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(Witness: Whitney.)

Professor WHITNEY. I did not.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you have any clerk occupying the same position? Professor WHITNEY. No, sir; I depended then upon my stenographer.

The CHAIRMAN. Was your stenographer, then, able to do the work? Professor WHITNEY. That work became too great, and it was impossible without a further division and a further organization to continue the work.

The CHAIRMAN. What were you paying the stenographer at that time?

Professor WHITNEY. I think it was $1,600.

The CHAIRMAN. Now you have a chief clerk, and clerks of classes four, three, and two, at $1,800 $1,600, and $1,400. Did you have similar assistants under your division organization?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. At the same rate of salary?

Professor WHITNEY. Approximately, yes. I have more now than I had then.

Mr. SAMUEL. You pay your chief clerk $2,000 a year?
Professor WHITNEY. $2,000 a year; yes, sir.

Mr. SAMUEL. I notice that the chief clerk of Doctor Wiley's bureau only gets $1,600. Why the difference in the salaries?

Professor WHITNEY. At the time of the reorganization of the divisions into bureaus the change was made in forestry, plant industry, chemistry, and soils; and in arranging the organization, for some reason, the Bureau of Chemistry did not ask for a place of $2,000. They had at that time a lady who performed the duties of the office. Mr. SAMUEL. Was the salary rated on the asking for it, or on service rendered?

Professor WHITNEY. At that time it was on the salaries asked for, because we did not have chief clerks. The organization was effected after the bill was passed.

Mr. SAMUEL. Does your chief clerk do more work than the chief clerk of the Bureau of Chemistry?

Professor WHITNEY. Oh, we have a much larger field of work. We have a great many field parties. Of course I am speaking now of what is. What the Bureau of Chemistry will do if they get this food inspection, and get a much larger appropriation, I can not say. But up to the present year they have had one or two laboratories outside of Washington. But I have some 70 or 80 men in the field constantly. We have field work going on all the year-soil survey parties. They are constantly moving. We have to issue orders and see that they are sent from place to place.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have any men in your bureau who are on the rolls of any other bureau in any other Department of the Government?

Professor WHITNEY. I have not.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you had at any time?

Professor WHITNEY. I have formerly contributed to the Secretary's office. I believe that is still permissible, but I do not know.

The CHAIRMAN. I beg your pardon; I did not understand you.

(Witness: Whitney.)

Professor WHITNEY. I say I have contributed to the Secretary's office-contributed to helping the Secretary when he needed additional help. That I believe is still permissible.

The CHAIRMAN. Do they get additional compensation?

Professor WHITNEY. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I mean. Do you have any one on the rolls in your bureau who is receiving compensation from the Government for any other service?

Professor WHITNEY. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And never have had?
Professor WHITNEY. Never have had.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any employees or clerks or agents at work in your bureau who are at work for private parties? Professor WHITNEY. NO.

The CHAIRMAN. Or doing work outside of the Department?
Professor WHITNEY. No.

The CHAIRMAN. And you never have had?

Professor WHITNEY. I never have had, except possibly in case of an article or two that would be written for a magazine.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; that would simply be an occasional work. Professor WHITNEY. And except, also, in the case of two or three men that I have had in the bureau formerly who have been allowed to give lectures at the university here in the city-night lectures that did not in any way interfere with their work. But there is no one at present who is doing that.

The CHAIRMAN. Upon what basis is the compensation of the clerks. in your Bureau predicated?

Professor WHITNEY. It is predicated in the first instance on the appropriations we get from Congress.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you mean by that?

Professor WHITNEY. Our clerks are all in statutory places, and when we lose a person from a $1,400 position we have got to pay anyone who occupies that place $1,400, no more and no less.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Upon what basis does your bureau fill those various positions?

Professor WHITNEY. So far as possible we fill them by promotion. Where we have no one in a lower grade of salary that we think competent to take a higher place we call for an original certification, but wherever it is possible we move some person up and call for a certification for the lower place.

The CHAIRMAN. Upon what are the promotions based?

Professor WHITNEY. In the case of the statutory salaries, they are based first upon necessity. We have got a fixed salary in a statutory place that can neither be increased nor reduced, which, from an administrative point of view, is an unfortunate contingency. If we had maximum salaries, if we had any discretion, it would occasionally be possible to get people in at lower salaries, and advance them as their experience and their work indicated, to the maximum fixed by Congress. But that is not the fact that confronts us. When we have a vacancy we look over our force, and we have a small force of clerks. The bureau is small in its central organization. We look over our force to see if we have anyone who is fitted to do a higher grade of

(Witnesses: Whitney, Zappone.)

work or more work; and, if so, we recommend the promotion of that person.

The CHAIRMAN. How do you ascertain that fact, in the case of that particular clerk?

Professor WHITNEY. Well from our efficiency slips, and also from our general idea of the character of the work and the amount of work we have to do.

The CHAIRMAN. What are your efficiency slips?

Professor WHITNEY. We are required to keep efficiency slips in the Department.

The CHAIRMAN. By the Secretary of Agriculture?

Professor WHITNEY. By the Secretary of Agriculture. By law, as I understand it.

Mr. ZAPPONE. Civil service law or regulation?

Professor WHITNEY. The civil service regulations, perhaps.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there a civil service regulation that requires that?

Mr. ZAPPONE. I think so. There was some years ago, and I think it is still in operation.

Professor WHITNEY. If you are going to look into that I would like to say that the use of the efficiency record is somewhat difficult unless you know the person and the kind of work he is performing, because we are expected to rate the efficiency of our clerks and of all of our employees on the basis of the work they are actually performing, of the positions they are really occupying, and we may rate a stenographer at 95, and the clerk who is not a stenographer at 95, and the messenger who knows nothing about the clerk's work or the stenographic work at 95. That does not mean that they are equal and interchangeable; it means that so far as the work that they have been performing, and so far as the positions that they have been occupying are concerned, they have done 95 per cent of what we would call perfect work.

The CHAIRMAN. That is, 100 is perfect, and they reach 95 per cent of being perfect on the kinds of work on which they are engaged? Professor WHITNEY. Yes; but that efficiency slip can not be accepted without further knowledge of their work on a proposition to promote them.

The CHAIRMAN. How often are those efficiency slips made up?
Professor WHITNEY. Twice a year.

The CHAIRMAN. Are they open to the inspection of the employees? Professor WHITNEY. They are not; they are transmitted confidentially.

The CHAIRMAN. So that the employees under that system do not really know the basis upon which they are or are not promoted?

Professor WHITNEY. The recommendations for promotion are not based on the efficiency slips. They are, however, taken into account. The CHAIRMAN. Are they not based in part on the efficiency slips? Professor WHITNEY. They are based in part on the efficiency slips. These efficiency slips show the minimum efficiency that will in itself bar promotion, even if recommended.

The CHAIRMAN. But suppose it shows a maximum?

Professor WHITNEY. That does not, as I have shown, necessarily mean a large factor in promotion.

(Witness: Whitney.)

The CHAIRMAN. Why should it not?

Professor WHITNEY. Because the character of the work has to be considered.

The CHAIRMAN. Is not the character of the work one of the elements involved in the efficiency slips?

Professor WHITNEY. No, that is not weighted.

The CHAIRMAN. What are the factors that enter into the efficiency slip?

Professor WHITNEY. The factors that enter into the efficiency slip are the questions of punctuality and the amount of work done, and the character of the work done.

The CHAIRMAN. Is not that quality?

Professor WHITNEY. No; that is the character of the work that the person does in the position that they occupy.

The CHAIRMAN. That is true.

Professor WHITNEY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. That is one of the factors?
Professor WHITNEY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Is not that the quality of the work?

Professor WHITNEY. No, sir. It does not compare the work done in a stenographic position and the work done in a messenger's position.

The CHAIRMAN. The two are in no sense allied?

Professor WHITNEY. The two are in no sense allied.

The CHAIRMAN. But here you have three stenographers doing the same work?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And the qualifications of each of those three become the basis of one of these slips.

Professor WHITNEY. In the case of the same type of work, the quality would be recognized.

The CHAIRMAN. Would they control?

Professor WHITNEY. Not in the Bureau of Soils.

The CHAIRMAN. Why should they not?

Professor WHITNEY. Because the character of the work of our stenographers varies greatly.

The CHAIRMAN. Do they not get the benefit of that character when you get these slips made up?

Professor WHITNEY. No; one of our stenographers, or a certain class of our stenographers, we use for dictating letters. Another class in our laboratories are expected to aid greatly in looking up references that are made to literature, to verify citations or quotations. Another class, who are engaged in the preparation of the reports from our field assistants, have to have different qualifications altogether, and a knowledge of the subject that the stenographer who takes the mail does not need.

Now, I can put some of my stenographers on dictation of letters, some of them I can put up in our laboratories, some of them I can put up in our editorial work: but they can not be interchanged.

The controlling factor in the promotion to a position that carries more pay, and which should carry a larger responsibility, is based upon the capacity of the man to perform the duties that will be

(Witnesses: Whitney, Zappone.)

expected of him, and I do not know of any administrative office where anything else can safely be taken as a basis for promotions.

The CHAIRMAN. Does not this efficiency method of which you have spoken tend to develop and register the effective capacity of a clerk so that you will have before you in concrete shape what a particular clerk has been able to accomplish, and therefore will be able to determine what his efficiency is?

Professor WHITNEY. The efficiency records that we are expected to keep, I believe, are not primarily kept for that purpose.

Mr. ZAPPONE. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the efficiency report is to cover all the questions you have advanced. All the elements necessary for a correct understanding of a man's fitness, his capacity and his ability, appear in that report. The quality of his work is rated there. That is one of the elements, as will be seen from the sample "efficiency report " printed in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. I was not getting that impression from what Doctor Whitney said.

Mr. ZAPPONE. Mr. Chairman, I think perhaps Professor Whitney misunderstood your direct question as to the quality of the work. Professor, you will see that it is one of the elements on the efficiency blank; it must be there to determine the man's fitness. [Turning to chairman.] And I also recall that the original order was a civilservice regulation, based upon an Executive order.

The CHAIRMAN. From the Secretary of Agriculture?

Mr. ZAPPONE. No, sir; an order issued by President Harrison. At least, that is how my memory serves me now.

The CHAIRMAN. Do all these reports go through your hands, Doctor, in connection with your bureau?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. So that you ought to be familiar with their details?

Professor WHITNEY. Oh, I am perfectly familiar with the details. The CHAIRMAN. If they do not accomplish this result of which we have been speaking, should they not be modified so as to accomplish it? Mr. ZAPPONE. If they do not accomplish the result, but I think you will find all the necessary elements there.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to get the doctor's judgment. If they do not accomplish the results to which your attention has been directed, should they not be, in your judgment, so modified as to accomplish it?

Professor WHITNEY. Perhaps I have been misunderstood, because I did not intend to convey the impression that you seem to have. These efficiency records do count in making promotions, but the difficulty is that they can not be used without a further knowledge of the kind of work that the people are doing.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean by that that the personal equation is a factor that necessarily enters into the question of the efficiency of a clerk, and that personal equation, which perhaps can be ascertained only by the man who is over the clerk, does not necessarily appear in that efficiency list, and is only to be derived from the officer having charge of the clerk? I do not know that I get your idea, but that is what I think you mean.

Professor WHITNEY. To a large extent the efficiency of the clerk,

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