Vice President), and 5 by the Speaker of the House. A majority of the members should be from private life. To that end, only two persons chosen by each appointing officer should be from within the Government. Of the persons appointed by the President, one should be a career civil servant holding a position not above GS-16, and one an official of higher rank. Of the persons appointed by the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, in each case two should be from the respective legislative body of the appointing officer, one of these coming from each major party. Insofar as the appointees have an active political affiliation, each appointing officer should make sure that the affiliations are equally distributed, with neither major party in the majority. The Commission should certainly not operate in a partisan manner.

Members should be chosen for their personal qualifications, and they should not function as representatives of political parties, religious bodies, or any other organized groups. In order that a reasonable balance within the committee may be obtained, some prior consultation among the appointing officers will be desirable.

(4) The Commission should have 2 years from the time members are appointed to complete its mission. Its principal recommendations should be placed before the Congress and reported to the President during the first session of the Eighty-third Congress, and its work completed as rapidly as possible after that. This timetable will keep the findings and recommendations out of the 1952 election. campaign and will put recommendations before the Congress well after the annual political, economic, and fiscal measures of the President's program have been presented and are under consideration by the Congress. In carrying through such an unconventional assignment as faces the Commission, 2 years will not be too long a time to allow for its work. A certain amount of delay and waste motion will be almost inevitable in getting under way, and members will need time to read, digest, and to consider the testimony, the reports, and the findings. The Commission's function is fully as much one of interpretation, evaluation, and appraisal as it is of fact finding. The commission should terminate 30 days after filing its final report.

The recommended resolution to embody these proposals is Senate Joint Resolution 107 and is printed in the appendix to this report, section A. On the recommendation of this subcommittee, the Labor and Public Welfare Committee has reported this resolution favorably to the Senate. (See S. Rept. 933.)

Although some witnesses suggested that the Commission on Ethics should be a continuing body, the subcommittee does not share this view. The Federal Government's responsibility is one of leadership and sponsorship. A concentrated study and appraisal will be most helpful. Thereafter, the responsibility for action will fall to other bodies than the Commission, both public and private. A prolonged or continuing inquiry would be an entirely different sort of activity and one not contemplated by the subcommittee. We would rather look to the Commission for a thorough and complete diag nostic service, and for a recommended course of action, but we would not expect so unique a body to be responsible for treatment or dayto-day care.

3. SITUATIONS WHICH GIVE RISE TO ETHICAL PROBLEMS

The most serious ethical problems of public officials are the product of four factors: (1) There is much at stake in public policies which directly affect the income and welfare of individuals, industries, and groups. (2) Members of Congress have almost free discretion in making these policies, and administrative officials have great discretion in administering them. (3) The great authority vested in elected officials is justified by the principle that they, as representatives of the public, will exercise their authority in the public interest and for public purposes; similarly, the discretionary authority delegated to administrators is based on the assumption that they will exercise it reasonably in accordance with public policies, and for the furtherance of public purposes. (4) Although the importance of the issues, the breadth of discretion involved, and the basic nature of responsible government make it necessary that so far as humanly possible issues shall be decided on their merits, interested parties are not willing to let the wheels of government turn unassisted, but in a great variety of ways bring pressure to bear upon legislators and administrators in order to secure favorable decisions.

It has become a truism to say that this is a day of pressure politics and bloc government. The initiative presumably comes from interested parties outside the Government, but it should not be overlooked that everyone sooner or later is drawn into the game. Persons or groups outside the Government put pressure on both legislators and administrators. Members of Congress put pressure on administrators. Administrators put pressure on Members of Congress. Party officials get into the game to advocate specific causes. Any one of the participants legislator, administrator, lobbyist, organized group, or party official-may at different times be the initiator of pressure, the object of pressure, or a middleman acting on the stimulus of one participant to influence a third. When blocs of interests combine to exert pressure, they make a shambles of traditional concepts of majority rule under a two-party system.

What is pressure? Most of it is legitimate, and consists of evidence, explanation, and arguments to strengthen the merits of a case. But in a nation where selling has become a high art, advertising a big business, and public relations a pseudo-profession, it is to be expected that all known means of persuasion are employed, and an advocate of even the worthiest cause, in his zeal, may sometimes overstep the bounds of propriety. The volume and the conflict as well as the methods of pressure are a problem. In his fear that justice will not be done, everyone is willing to give the blind goddess a hand.

The criticism which has been presented to the subcommittee concerns, in part, the conduct of individuals; but as much or more of it has to do with situations or institutional arrangements which aggravate pressures or make it more difficult for a public servant to act independently, i. e., to judge issues on their merits. Some points deal also with the age-old problem of venality, and others with practices which are unnecessarily damaging to the public or the institutions of Government. Some of these criticisms will be reviewed briefly.

Problems of prior employment

The Government is employing mature, well-established businessmen, especially in numerous positions in defense agencies, which deal directly with the very industries from which they recently came. These men are needed, and their work for the Government, like that of every other public servant, must be considered a patriotic service. The point was also made to the subcommittee that in principle a substantial interchange between business and public administration is good for both, if the selection is made on the basis of competence. The employment of these men in defense agencies, nevertheless, creates ethical problems and hazards. Can they be perfectly fair if cases come before them which directly or indirectly involve the company from which they came? Can they be completely objective in decisions which affect their industry, for example, where the industry favors a policy divergent from public policy or from proposed public policy? Can these men be completely detached in determining what the public interest requires?

The basis of their employment may affect the perspective of exbusinessmen. Are they employed without compensation (WOC) or at a dollar a year, continuing to draw a corporation salary while on leave for public service? Some believe that these men should be as dependent on the Government as salary can make them, and that a WOC status is improper. Others say, however, that many able businessmen of middle age without accumulated savings, and with heavy fixed obligations for insurance, house payments, education of children, etc., cannot afford to come into the Government (short of an all-out emergency) if they have to drop from the industrial to the govern mental scale of compensation for executives.

The subcommittee believes that a Government salary is preferable to a WOC status wherever possible, and that men who cannot give up their corporate salary should be replaced as rapidly as possible. It is then up to the responsible officials to see that men from industry are not called upon to deal with business or cases touching their former employer, and in the event that such an issue does arise the industrialist in question should identify the issue and disqualify himself from handling it. This is so clear that we hope and believe it is the general practice. Sufficient attention should be given to it, however, to make sure that it is universal, and particularly to see that subordinate officials to whom such sensitive cases are referred will carry on in the same spirit. The problem of making decisions which indirectly affect particular companies is more difficult, but due emphasis upon the principle of impartiality in the cases of direct influence will perhaps have some carry-over to situations where the connection is indirect. The most difficult problem would seem to be that of an industry background which makes it difficult for a man who has grown up in a particular industry to make governmental decisions which touch that industry and yet give due weight to the public interest. We wish to suggest that if at all possible, the highest positions in defense agencies which are necessarily political in the best sense of the word should not be filled by persons drawn from the industries which they regulate. The specialists from the industries should be "on tap but not on top." A second safeguard is to make sure that the highest administrators have a balanced staff, that is, one which will include

some men of great competence who are not drawn from the clientele industry.

While this problem seems unavoidable in an emergency of short duration, it is not one which should be allowed to continue. It highlights the importance of further developing the Federal personnel program to make sure that the Government has an ample supply of com. petent administrators at high levels as well as the middle and lower ranks. Similarly, the political parties must regularly draw into public affairs more men with managerial competence and integrity. There is danger of overplaying the "emergency psychology" at the cost of not developing political leaders and civil servants who can deal with new problems which are in fact of a continuing character. On the other hand, civil servants in a large percentage of cases lack the drive and boldness required for a great national effort.

The responsibility for safeguarding the integrity of governmental processes rests also upon industry as well as government. In releasing its men for public service, a corporation should so far as possible free them from any sense of obligation that could run counter to their obligation to the public. The corporation should also be careful to avoid all contact with the former employee, once he is in the Government when it does business with the Government. This latter precaution is doubly important if the corporation expects the emergency civil servant to return to its own employ after the emergency. Similar problems are involved when representatives of labor and other groups are drawn into the Government service.

The difficult situation in which emergency administrators recruited from industry are placed is not to be taken as any criticism of them as individuals. Nor is the testimony of the Comptroller General, that in some instances during World War II, there were grave abuses in the swift transfer of men from industry to Government and back again, to be interpreted as a blanket criticism of dollar-a-year men as a group. Rather, the point is that emergency employees should not be placed in an impossibly difficult situation. Conflicting loyalties should be avoided by all possible means, and specific issues should be brought out into the open and considered frankly when they arise. Concealment or an attempt to gloss over difficulties can only make them more serious.

Problems of subsequent employment

Public employees who place or settle contracts, recommend loans, award subsidies, or make similar decisions directly touching persons or firms which do business with the Government and then leave the Government to take positions with these same firms inevitably raise doubts as to how impartial they were when they decided these issues while in the Government. If their new salary is out of line with the old (after allowing for differences in the business scale), this doubt is further strengthened. These circumstances are in fact inherently so suspicious that a public employee who values his reputation for integrity should feel himself disqualified for employment with a firm to which he has made valuable awards until a considerable period (e. g., 2 years) has elapsed after that business has been completed. Governmental employers should discourage such transfers by all possible means.

Coming events cast their shadow before, and if the possibility of lucrative employment with a private concern should be raised in any way, directly or indirectly, while the public servant is negotiating or doing business with that concern, it also casts doubts on the merits of the pending business. If public employees were under a standing order to report such improprieties and to ask to be relieved of the assignment in question, it might help to avert untimely offers.

Even when direct monetary payments or similar valuable privileges are not involved, a public employee who enters the employ of a concern which regularly does business with his former governmental employer creates an ethical problem. All agree that in this new employment, he should not handle specific matters for which he was formerly responsible or which he officially knew about. The consensus of opinion is for disqualification in all such cases, and agency regulations more or less approximate this rule. The problem arises most frequently in the tax and regulatory functions where public servants become expert in the law and the economics of the taxed or regulated industries; and their services are then demanded by business concerns.

Such selective disqualification is an adequate remedy, if it is enforced, to prevent embarrassment to the Government or serious abuse of confidential information. But is it an adequate remedy to prevent improper (although perhaps subconscious) influence? A public official of high rank who leaves a regulatory agency and then returns immediately to practice before it, can hardly avoid pleading with people who previously, may have been his subordinates or associates. A waiting period of 2 years before returning to practice before a regulatory agency would be a safeguard for officials of senior rank, e. g., GS-15 and above.

To this suggestion, however, there is an objection by the regulatory agencies and by the bar which practices before them. The argument is that the possibility of more lucrative private employment adds so greatly to the attractiveness of public employment that restricting this opportunity would affect, for the worse, the quality of the Government regulatory personnel. It is also argued that such a restriction would be unfair to men who frequently have to leave the Government because of financial pressure through rapidly rising family expenses, and who need a better-paying job immediately.

The employment of ex-Members of the Senate and House also raises some questions of propriety. Should they turn immediately to lobbying, and if so, should they be permitted to appear on the floor, a privilege which is not accorded other lobbyists? Again, the issue is whether their close associations, their friendships, and their privileged status would unduly and unfairly influence the legislative process. The evidence suggests that lobbyists who are not ex-Senators or ex-Congressmen have a sufficiently developed sense of the niceties of fair play that they would prefer that no registered lobbyists be permitted on the floor.

Problems of becoming unduly involved

A recognized problem of long standing is that of public officials becoming unduly involved with persons, concerns, or industries which are affected by their decisions. There is a strong presumption that a substantial economic involvement will create either a bias or an emotional problem through fear of bias. It is generally agreed, therefore,