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a separate administrative court. Fears and dissatisfactions increased as tribunals grew in number and jurisdiction, and a succession of bills offering various remedies appeared in Congress." Inquiries into the practices of state agencies, which tended to parallel or follow the federal pattern, were instituted in several states, and some studies noteworthy for thoroughness, impartiality and vision resulted."

The Executive Branch of the Federal Government also became concerned as to whether the structure and procedure of these bodies was conducive to fairness in the administrative process. President Roosevelt's Committee on Administrative Management in 1937 recommended complete separation of adjudicating functions and personnel from those having to do with investigation or prosecution." The President early in 1939 also directed the Attorney General to name "a committee of eminent lawyers, jurists, scholars, and administrators to review the entire administrative process in the various

S. 5154, 70th Cong., 2d Sess. (1929).

"S. 1835, 73d Cong., 1st Sess. (1933); S. 3787, H. R. 12297, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. (1936); S. 3676, 75th Cong., 3d Sess. (1938); H. R. 6324, H. R. 4235, H. R. 4236, S. 915, S. 916, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. (1939); S. 674, S. 675, S. 918, H. R. 3464, H. R. 4238, H. R. 4782, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. (1941); H. R. 4314, H. R. 5081, H. R. 5237, S. 2030, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. (1944); H. R. 1203, S. 7, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. (1945).

E. g., Benjamin, Administrative Adjudication in the State of New York (1942); Tenth Biennial Report of the Judicial Council to the Governor and Legislature of California (1944). See also Fesler, The Independence of State Regulatory Agencies (1942); Handbook of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, 226 et seq. (1943); 63 A. B. A. Rep. 623 (1938).

8 Administrative Management in the Government of the United States, Report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management 37 (1937).

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departments of the executive Government and to recommend improvements, including the suggestion of any needed legislation.""

So strong was the demand for reform, however, that Congress did not await the Committee's report but passed what was known as the Walter-Logan bill, a comprehensive and rigid prescription of standardized procedures for administrative agencies.10 This bill was vetoed by President Roosevelt December 18, 1940," and the veto was sustained by the House. But the President's veto message made no denial of the need for reform. Rather it pointed out that the task of the Committee, whose objective was "to suggest improvements to make the process more workable and more just," had proved “unexpectedly complex." The President said, "I should desire to await their report and recommendations before approving any measure in this complicated field." 13

The committee divided in its views and both the majority and the minority submitted bills" which were introduced in 1941. A subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee held exhaustive hearings on three proposed

"The quoted statement is from President Roosevelt's message to Congress of December 18, 1940, vetoing H. R. 6324, the so-called Walter-Logan bill. H. R. Doc. No. 986, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., 3-4 (1940). The origin and orders leading to the creation of the Attorney General's Committee are set out in Appendix A of the Committee's Final Report, supra.

10 S. 915, H. R. 6324, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. (1939).

11 86 Cong. Rec. 13942-3 (1940), reprinted in H. R. Doc. No. 986, 76th Cong., 3d Sess. (1940).

12 86 Cong. Rec. 13953 (1940).

13 86 Cong. Rec. at 13943; H. R. Doc. No. 986, supra, 4.

14 These bills appear at pp. 192 and 217 of the Committee's Final Report, supra. The majority bill became S. 675, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. (1941) and the minority recommendation was embodied in S. 674, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. (1941).

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measures,15 but, before the gathering storm of national emergency and war, consideration of the problem was put aside. Though bills on the subject reappeared in 1944,16 they did not attract much attention.

17

The McCarran-Sumners bill, which evolved into the present Act, was introduced in 1945. Its consideration and hearing, especially of agency interests, was painstaking. All administrative agencies were invited to submit their views in writing. A tentative revised bill was then prepared and interested parties again were invited to submit criticisms.18 The Attorney General named representatives of the Department of Justice to canvass the agencies and report their criticisms, and submitted a favorable report on the bill as finally revised.19 It passed both Houses without opposition and was signed by President Truman June 11, 1946.20

The Act thus represents a long period of study and strife; it settles long-continued and hard-fought contentions, and enacts a formula upon which opposing social and political forces have come to rest. It contains many compromises and generalities and, no doubt, some am

15 The hearings ran from April 2 to July 2, 1941, and, with an appendix, have been collected in four parts and over 1,600 pages. Hearings before Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary on S. 674, S. 675 and S. 918, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. (1941).

16 H. R. 4314, H. R. 5081, H. R. 5237, S. 2030, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. (1944).

17 S. 7 and H. R. 1203, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. (1945).

18 See H. R. Rep. No. 1980, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. 14-15 (1946); S. Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. 4-5 (1945), reprinted in S. Doc. No. 248, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., at 233, 248–249, and 185, 190–191, respectively.

19 S. Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. 37-45 (1945); 92 Cong. Rec. App. A-2982-5 (1946).

20 92 Cong. Rec. 2167 (1946) (passage by the Senate); 92 Cong. Rec. 5668 (1946) (amended version passed by House); 92 Cong. Rec. 5791 (1946) (House version agreed to by Senate); 92 Cong. Rec. 6706 (1946) (approved by the President).

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biguities. Experience may reveal defects. But it would be a disservice to our form of government and to the administrative process itself if the courts should fail, so far as the terms of the Act warrant, to give effect to its remedial purposes where the evils it was aimed at appear.

II.

Of the several administrative evils sought to be cured or minimized, only two are particularly relevant to issues before us today. One purpose was to introduce greater uniformity of procedure and standardization of administrative practice among the diverse agencies whose customs had departed widely from each other." We pursue this no further than to note that any exception we may find to its applicability would tend to defeat this purpose.

More fundamental, however, was the purpose to curtail and change the practice of embodying in one person or agency the duties of prosecutor and judge. The President's Committee on Administrative Management voiced in 1937 the theme which, with variations in language, was reiterated throughout the legislative history of the Act. The Committee's report, which President Roosevelt transmitted to Congress with his approval as "a great document of permanent importance," said:

22

"... the independent commission is obliged to carry on judicial functions under conditions which

21 H. R. Rep. No. 1980, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. 16 (1946); Final Report of the Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure, 20 (1941); McFarland, Analysis of the Federal Administrative Procedure Act, in Federal Administrative Procedure Act and the Administrative Agencies 16, 22 (N. Y. U. 1947). See also Hearings before Subcommittee No. 4 of the House Committee on the Judiciary on H. R. 4236, H. R. 6198, and H. R. 6324, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. 14, 31 (1939); S. Rep. No. 442, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. 9 (1939); H. R. Rep. No. 1149, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. 2-3 (1939); S. Doc. No. 71, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. 5 (1939).

22 81 Cong. Rec. 187, 191 (1937).

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threaten the impartial performance of that judicial work. The discretionary work of the administrator is merged with that of the judge. Pressures and influences properly enough directed toward officers responsible for formulating and administering policy constitute an unwholesome atmosphere in which to adjudicate private rights. But the mixed duties of the commissions render escape from these subversive influences impossible.

"Furthermore, the same men are obliged to serve both as prosecutors and as judges. This not only undermines judicial fairness; it weakens public confidence in that fairness. Commission decisions affecting private rights and conduct lie under the suspicion of being rationalizations of the preliminary findings which the commission, in the role of prosecutor, presented to itself." Administrative Management in the Government of the United States, Report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management, 36-37 (1937).

The Committee therefore recommended a redistribution of functions within the regulatory agencies. "[I]t would be divided into an administrative section and a judicial section" and the administrative section "would formulate rules, initiate action, investigate complaints . . ." and the judicial section "would sit as an impartial, independent body to make decisions affecting the public interest and private rights upon the basis of the records and findings presented to it by the administrative section." Id. at 37.

Another study was made by a distinguished committee named by the Secretary of Labor, whose jurisdiction at the time included the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Some of the committee's observations have relevancy to the procedure under examination here. It said:

J