Lindsay Carter Warren

Background

Lindsay Carter Warren was born in Washington, N. C. , the son of Charles Frederic Warren, a lawyer, and Elizabeth Mutter Blount.

Education

After graduating from the Bingham School in Asheville in 1906, Warren studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1906 to 1908, continuing on at the law school there in 1911 and 1912.

Career

Warren was admitted to the bar in 1912 and practiced law in Washington. Warren served as attorney of Beaufort County from 1912 to 1925, during which he also chaired the county's Democratic executive committee. In 1917 and 1919 he was a member of the North Carolina state senate, acting as president pro tem his second term. He participated in 1919 on the state code commission for compiling the consolidated statutes and in 1920 chaired the special legislative committee on workmen's compensation acts. From 1923 to 1925, Warren represented Beaufort County for one term in the state general assembly. First elected in 1924, Warren, a Democrat, represented North Carolina in the United States House of Representatives from March 1925 through October 1940. An expert on farm legislation and government reorganization, Warren quickly earned the respect of his colleagues. By early 1939, Washington correspondents ranked him among the ten most effective United States representatives. Reporters praised Warren as a dynamic, eloquent, able, and influential leader, strategist, and legislator. Warren generally supported the New Deal and the internationalist policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He backed the Economy Act of 1933, the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, and the Work Relief and Social Security acts of 1935. He came out against the fair labor standards bill of 1938 and organized the water bloc resisting the Transportation Act of 1940, which placed inland waterways under Interstate Commerce Commission regulation. On international issues, Warren favored providing economic assistance to the Allies and building up American defense. He supported the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, the naval expansion bill of 1938, the Neutrality Act of 1939, and the Selective Service Act of 1940. Warren chaired the House Accounts Committee from 1931 to 1940 and served on the Joint Committee on Government Reorganization. He adamantly favored the reorganization bill of 1938, which would have empowered President Roosevelt to transfer, consolidate, or abolish federal government departments and agencies, select six new administrative assistants, and curtail budgets of commissions. The House, however, rejected the legislation because it would have consolidated many independent agencies into cabinet-level departments and authorized the president to revamp the civil-service system and create new government departments. Warren cosponsored the Reorganization Act of 1939, which removed these controversial features. Leading the floor debate, Warren argued that the executive branch had ballooned to 150 agencies encompassing 500 bureaus, resulting in enormous cost to the taxpayers and providing wasteful duplication of effort. Congress approved Warren's measure, which was more acceptable to conservative Democrats than the 1938 bill. While serving in the Congress, Warren remained active in both state and Democratic party affairs. The governor appointed him in 1931 to the North Carolina Constitutional Commission. Warren chaired the North Carolina Democratic State Convention in 1930 and 1934, was temporary chairman and keynote speaker at the North Carolina State Democratic Convention in 1938, and served as a delegate at large to the Democratic National Convention in 1932 and 1940. In August 1940, President Roosevelt appointed Warren to a fifteen-year term as comptroller general of the United States. He did not begin his assignment until November 1, 1940, because he was still serving as acting House majority leader. As comptroller general, Warren supervised the 15, 000-member General Accounting Office, an agency established by Congress to check on government financial transactions, overseeing the making of its rules and regulations, the establishment of procedures for appropriations and accounting of various government departments, the settlement of government claims and accounts, the auditing of government corporations, and the investigation of and reporting on the use of public funds. Under Warren, the General Accounting Office set up efficient operating procedures and reduced its employees to 5, 904 by 1954. Warren hoped to eliminate duplication, waste, and inconsistency in governmental departments and agencies by creating uniform, cost-efficient accounting systems. The War Department, army, navy, and other federal departments and agencies had committed numerous contract abuses during World War II. Congress cooperated with Warren's office after the war, placing 101 government corporations under its budgetary and auditing controls. Warren's office conducted audits of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Atomic Energy Commission, the War Shipping Administration, the Maritime Commission, the air force, and other federal agencies and departments. In 1947, Warren, Secretary of the Treasury John Snyder, and Director of the Budget Fred Lawton inaugurated a joint accounting program to ensure better government accounting of all federal departments and agencies. Congress in 1950 authorized Warren's office to implement joint accounting. Most government departments and agencies cooperated with the joint accounting program, but it took time to make the system fully operative within the vast Department of Defense. Warren frequently appeared before Congress to endorse or condemn various reorganization plans. He backed President Harry Truman's request for broad authority to reorganize the government's executive agencies, but criticized the establishment of the Hoover Commission as a waste of public funds. Warren denounced the commission's recommendation to reduce the staff and functions of the General Accounting Office as an invasion of congressional rights. Warren retired for health reasons as comptroller general on May 1, 1954, eighteen months before his term expired. The General Accounting Office's exacting scrutiny of government expenditures under Warren's leadership ultimately saved the government about $915 million. Warren returned to Washington, N. C. , where he joined the Beaufort County Red Cross as general chairman in November 1954. He served in the North Carolina state senate from 1959 to 1962. Warren died in Washington, N. C.

Achievements

• A 2. 8-mile bridge, one of the longest in North Carolina, was built in 1960 over the Alligator River and is named in honor of Warren. The M/V Lindsay Warren, a 25 car ferry, was also named for him.

Connections

He married Emily Harris on January 28, 1916. They had three children.

Father:

Charles Frederic Warren

Mother:

Elizabeth Mutter Blount

Spouse:

Emily Harris