that no one phase of the subject can be given adequate consideration without a thorough examination of the whole subject.

On June 19, 1945, the President sent a message to the Congress requesting action on the question of Presidential succession. Bills and joint resolutions have been introduced in the Senate touching this question. There has been referred to your committee a bill, H. R. 3587, passed by the House during the last session seeking to carry out the objective of the President's message. Other bills and proposed constitutional amendments dealing with some aspect of the subject are pending before Senate and House committees.

To what extent existing law is inadequate, to what extent the problems involved may be solved by legislation, and to what extent it will be necessary to resort to constitutional amendment has not been thoroughly canvassed.

In these circumstances your committee believes that it is desirable to have a full and complete study of all matters connected with the succession to the Presidency and the election of the President and Vice President, by a joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives, and accordingly recommends that Senate Concurrent Resolution 50 be adopted. The resolution creates a joint congressional committee composed of five Members of the Senate and five Members of the House of Representatives to make a full and complete study and investigation of all matters connected with the succession to the Presidency and the election of the President and Vice President, from the time of the nomination of the President and Vice President through the time of their election and the time of their inauguration until the termination of their respective terms of office, with the purpose of making the law certain as to the Presidential election and succession. Reference to the terms of the resolution will indicate the many and grave questions that are involved. The investigation may disclose others, In addition to the matters specified. Some of the questions involved are partially, and some will say inadequately, covered by the provisions of existing law. Others are in the category of matters on which the Constitution has authorized the Congress to legislate, but no legislation has been enacted. In the case of still other matters any change must be brought about by constitutional amendment.

In recent months there has been particular agitation for a change in the law on Presidential succession. This generally follows the death in office of a President. Under the resolution the joint committee will consider whether any change is necessary in the law of Presidential succession, along with other issues involved in the whole question.

It is believed that inasmuch as the committee is required to submit its final report not later than May 1, 1946, no time should be lost in the adoption of this resolution. It is hoped that a great deal of valuable information and background for intelligent action will be obtained and that, as a result, all uncertainties as to these important questions may be removed and all contingencies in connection with the election and succession of Presidents and Vice Presidents may be provided for adequately.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator McMahon was advised we would like to hear him, but he is tied up this morning with the Atomic Energy Commission hearing.

Senator GREEN. What I have said applies to all these 21 bills or resolutions which have come to us and to others which may come to us. It seems to me that it is a great mistake to act on any of them separately, and if you are going to appoint this committee, they ought to consider them all together.

Senator HOLLAND. Mr. Chairman, would it be appropriate for me to say into the record, if I may, that I strongly approve of the purposes of this resolution, and hope we may report it. I have noted not only in the case of my own State, but it has been called to my attention that it is also true in other States, that this recent situation in Georgia has stepped up the examination of this very question with reference to the succession to the governorship. And it seems to me that the question of the succession to the Presidency is, of course, a vastly more vital one, and it certainly is not handled with certainty under our present constitutional or statutory procedure, or both; and with the hazards of travel multiplied as they are, not only by

airplane and motor travel but simply by the availability or acquisition of speed which makes it possible and desirable and apparently necessary that the President shall travel over distances that heretofore would have not been regarded as at all possible, I think we would just have to be very blind to the actualities if we didn't realize that there is a greatly enhanced problem in this field, even without considering war; and certainly the implications of modern war are visited much more destructively and disastrously upon civilian population than was ever the case under war as it used to be.

It goes without saying that in the event there should be another war, which we all are doing our utmost to avoid, that at least one of the possibilities would be that of immediate attack against the nerve center of the Nation, the Capitol of the Nation, where most of the high-ranking officials presumably would be.

I think we should by all means set up this study to see that as certainly as men's minds can devise it, we have a machinery which will anticipate all of the disagreeable things that might conceivably happen in this world we are living in now, and I strongly favor the adoption of the resolution.

The CHAIRMAN. If there are no further questions or no further witnesses, we will stand adjourned until Monday morning at 10:30. (Whereupon, at 11:20 a. m., the committee adjourned until 10:30 a. m., Monday, March 10, 1947.)

SUCCESSION TO THE PRESIDENCY

TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1947

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION,

Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a. m., in room 104–B, Senate Office Building, Senator C. Wayland Brooks (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Brooks (chairman), Knowland, Jenner, Ives, Hayden, Green, McMahon, and Holland.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

Senator McMahon, will you give us the benefit of your thinking on your bill.

STATEMENT OF HON. BRIEN MCMAHON, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

Senator MCMAHON. Mr. Chairman, this proposal is quite simple and direct. The essence of it is: Upon the death of the President and, of course, the Vice President having succeeded him and also passing away, the Secretary of State shall become President. If, however, more than 4 months intervenes between the date when he takes office and election day, it is mandatory under the bill for him to notify the governors of the States, who are thereupon directed to call the electors who have been elected at the last presidential election together for the purpose of electing a President and Vice President.

I think that describes the proposal. I might say that if it is less than 4 months, the intent is not to bring this machinery into operation, on the theory that for such a short period of time it would be all right for the Secretary of State to continue.

As we all know, the electoral college has been the subject of a great deal of discussion during the past 75 to 100 years, and it has not been a totally popular institution. However, it is interesting to note that the electoral college was the thing that the founding fathers were the most pleased with when they finished their labors in framing the Constitution.

It seemed to be a subject of general congratulation that they had worked out this so difficult problem with satisfaction to all.

While the electoral college has been attacked on all sides for many years and while good arguments, I realize, can be made against it and in favor of a direct election of President and Vice President by the people; nevertheless, I think we are dealing with realities and we might as well realize that there is small, if any, chance of the electoral college being abolished in our political system.

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If you reflect on that, you can understand that the smaller StatesNevada, for example, where they have, I believe, three electoral votes-would be reluctant to surrender that advantage they have proportionately over New York or Pennsylvania. That goes for all the smaller States.

Now, there has been some suggestion that one of the things that should move us to speedy action is the fact that in this modern world with the weapon development being what it is, with the atomic development being what it is, with the possibility that in the event, the catastrophic event, that atomic war should ensue in years to come, that it would be highly necessary that we provide for continuity of Govern

ment.

Certainly, the electoral college would, I suppose, be as good a method as any for quick action in that respect. There is no necessity-assuming that many of the electoral college members should be wiped out or killed-there is no necessity in the Constitution that the election of the President and Vice President be by all of the members of the electoral college.

If that were true, Abraham Lincoln, for instance, couldn't have been elected in the second election. He was elected by the electors from the States which had not seceded.

Now, it has been inquired of me as to how vacancies in the electoral college would be filled. The answer to that is in the Constitution. Each State shall elect its electors as it chooses. Up until the time of the Civil War, South Carolina and, I believe, Delaware had their electors chosen by the legislature; and there is no reason, as I understand it, in the law today why any State couldn't go back to that system if they so desire.

Under the power that has been given to the States to regulate not only the election of the electors up to its quota and also to fill vacancies, the various States have enacted statutes to take care of that.

I haven't looked at them all, but I did look at those of my own State, Connecticut, which provide that the members of the electoral college who survive shall elect to the vacant places; and that is also

true in New York.

Much has been said about the proposition-I believe the President posed it-that we should not have an appointed officer in the Presidency. We should have an elected officer. Under his suggestion, as I recall it, he suggested the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate.

Well, while they are elected officers, they are not elected by the people with the office of the Presidency in mind. One can agree with the general proposition that we ought to have someone elected by the people, but the Speaker of the House certainly cannot be held by any stretch of the imagination to be the choice of the people of the United States for the office of President, no more than the President pro tempore can.

So if the objective of the President is to see that in the event of the death of the President or Vice President, someone chosen by our people should succeed to the office-and I think that is a very legitimate objective-I can't see any reason, frankly, why we don't make use of the machinery that we have in existence, which seems to fulfill the objective, which seems to be immediately workable, and which I think would be highly satisfactory.