Message to the House of Representatives Returning Without Approval H.R. 12610 "An Act Making Appropriations for the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Expenses of the Government for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1921, and for Other Purposes"

The White House, May 13, 1920.

To the House of Representatives:

I am returning, without my signature, H.R. 12,610, "An Act Making Appropriations for the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Expenses of the Government for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1921, and for Other Purposes."

I object to and cannot approve Section 8 of the bill, which amends Section 11 of the Act approved March 1, 1919, as follows:

Section 8. That Section 11 of the act entitled "An act making appropriations for the legislative, executive and judicial expenses for the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1920, and for other purposes" is hereby amended by striking out the first proviso and inserting the following in lieu thereof:

Provided, that hereafter no journal, magazine, periodical or similar Government publication shall be printed, issued or discontinued by any branch or officer of the Government service unless the same shall have been authorized under such regulations as shall be prescribed by the Joint Committee on Printing, and such publications shall not contain any commercial advertisements; provided, further, that the foregoing provisions of this section shall also apply to mimeographing, multigraphing and other processes used for the duplication of typewritten and printed matter, other than official correspondence and office records.

That section provides that no journal, magazine, periodical, or similar Government publication shall be printed, issued, or discontinued by any branch or officer of the Government service unless authorized under regulations prescribed by the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing, and furthermore prohibits mimeographing, multigraphing and other processes used for the duplication of typewritten and printed matter, other than official correspondence and office records, unless authorized under such regulations of the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing. Aside from the control over the printing, issuing or discontinuing of periodicals or similar Government publications by the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing, the obvious effect of this provision would be to give to that committee ₍power to prevent the executive departments from mimeographing, multigraphing or otherwise duplicating any material which they desire, and, in that way, power to determine what information shall be given to the people of the country by the executive departments.

The committee apparently would have power, for example, to prevent even the making of carbon copies of anything other than official correspondence and office records.

Without raising any constitutional question, I think that this section, which would give the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing power to exercise censorship over the executive departments, is an encroachment on the functions of the executive and incompatible with good government. I am in entire sympathy with the efforts of the Congress and the departments to effect economies in printing and in the use of paper and supplies, but I do not believe that such a provision as this should become law.

I should also call attention to the fact that by its terms the section in question absolutely forbids mimeographing, multigraphing and other duplicating processes in the executive departments (except as permitted by regulations established by the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing), and thus imposes a flat prohibition against the exercise of executive functions.

If we are to have efficient and economical business administration of Government affairs, the Congress, I believe, should direct its efforts to the control of public moneys along broader lines, fixing the amounts to be expended and then holding the executive departments strictly responsible for their use. This can be accomplished by the enactment of legislation establishing an effective budget system, which I have heretofore urged.

The Congress and the Executive should function within their respective spheres. Otherwise, efficient and responsible management will be impossible and progress impeded by wasteful forces of disorganization and obstruction. The Congress has the power and the right to grant or deny an appropriation, or to enact or refuse to enact a law, but once an appropriation is made or a law is passed the appropriation should be administered or the law executed by the executive branch of the Government.

In no other way can the Government be efficiently managed and responsibility definitely fixed. The Congress has the right to confer upon its committees full authority for purposes of investigation and the accumulation of information for its guidance, but I do not concede the right, and certainly not the wisdom, of the Congress endowing a committee of either House or a joint committee of both Houses with power to prescribe "regulations" under which executive departments may operate. Under Section 8 of the bill responsibility cannot be definitely placed upon either the executive departments or the Joint Committee on Printing. It falls between them.

I regard the provision in question as an invasion of the province of the executive and calculated to result in unwarranted interferences in the processes of good government, producing confusion, irritation and distrust. The proposal assumes significance as an outstanding illustration of a growing tendency which I am sure is not fully realized by the Congress itself and certainly not by the people of the country. For that reason I am taking the liberty of pointing out a few examples of an increasing disposition as expressed in existing laws and pending legislative proposals to restrict the executive departments in the exercise of purely administrative functions.

I do not care to discuss here the powers which previously have been conferred upon the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing, as they have passed into law, but I do feel that it is proper to point to a few examples of administrative authority exercised by the Committee under existing law in order to indicate inconsistency that already exists and which would be accentuated and aggravated if Section 8 under consideration were enacted into law.

In this connection, I invite the attention of the Congress to a letter from the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Printing to the Public Printer, under date of March 19, 1920, replying to a request from the latter for a ruling by the Committee as to the application to certain printing of Section 89 of the Printing Act of 1895, restricting the printing of reports, publications, and documents to 1,000 copies each. In the communication mentioned, the Public Printer is "directed" to apply that section of the law in accordance with the "opinion" rendered by the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Printing. To my mind, the opinion mentioned is nothing more or less than a direction to an executive officer in the performance of executive duties.

The printing laws may give the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing authority to make interpretations of the law, but if they do, I think it is a most unwise procedure and that the statute should be revised.

Another example of the exercise of administrative authority by the Joint Committee on Printing is to be found in a resolution adopted by that committee on April 2, 1920, prohibiting any person connected with any department of the Government from furnishing any publication for free distribution to any private individual, corporation or agency, in lots to exceed fifty copies, "without first making application to the Joint Committee on Printing." The resolution reads as follows:

Resolved by the Joint Committee on Printing, under authority of Section 11 of Public Act No. 314, Sixty-fifth Congress, That no person connected with any department of the Government shall furnish any publication for free distribution to any private individual, corporation or agency in lots to exceed fifty copies, without first making application to the Joint Committee on Printing, giving the name of the person or agency desiring the same, the name of the publication and the number of copies desired;

Provided, That this regulation shall not apply to publications which are sold at a price to cover the cost of same;

Provided further, That the Clerk of the Joint Committee on Printing be instructed to furnish to each department of the Government and to the Public Printer a copy of this resolution with a request that the receipt of same be duly acknowledged.

I also invite attention to the creation by law of what is known as the Public Buildings Commission, consisting of two Senators, two Representatives, the Superintendent of the Capitol buildings and grounds, the officer in charge of public buildings and grounds, and the Supervising Architect or Acting Supervising Architect of the Treasury.

That Commission by law is given "absolute control of and the allotment of all space in the several public buildings owned, or buildings leased by the United States in the District of Columbia, with the exception of the Executive Mansion and office of the President, Capitol building, the Senate and House office buildings, the Capitol power plant, the buildings under the jurisdiction of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution and the Congressional Library building."

The Commission possesses the absolute power to order the several executive departments and independent establishments out of any of the buildings which they occupy, and, as a matter of fact, has directed various branches of the public service to vacate or to occupy specified space. It is organized and operated as a Congressional Commission and appears in the Congressional Directory under the heading "Congressional Commissions and Joint Committees." The Senators serving upon it are appointed by the President of the Senate, the Representatives serving upon it are appointed by the Speaker of the House, while the other officials composing the commission are specifically named in the law. Its work, nevertheless, so far as it involves the allotting of space for administrative services and of ordering executive departments to move units into or out of Government-owned or -leased buildings, is distinctly executive in character.

My attention has been drawn to a pending legislative proposal of a similar character which I mention in this connection simply as a further illustration. When the bill which I am returning was under consideration in the Senate an amendment was agreed to by the Senate transferring the Bureau of Efficiency from the jurisdiction of the President to the jurisdiction of the Congress. That amendment was eliminated in conference, but has reappeared in slightly changed form as a Senate amendment to the pending bill designed to establish a national budget system.

It is proposed to give that bureau more sweeping power of investigation than is usually conferred upon the committees of the Congress itself. It would function, not as a committee of the Congress, but as a bureau of the Congress, if such is permissible, with an officer of the Congress at its head. I do not here discuss the proposal in detail further than to cite it as another illustration of the tendency to which I invite attention.

In considering bills containing the provisions mentioned above, I was Willing to overlook the objectionable features for the time being with the thought that they were designed as exceptional and temporary measures to meet unusual conditions. To permit such expedients to serve as precedents or accepted rules for legislation would, in my judgment, be most unfortunate and destructive of proper principles for the orderly and efficient management of the Government's business. I feel very strongly that the authority carried in Section 8 of the bill herewith returned should not be conferred upon a legislative committee and that the entire section should be stricken from the measure.

WOODROW WILSON