May 16, 1946
To the Congress of the United States:
I transmit herewith Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1946, prepared in accordance with the provisions of the Reorganization Act of 1945.
The Plan contains reorganizations affecting a number of departments and establishments. Some continue on a permanent basis changes made by Executive order under authority of the First War Powers Act. A few make adjustments in the distribution of functions among agencies. The remainder deal with problems of organization within individual agencies. All are concerned with improving and simplifying particular phases of Government administration.
Each proposal is explained in more detail under the appropriate heading below.
I have found, after investigation, that each reorganization contained in the Plan is necessary to accomplish one or more of the purposes set forth in section 2(a) of the Reorganization Act of 1945.
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
The functions of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation were transferred from the Department of Commerce to the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Customs in 1942 by Executive order under the First War Powers Act. This arrangement has been proved successful by the experience of the past four years. Part I of the Reorganization Plan continues the arrangement on a permanent basis.
United States Coast Guard
The principal functions of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation were those of the inspection of vessels and their equipment, the licensing and certificating of officers and seamen, and related functions designed to safeguard the safety of life and property at sea. Thus these functions are related to the regular activities and general purposes of the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard administered them successfully during the tremendous expansion of wartime shipping, by virtue of improvements in organization and program, many of which ought to be continued.
The Plan also transfers to the Coast Guard the functions of the Collectors of Customs relating to the award of numbers to undocumented vessels. These functions, too, were temporarily transferred to the Coast Guard in 1942.
Bureau of Customs
The Plan transfers to the Commissioner of Customs the functions of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation add the Secretary of Commerce relating to the documentation of vessels, measurement of vessels, administration of tonnage tax and tolls, entry and clearance of vessels and aircraft, regulation of coastwise trade and fisheries, recording of conveyances and mortgages of vessels, and protection of steerage passengers. These functions have always been performed at the ports by the Customs Service, although legal responsibility for their supervision was vested in the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation and the Secretary of Commerce until transferred temporarily to the Commissioner of Customs under the wartime
power.
The proposed transfer will permit efficient administration by ending divided responsibility.
DEPARTMENT OF WAR AND DEPARTMENT OF
THE NAVY
Functions with Respect to Certain Insane Persons
Prior to World War I practically all mental patients for whom the Federal Government was legally obligated to provide hospital care and treatment, including personnel of the armed forces, were hospitalized in St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C. In addition, this hospital served as the mental hospital for the District of Columbia Government. Following World War I, the responsibility for hospital care of mentally ill war veterans was assigned to the Veterans Administration. Somewhat later, specialized hospital facilities were provided by the Bureau of Prisons of the Department of Justice to enable that agency to care for prisoners suffering from mental disorders.
With the growth in the population of the District of Columbia and the wartime expansion of the armed forces, the facilities of St. Elizabeths Hospital became inadequate. The War Department therefore established its own mental hospitals at the outset of World War II. Furthermore it became necessary a year ago for the Navy Department to discontinue the use of St. Elizabeths and to assume the responsibility for the care of its mental patients.
Since the return of the Coast Guard to the Treasury Department, the Public Health Service now provides care in its mental hospitals for personnel of the Coast Guard in accordance with the basic responsibility delegated to it in the Public Health Service Code enacted in 1944. The Plan abolishes the functions of St. Elizabeths Hospital with respect to insane persons belonging to the Coast Guard which are provided for by Sec. 4843 of the Revised Statutes (24 U.S.C. 191).
Responsibility for the care of mental patients has been allocated on the basis of the four broad categories of beneficiaries, namely, (1) veterans, to be cared for by the Veterans Administration; (2) military and naval personnel, to be cared for by the War and Navy Departments; (3) prisoners, for whom the Department of Justice will be responsible; and (4) other civilians, to be cared for by the Federal Security Agency. The Reorganization Plan, in order to carry out this policy, provides for the transfer or abolition of certain functions and legal responsibilities now resting with the Federal Security Administrator and Superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital.
NAVY DEPARTMENT
Hydrographic Office and Naval Observatory
The Plan transfers the Hydrographic Office and the Naval Observatory from the Bureau of Naval Personnel to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. The Plan would confirm and make permanent the action taken in 1942 by Executive Order No. 9126 under the First War Powers Act.
The functions performed by both the Hydrographic Office and the Naval Observatory relate primarily to operational matters and thus are more appropriately placed in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations than in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. This fact was recognized in the realignment of naval functions at the outbreak of the war. The Plan merely confirms an organizational relationship which has existed successfully for the past four years.
Supply Department of the United States Marine Corps
The Plan consolidates the Paymaster's Department and the Quartermaster's Department of the United States Marine Corps into a single Supply Department. This consolidation will establish in the Marine Corps an integrated supply organization which parallels that of the Navy Department's Bureau of Supplies and Accounts.
The consolidation will make possible a more efficient and more economical organization of the companion functions of supply and disbursement, eliminating the present handling of related items by two separate departments of the Corps.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park
At the present time, the National Park Service, the Public Buildings Administration, and the Archivist of the United States all perform "housekeeping" functions at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and home at Hyde Park. The Plan unifies in the National Park Service responsibility for activities of this character at Hyde Park that is, the maintenance and protection of buildings and grounds, the collection of fees, and the handling of traffic and visitors. Because of its wide experience in the administration of historic sites, the National Park Service is the logical agency to assume the combined functions.
Transfer of these functions does not affect the responsibility of the Archivist for the contents and professional services of the Library proper. It also does not affect the present disposition of the receipts, which is provided by law.
Functions Relating to Mineral Deposits in Certain Lands
The Plan transfers to the Department of the Interior jurisdiction over mineral deposits on lands held by the Department of Agriculture.
The Department of the Interior now administers the mining and mineral leasing laws on various areas of the public lands, including those national forests established on parts of the original public domain. The Department of Agriculture, on the other hand, has jurisdiction with respect to mineral deposits on (1) forest lands acquired under the Weeks Act, (2) lands acquired in connection with the rural rehabilitation program, and (3) lands acquired by the Department as a part of the Government's effort to retire submarginal lands.
Accordingly this Reorganization Plan provides that these mineral deposits on lands of the Department of Agriculture will be administered by the Department of the Interior, which already has the bulk of the Federal Government's mineral leasing program.
The Plan further provides that the administration of mineral leasing on these lands under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture will be carried on subject to limitations necessary to protect the surface uses for which these lands were primarily acquired.
Bureau of Land Management
The Plan consolidates the General Land Office and the Grazing Service of the Department of the Interior into a Bureau of Land Management.
The General Land Office and the Grazing Service now divide responsibility for major portion of the multiple-use Federally owned lands now held by the Department of the Interior. The lands under jurisdiction of the two agencies are comparable in character and in use. In some functions, the two agencies employ the same type of personnel and use the same techniques. Other functions are divided between the agencies so that both are engaged in management of various aspects of the same land. Consolidating these two agencies will permit the development of uniform policies and the integration of two organizations whose responsibilities now overlap.
Integration of the activities of the two agencies will make possible greater utilization and thus more economic use of expert skills. The same practical experience embraced in range administration on public lands in grazing districts will be available for public lands outside the districts.
Utilization of lands within grazing districts for non-grazing purposes will be subject to only one classification examination, rather than dual examination as is now necessary. Economy will be possible in the construction of range improvements, wherever feasible, to serve lands both in and out of districts. Legal procedures such as adjudication of issues relating to licenses and leases, hearings on appeal from administrative decisions, and the processing of trespass cases will benefit from unified administration and handling.
In such activities as fire protection, soil and moisture conservation, management of public lands under agreement with other agencies (e.g., Bureau of Reclamation), range surveys, maintenance and improvement of stock driveways, and stabilization of range use on all public domain, the benefits of consolidation will become increasingly apparent. Further, records relating to grazing lands can be concentrated in fewer field offices and hence administered more effectively.
While the establishment of a new Bureau of Land Management under a Director involves the abolition of the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners of the General Land Office, the Director and Assistant Directors of Grazing, the Registers of District Land Offices, and the United States Supervisor of Surveys, the statutory functions now discharged by these officers are in no way modified. This plan will place final responsibility for these functions in the Secretary of the Interior and make him responsible for their performance in coordination with the other land activities of his Department. Officers whose offices are specifically abolished, but whose experience will make them valuable to the Department, should be available for appointment in the new Bureau.
I have found and declare that by reason of the reorganization made by the Plan the responsibilities and duties of the Bureau of Land Management are of such nature as to require the inclusion in the Plan of provisions for the appointment and compensation of a Director, an Associate Director, and Assistant Directors.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Functions of Certain Agencies of the Department of Agriculture
To enable the Department of Agriculture to meet its responsibilities for food production and distribution during the war, there was early and continuing coordination of its programs directly concerned with these phases of the food problem. Beginning with Executive Order No. 9069 of February 23, 1942, those programs and agencies dealing with food production and distribution were gradually consolidated by a series of Executive orders issued under the authority of the First War Powers Act. By Executive Order No. 9934 of April 19, 1943, they were all grouped into a War Food Administration, under a War Food Administrator.
When the fighting was drawing to a close and the emergency purposes of the War Food Administration had been largely accomplished, this Administration was terminated by Executive Order No. 9577 of June 29, 1945; and its functions and agencies were transferred back to the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Agriculture. Executive Order No. 9577 also authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to organize and administer the transferred functions and agencies in the manner which he deemed best.
Under this authority, the Secretary established the Production and Marketing Administration in August 1945. Into this Administration, he consolidated the functions of many of the production and marketing agencies which were transferred back from the War Food Administration. Included were the functions of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Surplus Marketing Administration and the administration of the programs of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and the Commodity Credit Corporation.
The Plan transfers these functions to the Secretary of Agriculture in order to permit him to continue the consolidation already effected in the Production and Marketing Administration. This provision makes it possible to maintain the close coordination and integration of food production and distribution programs, with the resulting benefits that were achieved during the war. It also provides the Secretary with the necessary flexibility to make adjustments in the coordination and administration of these programs to meet changing conditions and new problems, a flexibility which he particularly needs at this period of acute food shortages throughout the world.
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Certain Functions of National Bureau of Standards
The Plan transfers the functions of two divisions of the National Bureau of Standards in the Department of Commerce, namely, the Division of Simplified Trade Practices and the Division of Commercial Standards, to the Secretary of Commerce. The transfer will permit the Secretary to reassign these functions to the Office of Domestic Commerce, which is the focal point of the Department's general service functions for American business.
These two divisions were established as a result of the standardization work initiated in World War I. Both divisions have followed the same basic procedure of assisting the producers and the consumers of particular products to agree among themselves on certain standards or on a certain limited number of varieties. Each such voluntary agreement is then published by the National Bureau of Standards and, although not compulsory, has tended to become the generally accepted practice in the trade.
Standardization again proved to be an important device for accelerating production in World War II; and industry has shown renewed interest in continuing these wartime conservation and rationalization programs on a voluntary basis in the production of peacetime products.
The desirability of the proposed transfer was emphasized only a few months ago by the report of a committee of prominent businessmen appointed by the Secretary of Commerce to review the entire question of the Government's activities in this field. These studies indicate that two major benefits will result from the transfer.
First, the association of the two divisions with the National Bureau of Standards has perhaps tended to give the impression in some quarters that voluntary standards and trade practices worked out by industry with the help of these two divisions are in some sense Government standards which are enforced on the basis of scientific and objective tests. The transfer of these two divisions to the Department proper would reduce any such misconceptions, and make it clear that these standards and simplified practices are voluntary industry agreements in the making of which the Government acts merely in an advisory capacity.
Second, the other general services of the Department to American business, such as marketing, management, and economic and statistical services, are now concentrated in the Office of Domestic Commerce. The association of these two divisions with these other services to business will facilitate their work and enable them to make use of the wide industrial and business contacts of the Office of Domestic Commerce.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Strike Ballots Under the War Labor Disputes Act
The Plan abolishes the function of conducting strike ballots which was vested in the National Labor Relations Board by Section 8 of the War Labor Disputes Act (57 Stat. 167, ch. 144). Experience indicates that such elections under the act do not serve to reduce the number of strikes and may even aggravate labor difficulties. The Congress has already forbidden the Board to expend any of its appropriations for the current fiscal year for this activity (First Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1946). I believe that the function should now be permanently abolished.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
Canal Zone Biological Area
The Plan transfers responsibility for the Canal Zone Biological Area to the Smithsonian Institution. At present, the Canal Zone Biological Area is an independent agency of the Government, having as its function the administration of Barro Colorado Island in Gatun Lake as a tropical wildlife preserve and research laboratory. The Board of Directors of this agency consists of the President of the National Academy of Sciences as Chairman, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, three members of the Cabinet--the Secretaries of War, Interior, and Agriculture--and three biologists.
The transfer will locate this function with comparable and related functions already assigned to the Smithsonian Institution whose staff members have participated since the beginning in developing the island as a research center. It will reduce by one the number of Government agencies. It will relieve three Cabinet members of routine duties not important enough to warrant their personal attention.
Under its existing authority the Smithsonian Institution may constitute an advisory board of biologists and departmental representatives if it finds such action necessary.
UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE
Placement Functions Under Selective Training and Service Act of 1940
The Plan transfers to the United States Employment Service the functions of the Selective Service System and its Director with respect to assisting ex-servicemen in obtaining new positions. These functions directly overlap the regular placement activities of the United States Employment Service, which is required to provide a special placement service for veterans both by its basic act and by the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. The transfer is in line with the policy of the Congress on the placement of veterans as most recently expressed in the 1944 Act. The shift will prevent needless duplication of personnel and facilities and will assure the best service to veterans.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
NOTE: Reorganization Plan 3 of 1946 is published in the U.S. Statutes at Large (60 Stat. 1097) and in the 1943-1948 Compilation of title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations (p. 1065). It became effective July 16, 1946.
To the Congress of the United States:
I transmit herewith Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1946, prepared in accordance with the provisions of the Reorganization Act of 1945.
The Plan contains reorganizations affecting a number of departments and establishments. Some continue on a permanent basis changes made by Executive order under authority of the First War Powers Act. A few make adjustments in the distribution of functions among agencies. The remainder deal with problems of organization within individual agencies. All are concerned with improving and simplifying particular phases of Government administration.
Each proposal is explained in more detail under the appropriate heading below.
I have found, after investigation, that each reorganization contained in the Plan is necessary to accomplish one or more of the purposes set forth in section 2(a) of the Reorganization Act of 1945.
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
The functions of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation were transferred from the Department of Commerce to the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Customs in 1942 by Executive order under the First War Powers Act. This arrangement has been proved successful by the experience of the past four years. Part I of the Reorganization Plan continues the arrangement on a permanent basis.
United States Coast Guard
The principal functions of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation were those of the inspection of vessels and their equipment, the licensing and certificating of officers and seamen, and related functions designed to safeguard the safety of life and property at sea. Thus these functions are related to the regular activities and general purposes of the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard administered them successfully during the tremendous expansion of wartime shipping, by virtue of improvements in organization and program, many of which ought to be continued.
The Plan also transfers to the Coast Guard the functions of the Collectors of Customs relating to the award of numbers to undocumented vessels. These functions, too, were temporarily transferred to the Coast Guard in 1942.
Bureau of Customs
The Plan transfers to the Commissioner of Customs the functions of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation add the Secretary of Commerce relating to the documentation of vessels, measurement of vessels, administration of tonnage tax and tolls, entry and clearance of vessels and aircraft, regulation of coastwise trade and fisheries, recording of conveyances and mortgages of vessels, and protection of steerage passengers. These functions have always been performed at the ports by the Customs Service, although legal responsibility for their supervision was vested in the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation and the Secretary of Commerce until transferred temporarily to the Commissioner of Customs under the wartime
power.
The proposed transfer will permit efficient administration by ending divided responsibility.
DEPARTMENT OF WAR AND DEPARTMENT OF
THE NAVY
Functions with Respect to Certain Insane Persons
Prior to World War I practically all mental patients for whom the Federal Government was legally obligated to provide hospital care and treatment, including personnel of the armed forces, were hospitalized in St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C. In addition, this hospital served as the mental hospital for the District of Columbia Government. Following World War I, the responsibility for hospital care of mentally ill war veterans was assigned to the Veterans Administration. Somewhat later, specialized hospital facilities were provided by the Bureau of Prisons of the Department of Justice to enable that agency to care for prisoners suffering from mental disorders.
With the growth in the population of the District of Columbia and the wartime expansion of the armed forces, the facilities of St. Elizabeths Hospital became inadequate. The War Department therefore established its own mental hospitals at the outset of World War II. Furthermore it became necessary a year ago for the Navy Department to discontinue the use of St. Elizabeths and to assume the responsibility for the care of its mental patients.
Since the return of the Coast Guard to the Treasury Department, the Public Health Service now provides care in its mental hospitals for personnel of the Coast Guard in accordance with the basic responsibility delegated to it in the Public Health Service Code enacted in 1944. The Plan abolishes the functions of St. Elizabeths Hospital with respect to insane persons belonging to the Coast Guard which are provided for by Sec. 4843 of the Revised Statutes (24 U.S.C. 191).
Responsibility for the care of mental patients has been allocated on the basis of the four broad categories of beneficiaries, namely, (1) veterans, to be cared for by the Veterans Administration; (2) military and naval personnel, to be cared for by the War and Navy Departments; (3) prisoners, for whom the Department of Justice will be responsible; and (4) other civilians, to be cared for by the Federal Security Agency. The Reorganization Plan, in order to carry out this policy, provides for the transfer or abolition of certain functions and legal responsibilities now resting with the Federal Security Administrator and Superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital.
NAVY DEPARTMENT
Hydrographic Office and Naval Observatory
The Plan transfers the Hydrographic Office and the Naval Observatory from the Bureau of Naval Personnel to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. The Plan would confirm and make permanent the action taken in 1942 by Executive Order No. 9126 under the First War Powers Act.
The functions performed by both the Hydrographic Office and the Naval Observatory relate primarily to operational matters and thus are more appropriately placed in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations than in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. This fact was recognized in the realignment of naval functions at the outbreak of the war. The Plan merely confirms an organizational relationship which has existed successfully for the past four years.
Supply Department of the United States Marine Corps
The Plan consolidates the Paymaster's Department and the Quartermaster's Department of the United States Marine Corps into a single Supply Department. This consolidation will establish in the Marine Corps an integrated supply organization which parallels that of the Navy Department's Bureau of Supplies and Accounts.
The consolidation will make possible a more efficient and more economical organization of the companion functions of supply and disbursement, eliminating the present handling of related items by two separate departments of the Corps.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park
At the present time, the National Park Service, the Public Buildings Administration, and the Archivist of the United States all perform "housekeeping" functions at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and home at Hyde Park. The Plan unifies in the National Park Service responsibility for activities of this character at Hyde Park that is, the maintenance and protection of buildings and grounds, the collection of fees, and the handling of traffic and visitors. Because of its wide experience in the administration of historic sites, the National Park Service is the logical agency to assume the combined functions.
Transfer of these functions does not affect the responsibility of the Archivist for the contents and professional services of the Library proper. It also does not affect the present disposition of the receipts, which is provided by law.
Functions Relating to Mineral Deposits in Certain Lands
The Plan transfers to the Department of the Interior jurisdiction over mineral deposits on lands held by the Department of Agriculture.
The Department of the Interior now administers the mining and mineral leasing laws on various areas of the public lands, including those national forests established on parts of the original public domain. The Department of Agriculture, on the other hand, has jurisdiction with respect to mineral deposits on (1) forest lands acquired under the Weeks Act, (2) lands acquired in connection with the rural rehabilitation program, and (3) lands acquired by the Department as a part of the Government's effort to retire submarginal lands.
Accordingly this Reorganization Plan provides that these mineral deposits on lands of the Department of Agriculture will be administered by the Department of the Interior, which already has the bulk of the Federal Government's mineral leasing program.
The Plan further provides that the administration of mineral leasing on these lands under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture will be carried on subject to limitations necessary to protect the surface uses for which these lands were primarily acquired.
Bureau of Land Management
The Plan consolidates the General Land Office and the Grazing Service of the Department of the Interior into a Bureau of Land Management.
The General Land Office and the Grazing Service now divide responsibility for major portion of the multiple-use Federally owned lands now held by the Department of the Interior. The lands under jurisdiction of the two agencies are comparable in character and in use. In some functions, the two agencies employ the same type of personnel and use the same techniques. Other functions are divided between the agencies so that both are engaged in management of various aspects of the same land. Consolidating these two agencies will permit the development of uniform policies and the integration of two organizations whose responsibilities now overlap.
Integration of the activities of the two agencies will make possible greater utilization and thus more economic use of expert skills. The same practical experience embraced in range administration on public lands in grazing districts will be available for public lands outside the districts.
Utilization of lands within grazing districts for non-grazing purposes will be subject to only one classification examination, rather than dual examination as is now necessary. Economy will be possible in the construction of range improvements, wherever feasible, to serve lands both in and out of districts. Legal procedures such as adjudication of issues relating to licenses and leases, hearings on appeal from administrative decisions, and the processing of trespass cases will benefit from unified administration and handling.
In such activities as fire protection, soil and moisture conservation, management of public lands under agreement with other agencies (e.g., Bureau of Reclamation), range surveys, maintenance and improvement of stock driveways, and stabilization of range use on all public domain, the benefits of consolidation will become increasingly apparent. Further, records relating to grazing lands can be concentrated in fewer field offices and hence administered more effectively.
While the establishment of a new Bureau of Land Management under a Director involves the abolition of the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners of the General Land Office, the Director and Assistant Directors of Grazing, the Registers of District Land Offices, and the United States Supervisor of Surveys, the statutory functions now discharged by these officers are in no way modified. This plan will place final responsibility for these functions in the Secretary of the Interior and make him responsible for their performance in coordination with the other land activities of his Department. Officers whose offices are specifically abolished, but whose experience will make them valuable to the Department, should be available for appointment in the new Bureau.
I have found and declare that by reason of the reorganization made by the Plan the responsibilities and duties of the Bureau of Land Management are of such nature as to require the inclusion in the Plan of provisions for the appointment and compensation of a Director, an Associate Director, and Assistant Directors.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Functions of Certain Agencies of the Department of Agriculture
To enable the Department of Agriculture to meet its responsibilities for food production and distribution during the war, there was early and continuing coordination of its programs directly concerned with these phases of the food problem. Beginning with Executive Order No. 9069 of February 23, 1942, those programs and agencies dealing with food production and distribution were gradually consolidated by a series of Executive orders issued under the authority of the First War Powers Act. By Executive Order No. 9934 of April 19, 1943, they were all grouped into a War Food Administration, under a War Food Administrator.
When the fighting was drawing to a close and the emergency purposes of the War Food Administration had been largely accomplished, this Administration was terminated by Executive Order No. 9577 of June 29, 1945; and its functions and agencies were transferred back to the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Agriculture. Executive Order No. 9577 also authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to organize and administer the transferred functions and agencies in the manner which he deemed best.
Under this authority, the Secretary established the Production and Marketing Administration in August 1945. Into this Administration, he consolidated the functions of many of the production and marketing agencies which were transferred back from the War Food Administration. Included were the functions of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Surplus Marketing Administration and the administration of the programs of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and the Commodity Credit Corporation.
The Plan transfers these functions to the Secretary of Agriculture in order to permit him to continue the consolidation already effected in the Production and Marketing Administration. This provision makes it possible to maintain the close coordination and integration of food production and distribution programs, with the resulting benefits that were achieved during the war. It also provides the Secretary with the necessary flexibility to make adjustments in the coordination and administration of these programs to meet changing conditions and new problems, a flexibility which he particularly needs at this period of acute food shortages throughout the world.
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Certain Functions of National Bureau of Standards
The Plan transfers the functions of two divisions of the National Bureau of Standards in the Department of Commerce, namely, the Division of Simplified Trade Practices and the Division of Commercial Standards, to the Secretary of Commerce. The transfer will permit the Secretary to reassign these functions to the Office of Domestic Commerce, which is the focal point of the Department's general service functions for American business.
These two divisions were established as a result of the standardization work initiated in World War I. Both divisions have followed the same basic procedure of assisting the producers and the consumers of particular products to agree among themselves on certain standards or on a certain limited number of varieties. Each such voluntary agreement is then published by the National Bureau of Standards and, although not compulsory, has tended to become the generally accepted practice in the trade.
Standardization again proved to be an important device for accelerating production in World War II; and industry has shown renewed interest in continuing these wartime conservation and rationalization programs on a voluntary basis in the production of peacetime products.
The desirability of the proposed transfer was emphasized only a few months ago by the report of a committee of prominent businessmen appointed by the Secretary of Commerce to review the entire question of the Government's activities in this field. These studies indicate that two major benefits will result from the transfer.
First, the association of the two divisions with the National Bureau of Standards has perhaps tended to give the impression in some quarters that voluntary standards and trade practices worked out by industry with the help of these two divisions are in some sense Government standards which are enforced on the basis of scientific and objective tests. The transfer of these two divisions to the Department proper would reduce any such misconceptions, and make it clear that these standards and simplified practices are voluntary industry agreements in the making of which the Government acts merely in an advisory capacity.
Second, the other general services of the Department to American business, such as marketing, management, and economic and statistical services, are now concentrated in the Office of Domestic Commerce. The association of these two divisions with these other services to business will facilitate their work and enable them to make use of the wide industrial and business contacts of the Office of Domestic Commerce.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Strike Ballots Under the War Labor Disputes Act
The Plan abolishes the function of conducting strike ballots which was vested in the National Labor Relations Board by Section 8 of the War Labor Disputes Act (57 Stat. 167, ch. 144). Experience indicates that such elections under the act do not serve to reduce the number of strikes and may even aggravate labor difficulties. The Congress has already forbidden the Board to expend any of its appropriations for the current fiscal year for this activity (First Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1946). I believe that the function should now be permanently abolished.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
Canal Zone Biological Area
The Plan transfers responsibility for the Canal Zone Biological Area to the Smithsonian Institution. At present, the Canal Zone Biological Area is an independent agency of the Government, having as its function the administration of Barro Colorado Island in Gatun Lake as a tropical wildlife preserve and research laboratory. The Board of Directors of this agency consists of the President of the National Academy of Sciences as Chairman, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, three members of the Cabinet--the Secretaries of War, Interior, and Agriculture--and three biologists.
The transfer will locate this function with comparable and related functions already assigned to the Smithsonian Institution whose staff members have participated since the beginning in developing the island as a research center. It will reduce by one the number of Government agencies. It will relieve three Cabinet members of routine duties not important enough to warrant their personal attention.
Under its existing authority the Smithsonian Institution may constitute an advisory board of biologists and departmental representatives if it finds such action necessary.
UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE
Placement Functions Under Selective Training and Service Act of 1940
The Plan transfers to the United States Employment Service the functions of the Selective Service System and its Director with respect to assisting ex-servicemen in obtaining new positions. These functions directly overlap the regular placement activities of the United States Employment Service, which is required to provide a special placement service for veterans both by its basic act and by the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. The transfer is in line with the policy of the Congress on the placement of veterans as most recently expressed in the 1944 Act. The shift will prevent needless duplication of personnel and facilities and will assure the best service to veterans.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
NOTE: Reorganization Plan 3 of 1946 is published in the U.S. Statutes at Large (60 Stat. 1097) and in the 1943-1948 Compilation of title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations (p. 1065). It became effective July 16, 1946.