Special Message to the Congress Recommending Conflict-of-Interest Legislation.

To the Congress of the United States:

I recommend that the Congress enact legislation requiring officials in all branches of the Government to place on the public record each year full information concerning their incomes from all sources, public and private. I believe this will be an important step in assuring the integrity of the public service and in protecting government officials against false and unfounded charges of improper conduct.

The overwhelming majority of the people who are working for the Federal Government in the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches are decent, honest, and upright citizens who are doing their very best in the public interest. I believe that the standards of conduct now prevailing in the Government service compare favorably with those of the past and with the standards now prevailing in business and the professions. Nevertheless, it should be our constant aim to improve these standards. As the burdens of the Government increase during this defense period, and more and more citizens enter into business or financial dealings with the Government, it is particularly necessary to tighten up on our regulatory procedures, and to be sure that uniformly high legal and moral standards apply to all phases of the relationship between the citizen and his Government.

In operations as large as those of our Government today, with so much depending on official action in the Congress and in the executive agencies, there are bound to be attempts by private citizens or special interest groups to gain their ends by illegal or improper means. Unfortunately, there are sometimes cases where members of the Executive and Legislative branches yield to the temptation to let their public acts be swayed by private interest. We must therefore be constantly on the alert to prevent illegal or improper conduct, and to discover and punish any instances of it that may occur.

We must also guard against the danger that the misconduct of a few will result in unwarranted suspicion and distrust of the honesty of all government officials.

In recent months, there has been something amounting to a deliberate effort to discredit the government service. Attempts have been made through implication and innuendo, and by exaggeration and distortion of the facts in a few cases, to create the impression that graft and corruption are running rampant through the whole Government.

To my mind the most disturbing feature of the charges and rumors stirred up by these attempts is their effect on the confidence of the American people in their Government and in all the individuals who make up the Government. I am told that people all around the country are getting a mistaken and a distorted impression that the Government is full of evil-doers, full of men and women with low standards of morality, full of people who are lining their own pockets and disregarding the public interest.

This is a terrible distortion of the true facts about our Government. It would be tragic if our citizens came to believe it. It would be tragic for the American people themselves to have such an idea about their Government, and it would be a terrible tragedy for all those who serve within the Government. None of us can afford to let the whole body of public officials be given a bad name by accusations, rumors, and sensational publicity tending to smear everybody.

I believe the best thing we can do to spike this effort to discredit Government officials is to place all the facts right on the record. The facts themselves are the best cure for public doubts and uncertainty.

I recommend, therefore, that the Congress promptly enact a statute which will require all full-time civilian Presidential appointees, including members of the Federal bench; all elected officers of the Federal Government, including Members of the Congress; and all other top officials and employees of the three branches of the Government--say those receiving salaries of 10,000 dollars or more, plus flag and general officers of the Armed Services--to file annually a statement of their total incomes, including amounts over and above their Government salaries, and the sources of this outside income. Consideration should also be given to requiring other Government employees to file such statements if their outside income exceeds a specified amount--perhaps $1,000 a year. Some items which are not ordinarily counted as income, such as gifts and loans, should be included in the statements filed under this statute. Penalties for willful violation of this statute should be equivalent to those for violation of the laws relating to the filing of income tax returns.

These statements when filed should be made accessible to the public.

Such public disclosure will, in my opinion, help to prevent illegal or improper conduct and at the same time protect Government officers from unfounded suspicions.

The majority of Federal employees have no income of consequence other than their official salaries. Some of our best public servants, on the other hand, do have sizeable amounts of outside income. The great public service that is being rendered today by many men who have been successful in business or other forms of endeavor demonstrates that no distinction can be drawn between these two groups in terms of public good. The disclosure of current outside income, however, will strike at the danger of gifts or other inducements made for the purpose of influencing official action, and at the danger of outside interests affecting public decisions.

A disclosure of all sources of outside income will be of obvious help in tracking down any case of wrongdoing. Furthermore, the mere existence of a requirement that such disclosure be made will act as a deterrent to improper conduct.

If an official of an executive agency knew that he would have to disclose the fact that he accepted a gift or loan from a private company with which he has public business, or if a Member of Congress who is on a committee concerned with a certain industry knew that he would have to disclose the fact that he accepted a fee from a company in that industry, I believe the chances are that such gifts or fees would not be accepted.

Such a disclosure procedure will also serve to protect officials and legislators from widespread misunderstanding on the part of the public. Our citizens will be able to see for themselves that the talk about corruption and enrichment in public office is grossly exaggerated.

As a general rule, I do not like to see public officials, or any other particular group, subjected to rules and requirements which do not apply to the rest of the population. But at the same time, public office is a privilege, not a right. And people who accept the privilege of holding office in the Government, must of necessity expect that their entire conduct should be open to inspection by the people they are serving. With all the questions that are being raised today about the probity and honesty of public officials, I think all of us should be prepared to place the facts about our income on the public record. We should be willing to do this in the public interest, if the requirement is applied equally and fairly to the officials of all three branches of our Government. This is the best protection we can give ourselves and all of our co-workers against the charge of widespread graft and favoritism in the public service.

I know of no other single step that will do so much good so quickly in protecting the reputations of our public servants and--at the same time--in producing concrete indications of any really questionable practices.

Much the same considerations apply also, I believe, to those people who hold the principal positions of responsibility in our great political parties. Of course, these offices are not Government positions. But those who hold them are necessarily brought into very close contact with the Government. And our major political parties have traditionally been so much a part of our whole system of government, that those responsible for the conduct of party business are in fact, if not in law, charged with a real public responsibility. For that reason, I would favor including the principal national party officials and employees among those persons required to file annual income statements along the lines I have described.

The legislation I have here recommended should be passed as soon as possible. If action cannot be completed before adjournment of the present session, then I earnestly hope that the Congress will finish the task as soon as it reconvenes. We should lose no time in placing all the facts before the country, and in clearing up those false impressions that are injurious to the proper functioning of our Government.

I believe also that both the Congress and the Executive should continue to search for other means, legislative and administrative alike, to reassure the American people about the high standards of their Government and to make sure that those high standards continue to be maintained by every individual who holds public office.

HARRY S. TRUMAN