¹ See Bernstein, Marver H., Regulating Business by Independent Commission (Princeton, 1955), p. 83 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cushman, Robert E., The Independent Regulatory Commissions (New York, 1941), p. 678.Google Scholar

² But see Key, V. O., “Legislative Control” in Marx, Fritz Morstein, ed., Elements of Public Administration (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1959), p. 321f Google Scholar; Bernstein, op. cit., pp. 150–54.

³ The virtues and limitations of public hearings as a guide to committee members' behavior have been recognized, see Huitt, Ralph K., “The Congressional Committees: A Case Study,” this Review, Vol. 48 (1954).Google Scholar One of the hearing's most serious limitations (viz, the statements and questions of the committee members in open, reported sessions may not be accurate reflections of their real attitudes) can be reduced to a considerable degree by subsequent interviews with members of the committee. The interview itself is subject to many limitations, particularly when held a year or more after the event. The committee member is then on guard to an extent he may not have been in the give-and-take of a rough hearing; he has had a chance possibly to reflect on his behavior at the earlier hearing and might report to the interviewer a revised, dressed-up-for-scholarly-consumption disposition on the questions asked him. In this case a semi-structured interview was used. Preliminary questioning of committee members about their role in the 1953 committee hearings generally resulted in the Congressmen freely volunteering their views about the need for agency control. More direct questions were required, however, to get specific statements about what they thought were necessary and useful means for exerting this control.

⁴ See e.g. Bernstein, op. cit., ch. 3 and pp. 150–59; Freeman, J. Leiper, The Political Process: Executive Bureau-Legislative Committee Relations (Garden City, 1955)Google Scholar; Gross, Bertram M., The Legislative Struggle (New York, 1953)Google Scholar; Hyneman, Charles S., Bureaucracy in a Democracy (New York, 1950)Google Scholar; V. O. Key, op. cit.; Latham, Earl, The Group Basis of Politics (Ithaca, 1952)Google Scholar; Leiserson, Avery, Administrative Regulation (Chicago, 1942)Google Scholar; Redford, Emmette S., Administration of National Economic Control (New York, 1952)Google Scholar; Schwartz, Bernard, The Professor and the Commissions (New York, 1959)Google Scholar; Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York, 1951), chs. 12, 14Google Scholar; Young, Roland, The American Congress (New York, 1958).Google Scholar

⁵ For example, in 1950 the Committee on Administrative Law of the New York City Bar Association thought that, in reference to agencies with quasi-judicial functions, “legislative committees ought not to try to influence the decisions of pending cases, issues before an agency, or the manner in which a particular case is being handled—‘a precept not universally respected in practice.’ Nor should decided cases be criticized with a view to influencing an agency to reverse a previous ruling or to limit a trend in agency decisions, except when a committee is genuinely considering amending a statute.” cf. Galloway, George B., The Legislative Process in Congress (New York, 1955), p. 665f.Google Scholar See also infra., the colloquy cited in note 12.

⁶ See Bernstein, op. cit., p. 130f; James W. Fesler, “Independent Regulatory Agencies,” in Morstein Marx, ed., op. cit., pp. 192–5, 205–7; Redford, op. cit., pp. 277–83; Truman, op. cit., pp. 416–21.

⁷ According to the 1936 Byrd Select Senate Committee to Investigate the Executive Agencies of Government, “It is probable that the in dependence of these authorities [the independent regulatory commissions] is necessary to give sta bility to long range policies and relative freedom from pressure groups.” The three-man Presiden tial Board of Investigation and Research into problems of transportation stated in 1944 that a course of necessary reform in the regulation of transportation required the “removal of economic regulatory activities as far as possible from spheres of political contest.” Quoted in Bernstein, op. cit., p. 128f.

⁸ cf. Schwartz, op. cit., p. 237; Bernstein, op. cit., p. 151f; Independent Regulatory Commissions, Report of the [House] Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 18, 81; Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, Task Force Report on Regulatory Commissions (Appendix N), 1949, pp. 20, 31.Google Scholar

⁹ But see Schwartz, op. cit., esp. p. 235f, and Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch, op. cit., p. 20.

¹⁰ Labor Relations, Hearings before the [Senate] Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 199–201, hereafter cited as Senate Labor Committee Hearings, 1953. Morse had himself earlier served as a member of the War Labor Board.

¹¹ Apart from the usual committee hearings and reports of the 83d Congress, the material for this and the succeeding sections is taken from inter views with ten key members of the committee. Unless reference is made to published committee documents and interviews with particular committee members, these sections are based on the writer's talks with these members: Republicans Samuel K. McConnell (Pa., Chairman), Ralph W. Gwinn (N. Y.), Clare F. Hoffman (Mich.), Wint Smith (Kan.); Democrats Graham A. Barden (N. C.), Augustine B. Kelly (Pa.), Cleveland M. Bailey (W. Va.), Roy W. Wier (Minn.), Phil M. Landrum (Ga.), Lee Metcalf (Mont.).

¹² See below, pp. 919–920.

¹³ See Millis, Harry A. and Brown, Emily Clark, From The Wagner Act to Taft-Hartley (Chicago, 1950)Google Scholar; and Seymour Scher, “The National Labor Relations Board and Congress: A Study of Legislative Control of Regulatory Activity, (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1956).

¹⁴ See Labor-Management Relations, Report of the [House] Committee on Education and Labor, 83d Congress, 2d sess. (Committee Print), hereafter cited as House Labor Committee Report, 1954 (Committee Print).

¹⁵ The committee chairman in the 83d Congress was Samuel McConnell, a moderate Republican from a heavily industrialized Pennsylvania district. Of the next five ranking Republican members, four (Ralph Gwinn of New York, Wint Smith of Kansas, Harold Welde of Illinois, Clare Hoffman of Michigan) were considered by their colleagues as extreme conservatives, and one (Carroll Kearns of Pennsylvania) as friendly to organized labor. Of the five ranking Democrats, two (Graham Barden of North Carolina and Wingate Lucas of Texas) had generally allied with their conservative Republican colleagues on labor matters while the other three (Augustine Kelley of Pennsylvania, Adam Powell of New York, and Cleveland Bailey of West Virginia), from highly industrialized districts, considered themselves friends of labor.

¹⁶ See Huitt, op. cit., p. 363f on the influence of group ideology on fact perception.

¹⁷ Labor-Management Relations, Hearings before the [House] Committee on Education and Labor, 83d Congress, 1st Session, p. 3035. Here after cited as House Labor Committee Hearings, 1953.

¹⁸ Ibid., pp. 2423–42.

¹⁹ cong barden. What have you to say with reference to the rules of evidence invoked? Were they what you would regard as the standard rules of evidence used in the State of Georgia?

witness. Yes, sir, in the largest measure they were. There were 1 or 2 rulings on evidence that we filed exceptions to, but on the whole we thought that the rulings on evidence there, on objections to admission of evidence, and so forth, were fairly well conducted by the rules of civil procedure.

cong. Barden. Was it conducted fairly, as you would understand a trial or hearing to be conducted?

witness. On the whole, t would say it was; yes, sir.

Cong, barden. Then your principal objection is to the conclusions found by the examiner?

witness. Yes, sir; and to what we think was a complete brushing aside of the preponderance of the evidence …

Ibid., p. 2436.

²⁰ House Labor Committee Hearings, 1953, pp. 2432f., 2439.

²¹ Ibid., p. 4042.

²² Quoted, ibid., p. 4005.

²³ Ibid., pp. 1939–59; Senate Labor Committee Hearings, 1953, pp. 1124–32.

²⁴ House Labor Committee Hearings, 1953, p. 1952f.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 3853f.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 1955.

²⁷ Quoted, ibid., p. 63.

²⁸ Ibid., p. 64f.

²⁹ In a committee print, Administrative Practices under the Labor-Management Relations Act, Interim Report of a Special Subcommittee to the [House] Committee on Education and Labor, 83d Cong., 2d sess.

³⁰ The Board did, however, get one final nudge on the case from Idaho Congressman Hamer Budge in the course of the agency's appearance before an Appropriations Subcommittee in 1954, a week after the Court of Appeals decision. Following the Board's defense of its appropriations request Budge called on the Board Chairman to explain his action in refusing to allow the trial examiner to defend the reasons for his findings before the Labor subcommittee. Unsatisfied with Chairman Farmer's explanation, Budge re minded the Board that the appropriations power could be used by Congress for the purpose of in suring “better cooperation” between the NLRB and a Congressional committee. The Idaho Congressman closed his questioning of Farmer on the handling of the case with the “hope that the NLRB will not attempt in any way to keep Congressional committees from performing their constituted functions.”

³¹ See n. 15, above.