Acheson Reports

Many a citizen in the past three years has wanted to reform the reforms of the New Deal, to install standards of judicial fair play in the reform agencies. First effort to reform the reformers was the defunct Logan-Walter bill (for legal tests of administrative rulings), which might have thrown so much sand in the gears that nearly all New Deal agencies would have ground to a halt. In vetoing the bill, President Roosevelt reminded Congress that his Attorney General's committee had been working for two years on the same question, had still to report.

Last week a majority of that committee, headed by onetime Braintruster Dean Gooderham Acheson, newly appointed Assistant Secretary of State, made its report --1,000 exhaustive pages. Over-all conclusion: more informal cooperation be tween businessmen and the regulatory agencies will do most to improve matters. Recommendations :

1) Establishment of an Office of Federal Administrative Procedure, to keep an eye on the agencies.

2) Independent commissioners to conduct formal hearings, make preliminary decisions in the emergency agencies; review attorneys would thus be eliminated.

3) A 45-day delay before any rule by any administrative agency goes into effect.

4) Issuance in advance of advisory opinions on request, to let citizens know whether contemplated actions are within the law.

5) No decisions on cases by investigators or prosecutors within agencies.

The committee also filed two minority reports : one proposing a flat code of fair administrative practice and placing greater stress on judicial review; the other recommending a wholly independent board (like the Board of Tax Appeals) with un restricted power to review all agency rulings.

The New York Times hailed the Acheson report as a "landmark in the history of administrative reform." The Senate's Judiciary Committee went to work on these reports at once.

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