Mr. MACLEISH. On the Legislative Reference Service I have asked Dr. Griffith to speak, but I would like to make this preliminary remark. At the top of page 58 appears the estimates for the last 3 years. The estimate for 1941 was $191,930; the estimate for 1942 is $151,500. The reason for that difference is that last year

Mr. O'NEAL. And for 1940 it was $100,490?

Mr. MACLEISH. Yes, sir; but I wish to explain the difference between 1941 and 1942. The reason for that difference is that last year we suggested to the committee, among other things, that it might be desirable for us to undertake to index certain voluminous committee hearings. That was turned down and we have not reintroduced it. Last year, also, we proposed to provide experts to Congress to be available in certain fields, which had not previously been covered. This year we propose no new experts except in fields where congressional demands have been made for which we do not have satisfactory provision.

Mr. O'NEAL. And that increase is entirely a question of personnel, as set out on page 58, amounting to $27,920?

Mr. MACLEISH. Yes, sir.

INCREASES REQUESTED

Mr. CLAPP. There are three increases asked for new positions; increases in grade, and special and temporary service. They are all for personal services.

Mr. MACLEISH. And it is broken down into projects and Dr. Griffith will perhaps speak briefly as to the projects.

In passing, the committee might care to glance at the chart on page 58-A. I have not an awful lot of faith in charts, but this chart does show rather graphically the way in which the number of inquiries has risen and the way in which the cost per inquiry has dropped. When I say there has been a drop in the cost of inquiries, I mean the cost of the service has not followed the increase in the number of inquiries, and the actual cost per inquiry has dropped quite sharply. Dr. GRIFFITH. If you will turn to page 58 again, I would like to make two general observations. The first is that we are asking for no increase whatsoever in administration, or in the Bill Digest Section, or the Federal Law Section, or the Congressional Reading Room. The increase is asked for entirely in the four sections that specialize in answering congressional inquiries. In other words, the increase corresponds to the increased load which Congress is putting upon the service-a load which the chart on page 58-A demonstrates.

NEW PERSONNEL REQUESTED

The second thing to note on page 58 is that with three exceptions we are not asking for what might be called the more expensive positions. We are asking for seven positions, $2,000 and below for the P-1 and the SP positions scattered through those other four sections. These are to relieve our expert people of the donkey work, the leg work, and the routine inquiries which they are now handling, so as to be able to service these by the use of less expensive individual members. This will leave the experts free for the largely increased number of more important and difficult tasks.

The last six employees asked for on page 58 are almost entirely typists. We can economize by building up our reference file index and on the actual answering of inquiries, but when Congress jumps the number of inquiries from under 5,000 up to about 12,000, in 3 years, we simply cannot make a corresponding economy in the actual typing of the answers.

NUMBER OF PERSONS NOW EMPLOYED

Mr. O'NEAL. How many have you in the Service now?

Dr. GRIFFITH. On the permanent roll, 50. Are you talking about. typists?

Mr. O'NEAL. I am talking about the total under "Legislative reference."

Dr. GRIFFITH. A total of 50.

Mr. POWERS. How many were provided for in last year's bill; do you recall?

Mr. CLAPP. That is page 58-B, showing eight new positions were provided by the money appropriated last year.

Mr. POWERS. Last year we provided for how many positions in all? Dr. EVANS. You gave a lump sum; not a specific number of new positions.

Mr. POWERS. We gave you a lump sum?

Dr. EVANS. Yes, sir.

Mr. LEAVY. About $20,000?

Dr. EVANS. It was $20,000.

Mr. POWERS. And you are asking another increase of $27,900 this year?

Dr. GRIFFITH. But that increase is not at the rate at which the congressional inquiries have increased; it is at a lower rate. That is the important thing.

Mr. LEAVY. Do you think those congressional inquiries are due, in large part, to the much longer sessions of Congress?

Dr. GRIFFITH. Unquestionably. Last year, for example, when Congress was in session straight through, the inquiries kept up right straight through September, October, and November, and that was the time when, in other years, we would have built up the reference files preparatory to our work for the next year.

BASIS OF THE ESTIMATE

Mr. O'NEAL. Doctor, why do you estimate on the full 12 months? The Government Printing Office are making their estimates on the basis of 8 months. You do not think it safe to put it on an 8- or 10month basis?

Dr. GRIFFITH. You are now asking me as a student of government, rather than the director of a service? As a student of government, it is my guess that the emergency will continue.

REDUCTION IN ESTIMATE IF SESSION IS NOT LONGER THAN 8 MONTHS

Mr. O'NEAL. In other words, if it is the judgment of the committee that the appropriation should be made on an 8-month basis instead of 12 months then you could take off one-third?

Dr. GRIFFITH. If the judgment of the committee is that the emergency will be over in 8 months, you can take off not one-third, but you could reduce it.

Mr. POWERS. When Congress is not in session, what do these employees do?

Ďr. GRIFFITH. In addition to the very considerable number of inquiries still coming in from committees and members, they work in building up material. We clip 160 periodicals and papers, and we have a flow of pamphlets and assemble material on the questions that are likely to face Congress the next session, so as to be able to answer inquiries quickly. For the most part, your inquiries are answered before you ask them, in the sense of the basic material having been assembled. That is why we asked for this increase in the reference field.

Mr. POWERS. Then if the basic material has been assembled and the questions answered before they are asked, I see no reason to have 16 new employees.

Dr. GRIFFITH. Last year you remained in session, and we fell in serious arrears on that material to be assembled and we are still in serious arrears.

METHOD OF FILLING NEW POSITIONS

Mr. HARE. Will these all be new positions, or will they be filled by promotions?

Dr. GRIFFITH. Under the general orders of the Library, each position is posted as it becomes vacant. I have always given preference to promotions. Out of 16 posted positions since I took office as director of the Service, 13 have been filled by promotions.

DUTIES TO BE ASSIGNED TO NEW PERSONNEL

Mr. O'NEAL. What do these men in the higher grade positions do? Dr. GRIFFITH. One of the P-3s is an assistant chief in the Inquiry Section whose responsibility is to supervise the research of the staff members as well as to take and discuss the calls with the Members of Congress.

Mr. O'NEAL. Will you advance some man to that position or go outside and get somebody?

Dr. GRIFFITH. We have a man now, who is our expert in American history, who has to devote most of his time to this very thing already. I do not know whether he will be the person to be appointed or not, but I do know our inquiries relating to American history are suffering badly through these other calls on his time.

The other $3,200 position is for an expert in money, banking, and prices. We have had a great many questions in that field, but I would not say that we have answered them adequately.

Mr. O'NEAL. Do you try to make a selection, or so organize your work that the trivial inquiries do not cause you to take any time to handle them? Can you do that?

Dr. GRIFFITH. I would not say they do not take up any time. We take our orders from individual Congressmen, and we have 531 bosses. Mr. O'NEAL. Some of them do not worry you very much?

Dr. GRIFFITH. That is true, but we are doing our job. We try to organize so as to have our material arranged so that we can answer questions quickly.

LEGISLATIVE RECORDS OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS PREPARED BY THE SERVICE

(See also p. 74)

Mr. POWERS. Doctor, who in the Legislative Reference Service prepared the inquiry of Senator King's legislative record that his opponent used in the last campaign?

Dr. EVANS. That was done in the Service.

Mr. POWERS. Why was that done?

Dr. EVANS. A Congressman asked us to prepare it.

Mr. POWERS. Do you do that kind of work in the Legislative Reference Service?

Dr. EVANS. Yes.

Mr. POWERS. That is a nice thing to be appropriating money for. Dr. EVANS. We struggled with that problem; it gave us pause. We went into quite a long study of it. The inquiry came from a Member of Congress. We were asked to compile information that was in the Congressional Record. All of the information that was furnished was from the Congressional Record and showed the vote on bills. We finally decided we did not have any right to refuse to do this.

I may say we prepared one for the Senator on the other Member also. We were requested to do that for each one, and it was the voting record in Congress; that is all it was.

Mr. LEAVY. Suppose some person anywhere in the United States should write to you and request that you prepare such a record.

Dr. EVANS. We have refused those requests. We get those requests, but we refuse them. Our problem is as to what we may refuse a Member of Congress. We studied that and we decided that when a Congressman requested it for his personal use, we could not refuse it. Mr. POWERS. I think we could put a limitation on this bill so that none of these funds could be used for such a purpose.

Mr. MACLEISH. How would you define the purpose?

Mr. POWERS. Gathering information for some one to use against a sitting Member or to be used against an opponent. If you are going to make yourselves a political clearing house because of some of these questions you will find it will be embarrassing to you some of these days.

Mr. MACLEISH. I would like to say on the record that the matter is one of continuing embarrassment. As Dr. Evans said, we do not feel that we have the right to inquire as to the motives of a Congressman in asking us to do anything, when it is a matter of public record.

LOYALTY OF MEMBERS OF THE STAFF

Mr. O'NEAL. Dr. Griffith, do you have any Communists in your Legislative Reference Service?

Dr. GRIFFITH. Not knowingly.

Mr. POWERS. Do you not think it would be a good idea to make an investigation of the matter and see whether there is any member of the Communist Party in your organization?

Dr. GRIFFITH. I do make an investigation of every new appointee. Mr. POWERS. How about the old ones?

Dr. GRIFFITH. I have made some investigation and I have not been able to discover anyone.

I have watched the individual manuscripts as they are submitted to see whether there has been any evidence whatever of communistic or Nazi tendencies, and I have found none.

Mr. POWERS. You have found none?

Dr. GRIFFITH. In other words, I have called for the particular product to make sure there was nothing like that in it. Beyond that, I do not know quite how far I can go.

Mr. POWERS. I wish you would think about that and see whether you have any member of the Communist Party in your organization. Dr. GRIFFITH. We would be glad to do that.

Mr. MACLEISH. And as to the Library as a whole

Mr. POWERS. I have a particular reason for asking about this particular branch.

Mr. MACLEISH. As to the Library as a whole, from time to time we receive, as I suppose the head of every department receives, communications from the Federal Bureau of Investigation informing me that the charge has been made that a certain person or certain people are members of the bund or the Communist Party. In those cases, since we have no investigatory staff, I have followed the practice of saying to the F. B. I. that if they attach any weight to the charge I will be glad to have it investigaged. I think they are doing that in all cases that they have had.

Mr. O'NEAL. We have in these bills a prohibition against the employment of anybody who advocates the overthrow of the Government by force or violence. You would have no objection to the insertion of such a provision in this bill?

Mr. MACLEISH. Certainly I would not.

ALIENS EMPLOYED IN THE LIBRARY

(See also pp. 72, 80)

Mr. POWERS. How many aliens do you have in the Legislative Reference Service, Dr. Griffith?

Dr. GRIFFITH. None on the permanent staff. Two on the tem

porary.

Mr. POWERS. What are their names?

Dr. GRIFFITH. There is Mrs. Korsstrom, who is temporary.
Mr. POWERS. Why was she, an alien, employed?

Dr. GRIFFITH. She was recommended by the State Department. She had been in the American Legation at Helsinki and before that, in the American Embassy in Petrograd. When she was in Petrograd she was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks for defending the American archives. Even though she was an alien we felt that under the circumstances we have some reason. She has taken out first papers. Mr. POWERS. She is still an alien?

Dr. GRIFFITH. I would like the privilege of answering this question in the record and giving you a complete statement.

Mr. POWERS. Very well.

Dr. GRIFFITH. I will put that statement in the record.

Mr. POWERS. Do you have an employee by the name of B. Akzin? Is he or she an alien?

Dr. GRIFFITH. No; he is an American citizen.