I read an editorial in Business Week suggesting that the Congress could have cut in many other places with greater effect than to cut the Bureau of Labor Statistics because of the very valuable contributions which the reports and indexes they produced contributed to the American economy.

Senator TAFT. Now I felt their budget was cut too much. I appeared before the Appropriations Committee and urged its restoration. My impression is that the budget passed last year is the largest budget the Bureau ever had. Isn't that correct?

Secretary TOBIN. No, Senator. They had to cut drastically. Senator TAFT. Would you put in the figures on the appropriations for the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the last 4 or 5 years? Secretary TOBIN. Yes, I shall, Senator.

(Subsequently the Secretary of Labor submitted a table as follows:) The following table indicates the amounts requested of and appropriated by the Congress for the fiscal years 1945-49:

BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

Comparison of appropriations requested and appropriations received during the fiscal years 1945-49, inclusive

Includes increased funds over prior year due to pay increases provided by Public Laws 106 and 390, respectively.

2 Excludes proposed supplemental appropriation for costs of pay increases provided by Public Law 900. Difference from 1948 represents, in the main, transfer of funds to Office of the Secretary.

The reduction in the appropriation of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the fiscal year 1948 resulted in the elimination of most of the State and local data which had previously been obtained, and in drastically reducing almost all programs covered by the Bureau. For example, State indexes of employment were discontinued; consumer price indexes, formerly computed for 21 cities, are now available for only 10 cities; local data on the total volume of construction, including home building outside the immediate city limits, was eliminated. Other programs such as wages, productivity, industrial relations, and industrial hazards were reduced, some of them by over a third. In addition, it was necessary to reduce our field offices to five, closing offices in such important cities as Cleveland, Dallas, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Kansas City, and Denver. Secretary TOBIN. What actually happened was in 1947 there was a drastic cut in the appropriation for 1948. A further cut was made by the House in the appropriation for 1949, but the latter reduction was restored in the Senate.

Senator TAFT. That is what I thought.

Secretary TOBIN. But they are substantially below

Senator TAFT. That is what I was referring to. I am sure we got an increase for them.

Secretary TOBIN. They are substantially below fiscal year 1947. I myself have been looking for certain statistical studies and have been unable to get them because there is no money with which to do it.

I want a comparison of the materials going into building construction and labor going into building construction. I couldn't get the study because there was no money available to do it.

On our cost of living tables, I believe we are covering 10 fewer metropolitan areas than we did cover up to 1946.

Senator DONNELL. Mr. Secretary, the functions of the Department of Mediation and Conciliation bring the representatives of that Service into contact both with labor and management. That is correct; is it not?

Secretary TOBIN. Correct.

Senator DONNELL. Would you favor placing the Department of Mediation and Conciliation in the Department of Commerce of the United States?

Secretary TOBIN. I would favor placing it in the Labor Department because it is in the Labor Department in Canada, in Great Britain, and in most of the countries of Europe, as the record shows, and because it was there for 34 years, and during that 34 years there never was a question raised as to whether or not the Service was doing a good job.

Certainly the Labor-Management Conference of 1945, regardless of what has been said at this hearing, would not have passed that kind of resolution if the membership of that Conference did not believe that a good job was being done by the Conciliation Service.

Now the only way to sustain this contention of lack of impartiality is to say that a labor man cannot be an impartial arbitrator, and the history of mediation proves that some of the finest men are those who come from the field of labor, because you have got to get your experience on one side or the other of the table.

You have got to get it from management's side or you have got to get it from labor's side, and out of both fields come the mediators. Senator TAFT. The testimony against the efficiency of the Conciliation Service 2 years ago was very striking and very conclusive to me. It had very little to do with this impartiality question, but the criticism that I got from field members of the Service itself, they felt that the Service was completely disorganized under its last chairman, and particularly a large Washington office had been built up that was wholly unnecessary, and that the field service had been completely neglected.

That came from members of the field service itself, so that there was no satisfaction with it at that time. I don't say the dissatisfaction related particularly to its being in the Department of Labor.

Senator PEPPER. That is what I was going to say, Senator. It would be an equally proper inference that it wasn't efficiently administered by the people in charge of it.

Senator TAFT. Yes; that is correct, Senator.

Senator DONNELL. Mr. Secretary, I understand, then, that for the reason you have indicated you would not favor placing the Service of Mediation and Conciliation in the Department of Commerce; is that right?

Secretary TOBIN. If for no other reason than the fact that the Secretary of Commerce already has duties far beyond the capacity of any one man to handle, and the Labor Department-as Secretary of Labor my functions are so limited at the present time that I have the time, and I believe the capacity, to handle it properly.

Senator PEPPER. Senator, would you allow me? I don't know whether it was ever put into the record or not as to what the statutory duties of the Department of Commerce are. I remember one day

reference was made to the Department of Agriculture. They are not very long and I have them here, if I may incorporate them.

It shall be the province and duty of said Department—

the Department of Commerce

to foster and promote and develop foreign and domestic commerce, the mining, manufacturing, fishing industries, and the transportation facilities of the United States.

Senator DONNELL. Now, Mr. Secretary, I would like to ask this: Did you participate in the preparation of this bill that is before our committee?

Secretary TOBIN. Definitely.

Senator DONNELL. Personally?

Secretary TOBIN. Yes, sir.

Senator DONNELL. Would you mind turning to section 203 of the bill and also in connection with that to 201 (c) of the bill. Perhaps I should put it in the other order; 201 (c) first, if you please.

Secretary TOBIN. Yes.

Senator DONNELL. That reads:

The United States Conciliation Service shall be administered under the general direction and supervision of the Secretary of Labor. General policies and standards for the operation of the Service shall be formulated and promulgated by the Director of Conciliation with the approval of the Secretary of Labor.

Now if you will turn to section 203, this language appears:

The Director

that is not the Secretary now

and the Service shall be impartial.

What was the reason, if you recall, why there was no requirement that the Secretary of Labor who prescribes the general policies and standards, under whose approval the operation of the Service is to be operated, why was there no requirement that the Secretary of Labor as well as these subordinates, the Director of the Service, shall be impartial?

Secretary TOBIN. You may insert it. I have no objection.

Senator DONNELL. You know of no reason why it was not inserted and you think that you could be perfectly impartial in the carrying on of the supervision of the Conciliation and Mediation Service. Is that correct?

Secretary TOBIN. I have engaged in the mediation of labor disputes during my life, and it has been fairly substantial.

Senator DONNELL. Mr. Secretary, Mr. Ching has made reference and the majority report of this committee makes reference to a certain address which you are stated to have delivered

Secretary TOBIN. I will save your time, Senator. I never delivered the address.

Senator DONNELL. I wanted to ask you about that. The majority report says a

Secretary TOBIN. I make it a practice usually to speak extemporaneously, and now and again material is furnished to me which I don't like. I didn't happen to read that speech to the point where I would have come to that part or I would have stopped it, and without my knowledge it was released.

I use a manuscript probably two or three times a year, and in that instance this quotation did appear in the papers, unfortunately. I did not read the speech, and had I read it, I would have deleted it. I probably would not have released the speech.

Sometimes, now and again a man becomes the victim of, shall I say, public relations departments, but I rarely use my public relations department. I prepare my own material and usually deliver it from an outline.

Senator DONNELL. Mr. Secretary, in order that the record may show what speech it was to which I refer, the joint committee's report says, page 16:

The Secretary recently expressed that concept

that is to say that the Department of Labor is the driving political arm of the labor union movement

in his address to the National Conference on State Labor Legislation when he stated, "I want a department in which all Federal labor laws are administered. I want a department that will be what Sam Gompers wanted it to be, labor's voice in the President's councils."

Now, you did deliver an address at the National Conference on State Labor Legislation; didn't you?

Secretary TOBIN. That is correct.

Senator DONNELL. Where and when was that address delivered? Secretary TOBIN. It was sometime in the month of November and it was delivered in the Interdepartmental Auditorium here in Washington.

Senator DONNELL. And who was it who prepared this address with this language in here about you wanting a department that would be what Sam Gompers wanted it to be?

Secretary TOBIN. Some one in the Department. Truthfully, I didn't even-I read a portion of it, didn't like the talk, never used it, and didn't read through to the point where I would have come to that, but surely if I had seen that you can rest assured it would have been deleted.

Senator HUMPHREY. I take exception to that.

Secretary TOBIN. Because I consider myself to be a representative of 140,000,000 Americans, and every segment of America's economy. Senator DONNELL. You are, however, the head of a Department which has, as previously indicated, the duty of fostering, promoting, and developing the welfare of the wage earners.

Senator HUMPHREY. Will the Senator yield.

Secretary TOBIN. I am the head of the Department. As I told this committee before, I feel that probably we should have a broader declaration of purposes for the Department of Labor.

Great changes have occurred in the United States since the Department was created in 1913, particularly since 1933, and I hope that this Congress will make further changes that will bring about a real justice to the working people of the country in order that we may have a sound economy, one in which the corporate profits of the country will be very substantial, and that will be through the purchasing power that the workers of America will have.

Now great changes have been made. I don't want to go into the detail of the changes, but you are all familiar with them, the NRA, the Wagner Act in 1935, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, all of

which have contributed, in my opinion, to a sounder economy; and I think that we could review the declaration of purposes and broaden them to the point where the Department of Labor would have a purpose greater than that which was stated in 1913, and the good Lord knows that that declaration of purposes in 1913 was very much needed at the time.

Senator PEPPER. Mr. Secretary, is there anything in the language of the law setting up a Department of Labor which refers to it being the duty of the Department to promote the welfare of workers which suggests that it should be done in any other than a fair and just way? Isn't that all that they are supposed to have, encourage their legitimate and just rights. It doesn't speak of the deprivation of the legitimate and just right of any other segment of the population, does it? Secretary TOBIN. No, Senator; and in order that we may once and for all kill this argument, I suggest we should broaden the purpose. Senator DONNELL. You think we should amend the statute? Secretary TOBIN. Broaden the purposes of the Department of Labor. I think the purposes are very commendable and the carrying out of these purposes in a fair and just manner contributes to the prosperity, not alone of the workers of the country but of the whole economy, but I would like once and for all to have terminated this argument that the Department of Labor cannot be impartial in handling governmental functions or cannot be impartial in its dealings with any segment of the economy.

Senator DONNELL. And I take it you do not share Mr. Ching's view that even though the Department is perfectly impartial, the Department of Labor, that it cannot possess the confidence of the management's side as if the Department of Mediation and Conciliation was outside the Department of Labor. You do not share his view?

Secretary TOBIN. Well, General Motors has a great many employees and their contract for the wages of its employees is tied definitely to the cost-of-living index of the Department of Labor, so that company must have confidence in its impartiality.

Senator DONNELL. I say you do not share the opinion of Mr. Ching as expressed in his testimony substantially as I have indicated. Secretary TOBIN. Indeed I do not, Senator. Such a feeling can be created if it is repeated often enough.

Senator DONNELL. Mr. Secretary, I ask this question not in any critical sense, but I think it is well to know the facts.

You speak about a public relations department preparing speeches which you very seldom use. Has that public relations department been discontinued or does it still continue to prepare speeches that you don't use?

Secretary TOBIN. Well, the least work they have to do is for me. I do most of my own, but there are all kinds of publications for the information of management and labor. They have a great deal of work to do with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

You then have the promotional work in connection with very vital and important work at this particular time, the apprenticeship program, and they are constantly working for the various bureaus in the Department.

Senator DONNELL. I was referring particularly, however, to the preparation of addresses to be made by yourself as Secretary of Labor.