E. F. Hutton & Co. purchases of Kaiser-Frazer on New York Curb, February 4, 1948

Purchases by First California Co. over the Los Angeles Stock Exchange for the account of First California Co. and Otis & Co. as representatives of the underwriters of common stock of Kaiser-Frazer Corp.

Purchases by Walston, Hoffman, and Goodwin over the San Francisco Stock Exchange for the account of First California Co. and Otis & Co. as representatives of the several underwriters of common stock of Kaiser-Frazer Corp. on Feb. 4, 1948

Mr. MCGUIRE. I have just one question, and this is not following up anything that we have had so far, but I would like to get it in the record. Do you have sufficient help to do your job efficiently, and without too much delay?

Commissioner MCENTIRE. Mr. Congressman, perhaps this may seem like the typical bureaucratic approach, but my answer to that is no. The Commission has, as I think some members of the subcommittee may know, suffered a very sharp curtailment in the number of personnel through the recent years until, in order to meet the budgetary limitations placed upon us for this fiscal year, it is anticipated that by June 30 we will have no more than 850 employees.

That is for all of the various divisions of the Commission, not only the home office but also the regional offices all over the country. That figure of 850 can be contrasted with a figure of-and again I am speaking from memory-but roughly one thousand seven hundred and thirty some-odd that I think was the high point of 1940, or sometime in there.

Obviously, we have learned a lot about administering these acts through the years, and I do not want to be understood to say that I think the present statutory framework would require one thousand seven-hundred-and-thirty-odd employees to administer it today. But, as a matter of historical fact, during the war there was comparative little financing, and the workload of the Commission fell off. Likewise, many of our employees went into the service or to other Government agencies to do emergency work. So, there was no need for as large appropriations, and cuts were taken during that time.

Congress has not seen fit to restore fully or to restore entirely the effect of those cuts; and, of course, dollarwise it is a little hard to compare because the salary scales have been raised so much, but in effect we have got 850 employees, or we are going to have 850 employees now, and we need more people than that, and we need them very, very badly.

Mr. MCGUIRE. I am glad to get that information.

Mr. HELLER. Congressman McGuire's question about personnel has crystallized a question in my mind that I had hoped to ask later on, but perhaps I would like to propose it now. Do you think that the work of the Commission can be carried on by three instead of five Commissioners?