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Who Should Reorganize the National Administration?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Peyton Hurt
Peyton Hurt
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

The controversy of last winter between a Republican President and a Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives over the President's suggestion that he be authorized by Congress to reorganize the national administrative departments, subject to a veto within sixty days by Congress, calls to mind the fact that during the past twenty years opinion has been almost unanimous in favor of thoroughgoing administrative reorganization, although no legislation going this far has been enacted. Of the various plans proposed, some have been extensive, contemplating complete reorganization of the executive departments, while others have been devoted to special phases of the problem. But on one point all agree, namely, that the national administration must be reorganized before it will function with the desired economy and efficiency. Now, after years of delay, the problem comes to the fore with renewed vigor. Stimulated by the urgent need for economy in federal expenditures, Congress, the President, and the public are again agreed that reorganization is highly desirable as a means of balancing the budget and securing greater efficiency in government.

Type
Public Administration
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 26 , Issue 6 , December 1932 , pp. 1082 - 1098
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1932

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References

1 As early as 1824, a House Committee reported on Reorganization of the Quarter-master's Department (18th Cong., 2d sess. H. Rept. 4. Ser. No. 122); while in 1830 a select committee of the Senate reported on Reorganizing the Executive Departments (21st Cong., 1st Sess. S. Eept. 109. Ser. No. 193); in 1842 a select committee of the House reported on Retrenchment—Reorganization of the Executive Departments (27th Cong., 2d Sess. H. Rept. 741. Ser. No. 410); and in 1893 the Dockery-Cockrell Joint Commission reported on Executive Departments, Reorganization, etc. … (53d Cong., 1st Sess. H. Rept. 49. Ser. No. 3158). For a summary of these early investigations, see Weber, Gustavus A., Organized Efforts for the Improvement of Methods of Administration in the United States (Institute for Government Research, 1919)Google Scholar.

2 For a complete list of these reports and the President's messages concerning them, see Weber, op. cit., 94-103.

3 The alteration in the executive departments in 1913, resulting in the creation of a Department of Labor, was in no way connected with this movement for administrative reorganization, being more in the nature of a grant of labor representation in the President's cabinet.

4 Notably Drs. Frederick A. Cleveland and W. F. Willoughby.

5 Both plans are included in the Report of the Joint Committee on Reorganization, S. Doc. No. 128, 68th Cong., 1st Sess.

6 A Proposal for Government Reorganization (1921).

7 For example, Senator Smoot, of Utah, introduced a measure in 1925 to provide for the creation of a reorganization board (S. 1334, 69th Cong., 1st Sess.); Representative Mapes, of Michigan, introduced a similar measure in the same year (H.R. 4770, 69th Cong., 1st Sess.); and Representative Davey, of Ohio, introduced a bill to enlarge temporarily the power of the President for purposes of reorganization (H.R. 4798, 69th Cong., 1st Sess.).

8 Hearings on Bills to Create a Department of National Defense (72d Cong., 1st Sess.).

9 Created by H.Res. 151, Feb. 24, 1932.

10 New York Times, Feb. 25, 1932.

11 The committee expected to operate forty-five days as compared to the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency, for which two full years (1911-12) did not serve, and to the Joint Committee on Reorganization, which carried on its investigations for three years (1921-24) before making its final recommendations to Congress.

12 To Effect Economies in the National Government, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., H. Rept. No. 1126.

13 Hearings Before the Joint Committee on Reorganization, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 350.

14 61 Cong. Record, 430.

15 Ibid., 431.

16 Published as S. Doc. No. 302, 67th Cong., 4th Sess.; also included in Report of the Joint Committee on Reorganization, op. cit.

17 In his letter submitting the chart on reorganization (Report of the Joint Committee on Reorganization, op. cit., 33).

18 Message of Dec. 6, 1923.

19 Hearings Before the Joint Committee on Reorganization, op. cit., 143-199.

20 Ibid., 148.

21 Ibid., 107-142.

22 Short, Lloyd M., The Development of National Administrative Organization in the United States (Institute for Government Research, 1923), p. 467Google Scholar.

23 Report of the Joint Committee on Reorganization, op. cit., 12.

24 Senator Smoot's motion to consider the reorganization bill was defeated in the Senate (66 Cong. Record, 2709).

25 In 1916.

26 See, for example, Hearings Before the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments on Proposals to Create a Department of National Defense, 72d Cong., 1st Sess.

27 The President's plan, the report of the joint committee, the plan suggested by W. F. Willoughby, of the Institute for Government Research, and a plan proposed by the National Budget Committee.

28 61 Cong. Record, 941. Mr. Byrns referred to the Bureau of Efficiency and the Bureau of the Budget. The Budget and Accounting Act was destined to be passed within a week.

29 42 Stat. L. (1921), 20, sec. 209.

30 This view was expressed by members of the Economy Committee of the House of Representatives (72nd Cong., 1st Sess.), and statements with regard to the need of Congress for the Bureau of Efficiency as its special staff agency may be found in the hearings of this committee.

31 Sec. 312.

32 W. F. Willoughby, formerly of the Institute for Government Research, which was largely responsible for drafting the entire Budget and Accounting Act, told the writer that he had hoped that Congress would utilize the Comptroller-General's staff to assist in the conduct of investigations, and pointed out that Section 312 was carefully worded to make such assistance available to committees of Congress without the necessity of the passage of a resolution or any other such formality.

33 The work of the Bureau of Efficiency is to assist in the installation of standard business methods in the government service, to prevent duplication of work wherever possible, and to make studies of personnel requirements for various branches of the government, as well as to study problems assigned to it by Congress, its committees, or individual members. Annual Report of the United State Bureau of Efficiency, 1930, p. 2.

34 Attached to the Deficiency Act approved March 4, 1919. The provision passed the Senate, but was stricken out in conference.

35 Annual Report of the United States Bureau of Efficiency, 1920, p. 9.

36 Section 213 of the Budget and Accounting Act provides: “Under such regulations as the President may prescribe, every department and establishment shall furnish to the Bureau [of the Budget] such information as the Bureau may from time to time require. …”

37 Budget Circular No. 77, Aug. 11, 1922.

38 42 Stat. L. (1921), 20, sec. 207Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., sec. 302, 303.

40 Hearings of the Joint Committee on Reorganization, op. cit., 352.

41 A compilation of such declarations was issued by the President's secretary in February, 1932.

42 Address by Secretary of Commerce Hoover Before the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, May 21, 1925.

43 See his Eighth Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 7, 1920.

44 Second Annual Address to Congress, Dec. 8, 1914.

45 In a letter to Senator Smoot, dated April 16, 1921, read on the floor of the Senate, April 18, 1921 (61 Cong. Record, 396).

46 Special message on reorganization, February 17, 1932