it can be done out in the bureaus.

Mr. FLOOD. For the entire Department?

Mr. VIETHEER. Yes, sir.

Mr. FLOOD. What will this man be, an efficiency engineer, or something of the kind?

Mr. VIETHEER. That is it in a nutshell, on that particular type of work.

Mr. FLOOD. And he has to be a CAF-11?

Mr. VIETHEER. I do not think you could get a very well-qualified person for less.

Mr. FLOOD. Do you have anybody doing that kind of work now? Mr. VIETHEER. No, sir. We had hoped to do it, but the volume of work in that office is such that we just have not been able to put any of the present staff on it.

Mr. FLOOD. Are any of the staff qualified or competent to do that particular job?

Mr. VIETHEER. Yes, sir. The head of that section comes from the Bureau of the Budget and has had a lot of experience in that work.

Mr. GLADIEUX. I might say that we have done a small amount of this to the extent that staff time has allowed and that has brought us such dividends that we would like to extend it.

Mr. FLOOD. Are there any questions at this point?

Mr. STEFAN. Just one question, Mr. Chairman. How much work would this man be doing with the Bureau of the Census on simplification of forms?

Mr. VIETHEER. Well, he would be working only a portion of his time with the Census Bureau. He would also work with the other bureaus.

Mr. STEFAN. They have an office or a group working on simplification of forms that is quite extensive, do they not?

Mr. VIETHEER. That is right.

Mr. STEFAN. Would he supplement that work?

Mr. VIETHEER. We think if we have an expert in the central office working with all of the bureaus, they will not need their own experts in that field. He can advise them, counsel them.

Mr. STEFAN. You could not do without that personnel simplification division in the Bureau of the Census in the matter of forms, could you?

Mr. VIETHEER. We are not talking in terms of the general census forms. I am talking simply of the personnel office of the Census Bureau, which would go out and hire about 150,000 people in connection with the 1950 census. I am just thinking in terms of employment forms at the present time, where they have to fill out so many papers to get a person on the Federal pay roll. We would like to work out a simplified system.

Mr. STEFAN. It has nothing to do with the census forms?

Mr. VIETHEER. No, sir.

Mr. STEFAN. So that you do not duplicate the work of that division of the Census?

Mr. VIETHEER. That is right.

Mr. GLADIEUX. For example, the Secretary asked me to pay particular attention to our plans for conducting the Seventeenth Decennial Census, realizing how important it was not only that it should be done well but in the most simplified and economical way possible. As a part of that program our personnel office has developed a number of suggestions for simplication of personnel procedures which I sent to Mr. Capt. I think they will demonstrate some very substantial savings in terms of processing the scores of thousands of personnel actions incident to this enumeration work.

OTHER OBJECTS

Mr. FLOOD. I direct your attention to page 25 of the justification, under the classification of Other Objects, where the total request for 1950 is $81,500.

TRAVEL

Will you make some justification of the request for travel, which is $6,200 for 1950.

Mr. CAWLEY. Mr. Chairman, in general the other objects provided for the immediate Office of the Secretary are to take care of travel, transportation of things, communications, other contractual services, supplies, and equipment. The over-all increase is brought about chiefly by the proposal in the next fiscal year to make▬▬

Mr. FLOOD. May I interrupt to point out that the budget for 1949 for these items totaled $78,100 and the request for 1950 is $81,500. Now will you proceed.

Mr. CAWLEY. Mr. Chairman, the over-all increase is occasioned by our need to replace an existing automobile, a station wagon, and two trucks and a new limousine for the Secretary. On page 26 you will see a detailed break-down of the request showing the estimated cost, the model to be replaced, the estimated allowances, and the net cost of the cars.

EQUIPMENT

Mr. FLOOD. Under "Other objects," in the item "Equipment," for the current fiscal year you had $3,074, and you are asking, for 1950, $10,900. Is that the item you are referring to in connection with the automobiles?

Mr. CAWLEY. Yes, sir. The amount for automobiles, as you will note, is $7,500. I appreciate that is not exactly the difference, but it is the substantial item which makes up the increase in equipment.

Other items of equipment would include filing equipment, replacement of furniture, office machines, and so forth, as are needed in the office.

REPLACEMENT OF AUTOMOBILES

Mr. FLOOD. This request for moneys for motor equipment represents a replacement program entirely?

Mr. RYAN. That is right. We have some very old equipment in automobiles. They go back as far as 1938.

Mr. FLOOD. Is that true of all of them?

Mr. RYAN. Not all of them. Our latest car is a 1947; we have one 1946. We have one limousine of the year 1938. We just cannot operate this car at all. We keep it in case of a rush and bring it out of the shop and use it only then. It has a leaking top. It is a Chrysler bought in 1938. We have a Buick bought in 1940, which has gone 64,000 miles. We have a 1941 Pontiac. That is the sort of equipment we should get rid of.

Mr. FLOOD. You are not going to replace the 1946 and 1947 vehicles? Mr. RYAN. No, sir.

Mr. FLOOD. We will insert in the record at this time that part of page 26 which lists the types, estimated cost, model replaced, allowance, and net cost of these motor vehicles.

(The information is as follows:)

Mr. FLOOD. What is meant by "Other contractual services" under the item "Other objects," which calls for an estimate for 1950 of $32,000 as against an appropriation for the current year of $35,531?

Mr. CAWLEY. Mr. Chairman, the funds there provide for a newsticker service, maintenance of automobiles, repairs to office machines and equipment, stenographic transcriptions of hearings and conferences, reimbursement to the Public Buildings Administration for certain space charges they might make from time to time. Mr. FLOOD. Where would the news-ticker service be?

Mr. CAWLEY. In the Office of Information, in the immediate office of the Secretary.

Mr. FLOOD. Do you have an Office of Information, too?

Mr. CAWLEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. GLADIEUX. That is our Office of Publications. You referred to it here a bit

ago.

Mr. CAWLEY. There is another item in there that should be mentioned and that deals with duplicating, the processing of documents, in our own plant.

Mr. FLOOD. Duplicating services?

Mr. CAWLEY. For example, this budget is a duplicating job. It is done in our own shop, and the Office of the Secretary has to pay for its direct expenses.

COMMUNICATIONS

Mr. FLOOD. Your communications item remains practically static. The estimate for 1950 is just $16 less than the appropriation for 1949, which was $19,816. Can you gage your communications cost, with all of this extra work that you are telling us about, within $16?

Mr. CAWLEY. No, sir; we cannot. We estimate that we can get along with about the same amount of money. The new estimate has been rounded off.

Mr. FLOOD. Does this come within the realm of an educated guess again?

Mr. CAWLEY. No, sir. We know about what our costs are, and we feel that we can get along with about the same next year.

Mr. FLOOD. Even though you are going to do so much more work? Mr. CAWLEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. FLOOD. Are there any questions with relation to the item "Other objects"?

Mr. PRESTON. What sort of control do you have over communications expense? Who determines whether messages should be sent or not?

Mr. RYAN. I take it you are referring to long-distance toll service? Mr. PRESTON. Yes.

Mr. RYAN. Immediately a call is placed, and the connection is made and the call has been completed, the toll slip is sent to the chief of the division where the call is placed, for confirmation. The chief of the division or his deputy must approve the call before it is made. Mr. PRESTON. Before it is actually put through?

Mr. RYAN. That is right.

Mr. PRESTON. What about telegrams?

Mr. RYAN. We have a very good system, Congressman. We have our own teletype system.

In 1947 we took away from Western Union Telegraph Co. most of our business. After 5 months of operation in fiscal 1948, a saving of about $45,760 through the teletype system was made. We have put in, through the cooperation of the Public Buildings Administration, this teletype system through which we can get a word cost of 72 mills against about 4 cents for Western Union. And, in that 5 months' operation, only in the Office of the Secretary and the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce we have shown an actual saving of $45,760.

Last week we had an order placed upon us by the Federal Communications Commission. The Western Union requested that their station be taken out of our building because our bills have dropped so drastically.

We have established the same system in the Bureau of the Census and the Civil Aeronautics Administration, where there will be real

savings in greater proportion, particularly in the Census Bureau, in connection with the big census coming up in 1950.

Mr. CAWLEY. That is a further explanation of why we can get along on about the same money, with an increased volume of work. We are taking advantage of every possible short cut and savings that we can effect, gentlemen.

Mr. PRESTON. That cost 7 mills per word-does that include all of your cost?

Mr. RYAN. Except refile charges.

Mr. PRESTON. Does it include depreciation of equipment?

Mr. RYAN. We only have one machine; yes, sir. It also includes the operator.

Mr. PRESTON. That is quite a saving.

Mr. RYAN. Yes, sir; that is quite a saving. I understand the Budget Bureau suggested the same thing to many of the Government agencies. We find it a wonderful service, sir. We do have refile charges, but even including those we had this $45,000 saving. Messages are refiled where they extend beyond the point of our field connections. There Western Union takes the rest of it beyond those points. They take it up and deliver it from there. But even with that, based on an outgoing wordage of 1,272,301, and with 134,216 words refiled, or about 10 percent, we showed a saving in 5 months of $45,760, as I explained a moment ago.

Mr. PRESTON. Do you have a network of these machines?

Mr. RYAN. No; we have only one. But PBA has them in field offices throughout the United States.

Mr. PRESTON. That is what I mean.

Mr. RYAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. PRESTON. That is all.

OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR

Mr. FLOOD. I would like someone to make a statement with reference to each one of these particular items. I have before me the Office of the Solicitor. We have analyzed most of it, but there are two or three of these items that we have not touched upon directly, and I think the record should indicate what the story is with reference to each of these different sections within the office.

Mr. GLADIEUX. Mr. Matthew Hale is the Acting Solicitor of the Department.

GENERAL STATEMENT

Mr. FLOOD. Mr. Hale, will you address yourself to the item "Office of the Solicitor."

Mr. HALE. The Office of the Solicitor serves the Secretary and the Department by providing legal services. Perhaps the principal task of the Solicitor's office is to work on the legislative program of the Department in those cases where the Secretary is either proposing legislation or commenting on legislation which has been introduced. There we have to coordinate the views of the various bureaus and offices in the Department to make sure that we have considered all points of view in the Department and also clear through the Bureau