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The Reports of the Hoover Commission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Ferrel Heady
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Extract

In late May of this year the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, commonly known as the Hoover Commission, submitted its concluding report to the Congress. This was the nineteenth in a series of reports released at intervals beginning early in February. The relatively brief individual printed reports of the Commission were accompanied by appendixes containing the most important substantiating evidence garnered from an estimated total of two and a half million words contained in studies made for the use of the Commission.

This documentary output contains the results of the most extensive study ever made of the problem of executive reorganization in the federal government. The Commission on Organization, created by act of Congress in the summer of 1947, started under the most auspicious circumstances, was liberally supplied with appropriations for its work, and has enjoyed widespread public interest in its recommendations. With a distinguished membership drawn from public and private life, from the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, and from both major political parties, the Commission was given an extremely broad assignment by die Congress.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , July 1949 , pp. 355 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1949

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References

1 For a complete listing of the reports, including supporting documents published as appendixes, and supporting documents not published, refer to Reports to the Congress by the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, Sen. Doc. No. 28, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., or Index to the Reports of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government and to Supporting Task Force Reports, prepared by Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress, at request of the Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, and printed unnumbered for die use of the committee. The Commission reports only are listed below in the order of issuance. These reports were not officially numbered. 1. General Management of the Executive Branch. 2. Personnel Management. 3. Office of General Services-Supply Activities. 4. The Post Office. 5. Foreign Affairs. 6. Department of Agriculture. 7. Budgeting and Accounting. 8. The National Security Organization. 9. Veterans' Affairs. 10. Department of Commerce. 11. Treasury Department. 12. Regulatory Commissions. 13. Department of Labor. 14. Interior Department. 15. Social Security, Education, and Indian Affairs. 16. Medical Activities. 17. Business Enterprises. 18. Overseas Administration; Federal-State Relations; Federal Research. 19. Concluding Report.

2 See “A New Approach to Federal Executive Reorganization,” by the writer, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 41, 12, 1947, pp. 1118–1126. The members of the Commission were Herbert Hoover, Chairman, Dean Acheson, Vice-Chainnan, Arthur S. Flemming, James Forrestal, George H. Mead, George D. Aiken, Joseph P. Kennedy, John L. McCIellan, James K. Pollock, Clarence J. Brown, Carter Manasco, and James H. Rowe, Jr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 The individual reports were given widespread newspaper publicity as they were issued. Fortune published a supplement to its May, 1949, issue with the title “Big Government-A Digest of the Reports of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government.” Public Administration Review is devoting an early issue to the reports. McGraw-Hill has published a one-volume edition of the reports, with dissenting views eliminated. The Commission's own Concluding Report attempts “to sum up the common thinking of the Commission,” and contains as an appendix a “Summary of Major Reorganization Proposals.”

4 General Management of the Executive Branch, Office of General Services—Supply Activities, Personnel Management, Budgeting and Accounting, and Treasury Department.

5 Report on General Management of the Executive Branch, p. 1.

6 Ibid., p. 23.

7 Creation of this board is recommended in the report on Department of the Interior, at p. 2.

8 General Management of the Executive Branch, op. cit., p. 37.

9 Report on Budgeting and Accounting.

10 Ibid., p. 17.

11 New York Times, Jan. 20, 1949, p. 43.Google Scholar

12 Budgeting and Accounting, op. cit., p. 56.

13 Ibid., pp. 48–49.

14 Ibid., p. 47.

15 Ibid., p. 53.

16 Ibid., p. 71.

17 Ibid., p. 39.

18 Ibid., p. 62. The report on the Treasury Department should be at least mentioned here, although it is one of the poorest of the reports. It retraces ground already covered in setting forth the proposed functions of the new Accountant General, advocates the transfer of the department of the Bureau of Federal Supply, the U. S. Coast Guard, the Bureau of Narcotics, and certain marine functions of the Bureau of Customs; suggests that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Export-Import Bank which are now independent agencies should all be placed within the department; recommends the establishment of a National Monetary and Credit Council of domestic financial agencies; and gives a very sketchy outline as to how the revised department ought to be organized internally. Several commissions doubted that the FDIC should be transferred, unless all banking activities, including the Federal Reserve System, were brought into the Treasury Department also. Commissioners Aiken, Pollock and Rowe felt that the Export-Import Bank and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation should go to the Department of Commerce, if they were to be brought within the departmental structure at all.

19 Report on Personnel Management, p. 47.

20 Ibid., p. 54.

21 These include the District of Columbia government, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Parks and Planning Commission, the National Capital Housing Authority, and the Commission on Fine Arts. Chairman Hoover and Commissioner Flemming would have added an additional unit to supervise statistical operations and executive branch publications, which the Commission preferred to assign to the Office of the Budget.

22 Message of March 5, 1949, entitled “Transfer of Certain Authority within the National Security Organization,” House Doc. No. 99, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. One recommendation, that an Under Secretary of Defense should be provided, was promptly enacted as an amendment to the National Security Act of 1947; Public Law 36, 81st Cong., approved April 2, 1949.

23 Report on The National Security Organization, p. 8.

24 Commissioners Hoover, Hemming, Manasco and Mead dissented from the recommendation,

25 Ibid., p. 25.

26 Ibid., p. 29.

27 Report on Foreign Affairs, p. 37.

28 Report on Overseas Administration; Federal-State Relations; Federal Research, p. 17.

29 Report on Department of the Interior, p. 54.

30 Ibid., pp. 81–83.

31 These reports are entitled Veterans' Affairs; Department of Labor; Social Security, Education, and Indian Affairs; and Medical Activities.

32 Chairman Hoover and Commissioner Manasco of the majority object to restricting this board to advisory functions only, and insist that the board itself should have authority to determine policy for the United Medical Administration.

33 Report on Medical Activities, p. 41.

34 Ibid., p. 49.

35 Report on Department of Labor, p. 1.

36 The Veterans' Administration is dealt with in a report which proposes a drastic overhauling of its top organization, and suggests improved operating methods in several of its key programs, including incorporation of its insurance operations. The task force study was weak and the Commission's report reflects this inadequacy.

37 Report on Federal Business Enterprises, p. 92.

38 See report on Regulatory Commissions.

39 Vice Chairman Acheson and Commissioners Pollock, Rowe and Forrestal disagree with this recommendation. See report on Department of Commerce, p. 28.

40 Concluding Report.

41 Section 1, Public Law 162, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.

42 Policy statement adopted at Commission meeting on October 20, 1947.