favorably on this bill before us, and perhaps I may have been wrong. I have been known to be.

I would like to ask you this question. I understood you to say when you were here before that unless we acted promptly prior to June 11 last year all the officers now assigned to the duty of investigating and hearing these cases would be assigned to other duty and it would be impossible to conduct these hearings at some future time.

Is that a fair statement of your testimony?

Captain RICHMOND. As I stated this morning, sir, since June 11, we have continued to investigate cases.

We have handled those cases in this manner. Those which have been relatively minor the offender has been admonished. Those serious cases, a record has been made. There have been no hearing officers. We have a backlog of 700 cases now classed as serious on which no hearings have been held. They have been investigated. Mr. KEATING. Investigated by you?

Captain RICHMOND. By our personnel.

Mr. KEATING. Were you still charged with investigating after June 11?

Captain RICHMOND. We are still charged with disciplinary action under R. S. 4450. That is the reason we continue to take such action as we could and we could only go so far because we had nobody to hear the cases except the Commandant himself which would be impossible for him, as you know.

Mr. KEATING. Under the plan arranged in 1946 how many were assigned to hearing at that time and how many to investigations? Captain RICHMOND. About 22 as examiners. I haven't the exact number of investigating officers but it would be, I should say, 30 or 35.

Mr. KEATING. Now these 22 have been assigned to other duty? Captain RICHMOND. Regular inspection duty or duty for which they are qualified, that is correct, sir.

Mr. KEATING. But these investigating officers, none of them have been relieved of their old investigating duties?

Captain RICHMOND. I think there has been some reduction in the number.

Mr. KEATING. Reduction in the number?

Captain RICHMOND. I don't think there have been more than five or six because there have been just as many investigations.

Mr. KEATING. So if this bill were passed, which has passed the Senate, would it be your plan to recall these hearing officers from their other duties and restore them to this duty of hearing those cases? Captain RICHMOND. Yes, sir.

Mr. KEATING. That would require you to ask for additional personnel?

Captain RICHMOND. To a certain extent. Of course with an officer corps as you know, due to attrition, it isn't quite as clear as saying we need X number of additional officers for this duty. I would say with retirements and attrition we would just take officers off of other duty and assign them to this job to carry out the work.

Mr. KEATING. If they had not been doing anything would you recall them?

Captain RICHMOND. In the over-all average; yes.

Mr. KEATING. I assume of course that you felt the action of the full committee in overruling this subcommittee and adversely reporting on the bill previously before us was wrong. I would not expect you to feel any other way, naturally.

What additional evidence have you received since the action we took before which might be considered new or additional evidence as a ground for giving favorable consideration to this bill now which did not exist before?

Captain RICHMOND. Since we have not been holding hearings there has been a decline, if you want to put it that way, of discipline on ships.

The number of cases per ship which is about the only average we can go on has been on the increase. There was a decline from 1944 up to last June and now there has been an increase in the number of serious cases.

Mr. KEATING. Increases in the number of actual cases which have arisen?

Captain RICHMOND. That is right, isn't it, Captain Jewell?

Captain JEWELL. It is hard to make that statement. All of the cases have not been handled in the same way that they would have been before. I mean by that, cases on the border-line which are not very serious have been handled with an admonition rather than charging them for a later hearing.

Mr. KEATING. In other words in the case of a seaman you would let off with an admonition now, you would really give him the works if you had the power to do it?

Captain JEWELL. I would say admonition would not be considered adequate in many cases.

Mr. KEATING. In other words you have at present rendered admonitions in many cases where you feel more severe punishment was in order if you had the power to hear the case.

Captain JEWELL. We have given him an admonition which doesn't constitute punishment.

Mr. KEATING. That goes on his record?
Captain JEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. KEATING. What kind of cases have you simply admonished where you think more severe punishment would be in order?

Captain JEWELL. Repeated cases of absence without leave and habitual drunkenness.

Mr. KEATING. In other words since you lost the power to hear cases, cases of drunkenness have only been admonished?

Captain JEWELL. Unless they were accompanied by assault or something which would make them more severe.

Mr. KEATING. There have been no cases of drunkenness where charges were filed?

Captain JEWELL. I could not answer that. I don't think there have been, sir.

Mr. KEATING. Previous to that what was your usual penalty for drunkenness?

Captain JEWELL. It wholly depended upon the history of the case. Mere drunkenness in itself, if the man is not on watch, isn't considered to rate much disciplinary action, unless the man is habitually drunk.

Mr. KEATING. If he is habitually drunk you can file a request with the union to let him go and they will let him go, won't they?

Captain JEWELL. We have nothing to do with filing any requests with the union, sir.

Mr. KEATING. Well, I suppose that is true. You don't have to put up with continued drunkenness, do you?

Captain JEWELL. Well, there isn't much of any recourse.

If a man

is habitually drunk on ship he may be logged for the watches he doesn't stand. There is nothing to prevent him from going to another ship.

Mr. KEATING. In these cases of habitual drunkenness which you have admonished, have you filed charges with those who are now authorized to conduct hearings in these cases?

Captain JEWELL. I could not answer that question without seeing our records.

Mr. KEATING. Have you refused to grant immediate hearings in cases where you have filed charges with them under the Administrative Procedures Act?

Captain JEWELL. I don't understand who "them" are.

Mr. KEATING. Those charged with conducting the hearings under the new administrative procedures act.

Captain RICHMOND. If I may interrupt, sir, I think the point is we have nobody charged at the present time with the conduct of the hearings. We have no civil examiners.

Mr. KEATING. Why don't you have civilian examiners?

Captain RICHMOND. Because we have not the funds to employ them, and as I mentioned before you came in, sir

Mr. KEATING (interposing). Did you ask for the funds?

Captain RICHMOND. We have asked for the funds on two occasions and we have them in our current appropriation, sir.

In respect to the last request that was acted on, if I may read this portion of the committee report of July 24, 1947:

The committee having ascertained that the proper legislative committees are working on legislation which would make unnecessary the appointment of civilian examiners in connection with merchant marine hearings, the request of the Coast Guard for $120,000 for such appointments has not been included. This will not prejudice the Coast Guard from resubmitting such estimates if necessary legislation on the subject is enacted. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard should utilize for necessary hearings, the funds appropriated in the regular 1948 appropriation bill for civilian personnel.

As I said to Judge Graham, before you came in we do not have a lump appropriation that covers all our expenses. For 1948 we do, but we have a limitation on personnel provided, namely, civilian employees. The very wording of this report indicates a temporary set-up. Our limitation was insufficient to employ the people necessary to do our normal work. Therefore, it would have meant if the people had been available to hire examiners, we would have had to fire, you might say, regular employees engaged on other work in order to get this type of employee.

po

We have worked with the Civil Service Commission and had the sitions set up and classified as a P-5 job for the examiner as such. So far the Civil Service has not established a list of people eligible and we ourselves have not found anybody whom we considered qualified to hold the job that we could recommend to the civil service.

Mr. KEATING. As I remember our full committee acted unfavorably on the previous bill before us some time in May last year. Captain RICHMOND. That is right.

Mr. KEATING. At that time did you immediately go to the Appropriations Committee and renew your request for funds to set up the civilian body?

Captain RICHMOND. Sir, before you acted unfavorably, anticipating it, we had submitted a supplemental request. The date of that report I read is July 24, 1947, which was a month after the action.

As you understand, when you go to the Appropriations Committee, it is only natural we have to go through the Treasury and the Bureau of the Budget. It isn't simply a question of walking into the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. KEATING. You have no funds now set up to conduct these hearings at all?

Captain RICHMOND. That is correct

Mr. KEATING. These cases are just piling up?

Captain RICHMOND. Yes.

Mr. KEATING. Suppose we pass this today, how would you handle it?

Captain RICHMOND. Even though it were passed today, we would assign officers who were working in other fields to take this job on, even if it meant cutting into other work. That is a personnel problem.

Mr. KEATING. In other words, you could use funds to pay officers of the Coast Guard to do this work but you could not use any funds to pay civilians?

Captain RICHMOND. That is right, sir.

Mr. KEATING. Do you mean to tell me the United States Coast Guard has no way of arranging their funds so that they can use them for that purpose?

Captain RICHMOND. That is correct, sir.

Mr. KEATING. But they can use them to pay officers of the Coast Guard?

Captain RICHMOND. We have the qualified officers that can do the job. They have done it in the past, but in getting qualified civilians it means employing some civilians who must be brought in.

Mr. KEATING. You could use an officer instead of a civilian? Captain RICHMOND. No, sir. Our appropriation is set up in this fashion. Take "Salaries, Office of the Commandant," at Washington. We have a limitation of $2,000,000 for civilian employees. Now irrespective of the funds we might have available in the over-all appropriaton we cannot exceed that limitation and we have run extensive reductions in force already this year to come in that limitation, and the same thing applies to the field. We would have to discharge the civilian employees regardless of what type of work it is he does, no matter whether an engineer or what, in order to get necessary funds to hire somebody to do this job.

Mr. KEATING. Don't you think if the tables had been reversed you would have figured out some way in the meantime to conduct these hearings by officers and to relieve civilians of their duties in order to make room for Coast Guard officers to handle the hearings?

Captain RICHMOND. No, sir; I don't think so, if I understand your question.

Mr. KEATING. Well, now come back to my other question. Your associates have said it is not a fact that there have been additional— that it is impossible to say that there have been additional infractions of regulations since the change last June. What other reasons are there why we should feel differently now from what we did last June? Captain RICHMOND. Well, I think the present situation with respect to the Coast Guard is that we are in sort of an impossible situation. I don't think the situation is any different than it was last June. We are faced with a mandate from Congress under R. S. 4450 to take disciplinary action with respect to licenses and certificates of merchant officers and seamen, and because of this situation we are unable to do that.

Mr. KEATING. Your remedy is with the Appropriations Committee? Captain RICHMOND. Not entirely, sir. There is the question of getting the people. The Civil Service Commission has not established a

list.

Mr. KEATING. That is the fault of the Civil Service Commission? Captain RICHMOND. No, sir; you can't necessarily create the men to fill those jobs.

Mr. KEATING. Since last May you knew the attitude of the Congress of the United States as exemplified by the action of the Judiciary Committee in disapproving this legislation. It certainly isn't the fault of this committee that the funds haven't been provided and a civilian body set up to do the job.

Mr. GRAHAM. In justice to you people, you did have a companion bill in the Senate and you were looking with hope over there? Captain RICHMOND. Yes, sir.

Mr. GRAHAM. And that was passed.

Mr. KEATING. That is exactly what I have been trying to get at. They haven't lifted a finger to put into effect what they should and they were hoping we would act favorably upon the bill upon which the Senate acted favorably.

Captin RICHMOND. Sir, if I may be permitted to disagree with you. As I say, we have gone as far as we possibly can.

Mr. KEATING. I understand Civil Service

Captain RICHMOND (interposing). They have not established a list.

Mr. KEATING. Have they held examinations?

Captain RICHMOND. Not to my knowledge; no, sir. We have the position classified.

Mr. KEATING. Have you requested them to do so?

Captain RICHMOND. For these positions?

Mr. KEATING. Yes.

Captain RICHMOND. No, sir; because their examinations for examiners are not for the Coast Guard.

Mr. KEATING. They have examiners in every other field of activity. Have you requested them to assign examiners and pointed out to them the emergency of this situation?

Captain RICHMOND. Sir, we have had numerous long conferences with the Civil Service.

Mr. KEATING. Have you pointed out the serious situation with which you are faced?

Captain RICHMOND. Yes.