have not given the President authority as of today to effectuate reorganization, and unless that is done within the next 32 days it will be too late to accomplish any reorganization this year. Mr. HOLIFIELD. That is right. Mr. MANASCO. The Congress will never reorganize the Federal Government. We have been attempting it piecemeal for years and years and years but we have never reduced a single bureau. We abolish one and create two. Mr. HOLIFIELD. For that reason we cannot go all the way in a reorganization bill to the particular piece of legislation, but I do want to point out that in H. R. 2781 authority is invested in the Administrator over all of these different groups that we are bringing together at the present time. It is my understanding that the Administrator attends Cabinet meetings at the present time, sits in on Cabinet meetings, and we are giving him more authority and more responsibility, actually, and it seems like we are moving in the right direction. Mr. MANASCO. Of course, the President has the right to invite anyone to a Cabinet meeting. The Cabinet has never been set up by legislation nor the Constitution, and I know during the war that quite a few of the high ranking Administrators were invited to attend Cabinet meetings. Mr. HOLIFIELD. General Fleming still attends practically all of the Cabinet meetings, I understand. Mr. MANASCO. I certainly think he is one of the most able men we have in the Federal Government today. Mr. Chairman, on page 11, section 103 (e) provision is made for [reading]: Transfers of excess property between Federal agencies (except transfers for distribution among Federal agencies or for disposal as surplus property) shall be at the fair value thereof, as determined by, or pursuant to regulations of, the Administrator, unless such transfer is otherwise authorized by law without rebursement or transfer of funds. I do not know all the laws that have been enacted since June 22, 1944, and it occurs to me that since there are so many laws covering the acquisition and disposal of property that it might be well to spell out what those laws are that are exempt from the provisions of this act, and I think there are quite a few of them that could be repealed, or recodified in this legislation. Mr. HOLIFIELD. As a matter of fact, there is a section in this bill which provides for the repeal of the special laws enumerated; and there is also a proviso for continuing reports to the Congress of laws that need to be repealed. Mr. MANASCO. Yes, that section is in here. Mr. BURNSIDE. What laws do you think need to be repealed? Mr. MANASCO. I know there are 306 laws dealing with one particular subject, and I think that we could certainly codify those laws and thereby eliminate a lot of the difficulties, particularly that the civilian faces, when he reads a section like this. In fact, a lawyer would have to go back and pick out the sections to find out what the law is. I am not prepared to make a suggestion as to what language should be used, but I think you could get that from someone in the Bureau of the Budget; I think they could be spelled out in here. That is just a gratuitous criticism concerning some of the ways we write legislation, and I have been guilty of it myself. I think we could render a great service to the people if we would start writing legislation in a way that the average man could understand it, instead of having it written for the benefit of us lawyers, Mr. Chairman. Mr. HOLIFIELD. This provision in here is continuing a proviso that was in the Surplus Property Act of 1944. Mr. MANASCO. That is right, but in here we are making it permanent law. The Surplus Property Act, as I recall it—we had passed a bill during the time of the hearings-so that act makes specific grants or donations of old abandoned forts, and so forth, and we had also passed a bill prohibiting the disposal of some of these old forts, and we did not want to amend those acts by temporary legislation, and that is what the Surplus Property Act was, temporary legislation. I do not know whether that question has been studied, Mr. Chairman, or not, but perhaps someone from the Bureau of the Budget can give you a suggestion, but we are making it permanent legislation here, and we are proceeding in a different way. Mr. DAWSON. What were you reading on page 11? Mr. MANASCO. Section (e). Mr. BURNSIDE. That refers back to June 22, 1944. Mr. DAWSON. Yes. Mr. HOLIFIELD. The statutes you speak of have been superseded by Public Law 889 that was passed in the Eightieth Congress, and we are exempting 889, so that in effect continues certain provisions. Mr. MANASCO. Of course, the Surplus Property Act was amended by so many committees and by so many amendments contained in appropriation acts, that I do not see how anyone would know what is in the act, and what I am suggesting is that we do something to get these laws where, when a man reads the law he will know what the law is, instead of having to look into hundreds of sections and laws to find out what the law is. The language in line 10, in [reading]: (except transfer for distribution among Federal agencies or for disposal as surplus property) —— Mr. HOLIFIELD. What page? Mr. MANASCO. Page 11. Mr. BURNSIDE. Section 103 (e), beginning in the second line, page 10. Mr. MANASCO. Yes. I do not know just what that means, Mr. Chairman, so I do not want to comment on it. Does that mean that the Department of Commerce, for instance, might have 500 typewriters, and then the Department of Agriculture may ask the Congress for an appropriation to acquire 500 new typewriters, and that having been turned down, that the Department of Commerce can then transfer those 500 typewriters to the Department of Agriculture and thereby get around the wish of Congress and augment its appropriation? Mr. HOLIFIELD. I am going to ask Mr. Ward to be recognized by the reporter to explain the position of the budget. Mr. WARD. Mr. Chairman, that was put in there for the purpose of permitting the Bureau of Federal Supply to take certain excesses and distribute those that are required through regular channels. It refers to instances where property is turned over to the Bureau for redistribution rather than transfer direct for the use of another agency. Mr. MANASCO. But it does not permit transfer of property from one agency to another without reimbursement? Mr. WARD. That is right. Mr. MANASCO. That is something I know this committee has been very jealous of. Mr. WARD. Yes. Mr. MANASCO. There is one other thing, Mr. Chairman, since I do not have a prepared or organized statement, that I would like to call to your attention. As you know, we spend some $1,000,000 a year, according to figures obtained from the Bureau of the Budget, in moving desks and office equipment. When I was attending the Hoover Commission meetings there was never a week passed that some elevator was moving a desk in and the next elevator was moving a desk out, and frankly I could not tell the difference between the desks that were being exchanged. We do have some very efficient movers in the Federal Government; they have had some good training, but with the best, every time you move a desk there is something that happens to it, and sooner or later it becomes what we country-men call kindling. It has to be replaced. We do not have any figures in this task-force report to show what the cost of replacement is, but we do have the cost of moving. I know that one of the bureau chiefs told me that when a section chief moves within the bureau they move everything in his office up to the new office, and probably the desk and everything in the office, and when he moves out someone else moves a desk into the same place. I know that we may have some sentimental attachment to the property in our office, but the Members of Congress, when they move from the Old House Office Building to the new building do not move the desks and the chairs; and when because of your seniority rights you are given an office nearer the front of the building, you do not move the furniture. You can transact your business just as good on one desk as you can on another. I think that the Federal agencies would have to have legislation of some sort to permit the furniture to be kept in a building if an agency in another department was to occupy the same office. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Could that not be done by administrative regulation? Mr. MANASCO. I do not think so, Mr. Chairman, because I think the title to the property goes along in the appropriation of funds for the acquisition of the property. It is not for the benefit of the United States Government, but for the agency involved. Is that not right? Mr. WARD. Yes. Mr. MANASCO. For instance, we appropriate funds for the Department of Commerce to purchase desks. Mr. WARD. Which goes to the individual agency. Mr. MANASCO. That is appropriated to the individual agency. And I think we should change that. I do not have the present solution, and I have not discussed it with the Bureau of the Budget. I think the desks should stay in the one office. I think we could save at least $900,000 a year and then we might have $100,000 worth of moves in the moving around. I think we could save a lot of money merely by eliminating the wear and tear on these desks that result from moving. It might be necessary to change the entire appropriation structure, where you would put the title of this property in one agency, I mean, for housekeeping purposes, say, in the Federal Works Agency. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Just the same as the buildings? Mr. MANASCO. Yes. Mr. BURNSIDE. Have it cover buildings and equipment in the buildings? Mr. MANASCO. Yes. Specialized equipment, different machinery and things like that might have to be moved, and probably would have to be moved in some cases. I know some stenographers, when they get accustomed to a certain typewriter would like to move it around with them, and there are many items that could be moved without too much trouble,, but items such as desks and big items that are expensive to move should remain. I think that it is most important that that question be considered. I do not know whether this is the proper bill to do it, but it does have to do with the subject that you are dealing with here. Mr. BURNSIDE. Yes. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Mr. Burnside has brought that subject up before. Mr. MANASCO. Yes, we have discussed it before. Mr. HOLIFIELD. And it will require some study. Mr. MANASCO. That is just an item of $900,000, and today when we are appropriating over $40,000,000,000 it may not sound like very much, but we have only a few places where we can make cuts and even an item of $900,000 when saved means $900,000. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Would you care to comment on the records management situation? Mr. MANASCO. That subject is not covered in this hearing, one of these bills. Mr. HOLIFIELD. No. Mr. MANASCO. I do not have the Task Force Report on that subject, but on page 9, if you have a copy of the Commission's report, Office of General Services, page 9, of that report, contains a very illuminating chart as to the cost of the records management program as practiced today and the reduction in costs that could become effective if we carried out the recommendations of the Hoover Commission. I know you are going to have some agencies that will fight this pretty strongly. I have already heard of two, because they want to keep their records where they can get to them, but if I am not mistaken, 2 or 3 years ago one of the subcommittees made an investigation of the warehousing and found that there were some 27 or 28 warehouses held by one agency alone to keep its records. Is that right, Mr. Ward? Mr. WARD. I am not sure about it. Mr. MANASCO. We were here 2 or 3 years ago when one of our subcommittees went into this question. I do not know whether you can put that in here without having hearings and hearing the objections of the different Federal agencies. You would have a place where some dollars can be saved, and I think it is worthy of the immediate attention of this committee. Mr. BURNSIDE. How do you determine whether a record should be discarded; do we have a system for discarding records here? I think that is rather important. Mr. HOLIFIELD. You used to have the Committee on the Disposition. of Useless Papers. Mr. MANASCO. Yes; the Committee on the Disposition of Useless. Papers. That committee, of course, had to rely on the heads of the different executive agencies. They reported to the Congress that they had so many thousand file cabinets of correspondence that served no beneficial purpose to the Government, and the Congress up to then had to authorize the destruction of those useless papers. Mr. BURNSIDE. Could we set up this thing so each one of your different agencies can dispose of materials that they do not need of that nature? Mr. MANASCO. I think you can; and I think you are going to have to do that because you, as a Member of Congress, will accumulate, if you stay here 10 or 15 years, so many letters in your files, and, of course, you are afraid to throw one of them away for fear that somebody will write in about it some day, that you will accumulate a whole storage room full of letters in 10 or 15 years' time. Mr. BURNSIDE. If we have an outside agency coming in to check on this material they cannot possibly check on it because they are not familiar with it. Mr. HOLIFIELD. It would have to be declared by the using agency as being obsolete or useless. Mr. MANASCO. Yes; that is right. Of course, a lot of our agencies are microfilming records. You take the record of a veteran; you cannot destroy that for years, years, and years. We still have to maintain records of veterans of the Revolutionary War. Mr. BURNSIDE. Yes. Mr. MANASCO. That is necessary because a lot of women want to become Daughters of the American Revolution, and they would raise a howl if you destroyed any of those records. The same thing is true of the War of 1812, the War of 1848, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War. You cannot destroy those records, and it costs a lot of money to keep them, but the day-to-day correspondence, such as when a Member of Congress writes to the Department of Agriculture for a bulletin, those records can be destroyed after a reasonable length of time. The Bureau of the Budget has set up a standard to screen the records. Mr. WARD. National Archives. Mr. MANASCO. Archives has set up standards to screen records that might have some historical value. Of course, right here on Capitol Hill we have allowed to go to ruin under the dome of the Capitol some very valuable historical documents because our people did not appreciate the historic value of these records, and that is one of the reasons the Department of Archives was established in the Federal Government, because we now realize that many documents do have historic value, and years from now people will be interested in some of the things that are going on today. We had dumped down in the basement of the Capitol over there hundreds of letters and documents that dated back to the founding of this Republic. Some of them were destroyed beyond repair. Others were pieced together, or pasted together and photographed. Mr. BURNSIDE. There is another reason I am asking about this. As you know, Duke University expanded her library faster than any other library was expanded in the history of the world. I happened to be purchasing agent for that library and I ran into this same type of thing. I also ran into room after room of material that had not been looked at for many years, in duplicate, room after room of it over this country. It was just keeping a firetrap there and a rat trap where rats and other vermin can breed. In the basements of many of the |