NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1940 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE The committee met at 10:10 a. m., pursuant to adjournment on Friday, February 23, 1940, in room 362 of the Old House Office Building, Representative Howard W. Smith, chairman, presiding. Present: Representatives Howard W. Smith of Virginia, Arthur D. Healey of Massachusetts; Abe Murdock of Utah; Charles A. Halleck of Indiana; and Harry N. Routzohn of Ohio. Edmund M. Toland, general counsel of the committee. Charles Fahy, general counsel to the National Labor Relations Board. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will be in order. We would like to insert in the record the first thing: In connection with an incident relative to so-called lobbying activities on the part of the Board, I wrote to the Attorney General the day the question arose, and I am in receipt of a reply from him under date of February 23, and I have made a reply to that dated February 27, and I would like both letters to go into the record. Mr. TOLAND. Mr. Chairman, you want them printed, of course, as exhibits. The CHAIRMAN. I want them placed on the record at this point. (Communication from Robert H. Jackson to Hon. Howard W. Smith dated February 23, 1940, was received in evidence and marked "Exhibit No. 1085"; communication from Representative Howard Smith to Hon. Robert H. Jackson, dated February 27, 1940, was received in evidence and marked "Exhibit No. 1086." Both communications follow): Hon. HOWARD W. SMITH, EXHIBIT No. 1085 OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. SMITH: I have your letter of February 13, asking if I could with propriety give your committee my opinion as to whether the testimony before the committee established a violation within the prohibition of United States Code, title 18, section 201. Almost from the beginning of the Government my predecessors have, with great unanimity, taken the position that the statutes prescribing the duties of the Attorney General do not authorize him to render opinions to the Congress or to its committee or Members. These statutes have not been substantially changed since 1789. As early as 1818, Attorney General Wirt, and as late as October 4, 1939, Attorney Gen eral Murphy each ruled that under the statutes Attorneys General are not authorized to give official opinions on questions of law except upon call of the President or the head of an executive department to enable him to decide a question pending in his own department for action. It has been pointed out that the effort to advise both the executive and the legislative branches of the Government would be inappropriate under our doctrine of separation of the powers of the two branches, and that, like other efforts to serve two masters, such a practice would likely introduce conflict of duties. Congress has never seen fit to change the statutes so construed, and I take it that in spite of frequent requests for opinions Congress in its deliberate judgment has acquiesced in the meaning so uniformly ascribed to these statutes for well over a century. I have been constrained to reach this conclusion notwithstanding the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, who I understand was furnished a copy of your letter to me, has urged that in responding to you, I fully consider and discuss the legal principles involved. I think you will agree that the rule, both well, established and wise, requires me to answer your inquiry that I could not with propriety render the opinion which you suggest. With best personal regards, (Signed) ROBERT H. JACKSON, Attorney General. Hon. ROBERT H. JACKSON, EXHIBIT No. 1086 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C., February 27, 1940. Attorney General of the United States, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 23d in reply to my letter of February 13, in which I asked for your opinion as to whether there had been a violation by officials of the National Labor Relations Board of section 201 of title 18 of the United States Code relative to the use of Government appropriations for lobbying activities. I note your statement that, owing to precedents established by your predecessors, you are impelled to reply that you could not, with propriety, render an opinion to a committee of Congress on the subject. I have read the precedents referred to in your letter, which seem to me fully to justify your position. It is regrettable that a committee of Congress, conducting an investigation under specific authority with a view to recommending remedial legislation, should not have the benefit of the advice of the chief law officer of the Government as to whether, under an undisputed statement of facts, a criminal statute has been violated. I think it entirely possible, if the incident referred to does not constitute a violation of the act, that Congress would desire to enact necessary legislation to prevent the continuance of the lobbying activities referred to. As to the particular incident involved, my committee is charged solely with the duty of investigation and report. Any further action lies solely in the province of your Department. With kind personal regards, I am TESTIMONY OF LAWRENCE A. KNAPP, ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL IN CHARGE OF ENFORCEMENT SECTION, LITIGATION DIVISION, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, WASHINGTON, D. C. (The witness was duly sworn and testified as follows:) Mr. FAHY. Please state your full name. Mr. KNAPP. Lawrence A. Knapp. Mr. FAHY. Your residence? Mr. KNAPP. 1513 Thirtieth Street, city of Washington. Mr. FAHY. What is your present occupation? Mr. KNAPP. I am assistant general counsel in charge of the enforcement section of the litigation division of the Board. Mr. FAHY. How long have you been an employee of the Board? Mr. KNAPP. Since the Board was formed. Mr. FAHY. When was that? Mr. KNAPP. July 1935. Mr. FAHY. Were you with the organization at any time prior to the enactment of the act under which the present Board was set up? Mr. KNAPP. I was an attorney for the first National Labor Relations Board, established under Public Resolution No. 44 in 1934. Mr. FAHY. NOW, Mr. Knapp, will you please outline briefly your academic training and your experience up to the time that you became an attorney on the staff of the Board? Mr. KNAPP. I was born in South Dakota in 1905 and am approaching my thirty-fifth birthday. I lived in Garden City, S. Dak., until 1918, attending the public schools there. In 1918 my family moved to Yankton, S. Dak., and there I completed my high-school work and attended college at a local denominational college known as Yankton College. I got my A. B. degree in 1925, and after a year of coaching athletics and instructing in high school at Hardington, Nebr., I came 10 Washington in the fall of 1926 and entered the law school at George Washington University, which I attended until 1929. I graduated with an LL. B. degree and with honors. During the middle of my senior year I went to New York and secured a position with the firm known then as Taylor, Blanc, Capron & Marsh. Its name was changed before I arrived in the fall of 1929 to Messrs. Mitchell, Taylor, Capron & Marsh, the senior partner of the firm being William D. Mitchell, the Attorney General under President Hoover. I remained with that firm in private practice until 1933, and in July of that year secured a position as assistant counsel to the National Recovery Administration, where I worked until my transfer to the first Labor Board in the summer of 1934. Mr. FAHY. Will you please explain in outline the duties of yourself as assistant general counsel in charge of the enforcement section and the duties of those under you in that section? Mr. KNAPP. I suppose it is fair to say that I have initial responsibility under Mr. Fahy and Mr. Watts for the preparation of our enforcement or review cases in the circuit courts of appeals and in the United States Supreme Court. That work entails largely the preparation of the Board's written briefs that are filed in those courts. Assisting in that work is a staff of approximately 35 lawyers, consisting of 30 that I would call staff lawyers and 5 supervisors who stand in the point of responsibility between me and the staff attorneys. Each such case, whether it goes into a circuit court of appeals on a petition of the Board to enforce its order or on a petition of an employer or other aggrieved party to set it aside, is assigned by me to a staff attorney. Likewise, I assign to that case one of my five supervisors. In due course a date is set upon which the draft brief is due from the staff attorney and from the supervisor in order that I may have it, and that Mr. Fahy or Mr. Watts may review it in time to get it to the printer and file it on the date on which it is due in court. |