(Witness: Whitney.)

the personal element, does and must enter into the question of the fitness of the person for another position.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Professor WHITNEY. Now, we recognize that in the civil service. The CHAIRMAN. But how do you get that, from the efficiency slips, or from the man who has immediate charge of the clerk, if you get it at all?

Professor WHITNEY. In my own bureau, which is so small that I know everyone there, the chief clerk and I know the records and know the efficiency and know the capabilities of the clerks that we have, and can judge as to whether they can take up a line of work that we find it necessary to develop. Of course my own is a small bureau. I have only 15 or 20 clerks. The large proportion of my force is scientific workers or field men. I have a very small office organization, and the few people that I have are personally known to myself and to my chief clerk.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course what would apply to 100 men might apply equally well to 10 men, given the same position.

Professor WHITNEY. Not if you had 100 copyists doing nothing but copying. You could get at their capabilities and rate them on the scale of 100 for copying work. Or if you had 100 stenographers taking dictation all the time and answering letters, you could rate them on the number of letters answered. But if you have only three or four stenographers taking letters or three or four clerks doing copying, and two or three messengers and some extra clerks for special work, it is a very difficult thing to rate them on efficiency slips as a basis for promotion to a position which involves a different type of work.

The CHAIRMAN. That is to say, in your bureau, if I understand, there are so few employees that their work is largely diversified, and they are not continued on a particular kind of work, enough of them, to be able to differentiate with success and to rate them for efficiency? Do I get your idea?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Perhaps I did not have in mind that particular fact of the equation that there were not enough of these men doing the same thing to give you a valuable differentiation between half a dozen men, for instance.

Professor WHITNEY. That is precisely it.

The CHAIRMAN. That makes your testimony intelligible with the rest of the testimony that we have had, because I have not taken into account the fact that you had such a small number.

Professor WHITNEY. Yes; that is correct.

Mr. SAMUEL. On what basis would you promote a stenographer to a clerkship?

Professor WHITNEY. We generally promote from a clerical place to a stenographic place.

Mr. SAMUEL. You just reverse it?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes.

Mr. SAMUEL. I imagined that the stenographers were lower salaried than the clerks.

(Witness: Whitney.)

Professor WHITNEY. No, sir; our stenographers are higher salaried than the clerks.

At 5.30 o'clock p. m. the committee adjourned until to-morrow, Tuesday, January 22, 1907, at 10 o'clock a. m.

COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES IN THE
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
Tuesday, January 22, 1907.

The committee this day met.

Present: Messrs. Littlefield (chairman) and Samuel.

STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR MILTON WHITNEY-Continued.

The CHAIRMAN. Before we leave the subject of the efficiency records and the promotions I would like to inquire whether or not you think it would be wise to have the efficiency records open to the examination of the men, or at least each man having an opportunity to examine his own record for the purpose of keeping him advised as to his standing in the Department with reference to his prospect of promotion? Professor WHITNEY. I think it would be wise.

The CHAIRMAN. Your idea is that it would tend to improve the morale of the service and increase the efficiency of the men? Professor WHITNEY. I think it would.

The CHAIRMAN. You stated, if I remember, that the efficiency records that now exist are confidential. Does that apply to your bureau alone, or does it apply to the office of the Secretary of Agriculture also, or are they open to inspection when in the hands of the Secretary?

Professor WHITNEY. My testimony applied only to the bureau itself. After the records pass out of the bureau they are no longer under my control.

The CHAIRMAN. As you understand it, are they open to inspection after that?

Professor WHITNEY. So far as I know, they are. I understand that my testimony is only in regard to the procedure in my bureau itself and not in the Department.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there any substantial distinction between the kinds of work done by the various clerks in your Bureau, that is, in the items of work? Are they all engaged in practically the same work?

Professor WHITNEY. They are not. They are employed on different lines.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you differentiate in the kinds of work between the various classes of clerks; and, if so, how?

Professor WHITNEY. We have, in the first place, an editorial clerk, a map clerk, stenographers, typewriters who are not stenographers, draftsmen, general clerks, a property clerk, a photographer, a messenger, and a messenger boy.

The CHAIRMAN. You have four classes of clerks, beginning at one and going up to four. Are those clerks all engaged in doing the same

(Witness: Whitney.)

thing? If they are not, give us, if you can, the kind of work that one clerk does that another clerk does not do.

Here is a differentiation between the clerks in the matter of salary. What I want to get at is whether or not a clerk in the higher class does a different kind of work from that done by the man below him, or whether he is more efficient in the same work, for the purpose of getting at the basis of the differentiation in salaries paid.

Professor WHITNEY. There is a difference in the character of the work. Of course, our typewriters or our clerks would not go into the same class of work as our stenographers. Our stenographers, however, are paid different salaries, according to the general efficiency of the stenographer. We have them from $840 to $1,400, and they are graded according to their efficiency. That is fixed by the statutory clause.

The CHAIRMAN. But their standard of efficiency is not fixed by

law?

Professor WHITNEY. No, sir; the standard of efficiency is fixed in the Bureau and in the Department, subject to the Department's

records.

The CHAIRMAN. And the distinction between the grades, so far as the duties to be performed are concerned, is not fixed by law?

Professor WHITNEY. To a certain extent, yes. Our photographer is a statutory place. The draftsmen are statutory places, and we can not put a stenographer or a typewriter into a draftsman's place. There are certain limitations that are imposed by statute.

The CHAIRMAN. That does not apply to your clerks?
Professor WHITNEY. I am including these in my clerks.

The CHAIRMAN. They are not called clerks in the list of expenditures.

Professor WHITNEY. They are in statutory places. All clerks are in statutory places. That is the basis of this distinction. All our scientific employees are on the lump fund. All the statutory places we class as clerks.

The CHAIRMAN. You have clerks beginning at $600 and running up to $1,800?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes; the $1.800 place is held by an editorial clerk and a similar place by a map clerk.

The CHAIRMAN. Do any clerks below $1,800 have anything to do with the editorial and map work?

Professor WHITNEY. We have to assign clerks to assist in the preparation of the manuscript that comes in from the field parties. The CHAIRMAN. But no other clerk as head?

Professor WHITNEY. No, sir..

The CHAIRMAN. So that differentiates his work?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How about the $1,600 man?

Professor WHITNEY. I have a $1,600 man in my own office to take charge of the executive work. He is virtually a private secretary to look after the office.

The CHAIRMAN. He does all of your confidential and official work relating to the Department, and works out the executive details? Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir.

(Witnesses: Whitney, Zappone.)

The CHAIRMAN. And there is no other clerk who has anything to do with that kind of work?

Professor WHITNEY. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You have two clerks at $1,400 each; what do they do?

Professor WHITNEY. One of those, as I have stated, is assigned to the editorial branch to assist.

The CHAIRMAN. What is he; a stenographer?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Does that require any expert stenographic ability? Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir; it requires an expert with a knowledge of editorial matters and a knowledge of affairs, because he assists in the preparation and virtual rewriting of the reports that come in from our men in the field.

The CHAIRMAN. Does he take dictation?

Professor WHITNEY. He takes dictation in part and he also does a considerable amount of editorial work under the direction of the editorial clerk.

The CHAIRMAN. What does the other $1.400 man do; what kind of work?

Mr. ZAPPONE. Mr. C. W. Baumann is the next one.
Professor WHITNEY. He has since been raised.

Mr. ZAPPONE. But speaking of last year, 1906.

Professor WHITNEY. He is my map clerk who has charge of the manuscript maps that come in from the field and he has supervision over the two draftsmen, and he has charge of all records pertaining to the maps of the soil surveys.

The CHAIRMAN. When the work goes out from his hand it is complete?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir; it is complete and it goes to the printer.

The CHAIRMAN. The man at $1,800 has nothing to do with the maps?

Professor WHITNEY. No, sir; he has to do with the reports. He has to do with the reports on the areas, but they work in close cooperation, because the map has to be read back to the report and the report has to be compared constantly with the map. So the two men are virtually in charge of two independent lines reporting to me direct, but they are working always in close cooperation.

The CHAIRMAN. What kind of work do the $1,200 men do? Professor WHITNEY. They are virtually our stenographers. Have you the list, Mr. Zappone?

Mr. ZAPPONE. The first one is Mr. Hale.
Professor WHITNEY. He is a stenographer.
Mr. ZAPPONE. The next one is G. B. King.
Professor WHITNEY. He is a clerk.

Mr. ZAPPONE. The next one is G. B. McGinty.

Professor WHITNEY. He was a stenographer in the bureau, but has since been transferred to the Bureau of Animal Industry.

Mr. ZAPPONE. The next one is V. B. Newton.
Professor WHITNEY. She is a stenographer.

Mr. ZAPPONE. Here is a position filled by two people during the same year-Scott and Weir.

(Witnesses: Zappone, Whitney.)

Professor WHITNEY. They are stenographers.
Mr. ZAPPONE. The next one is Jeannette Steuart.
Professor WHITNEY. She is a clerk.

The CHAIRMAN. She is not a stenographer?
Professor WHITNEY. No, sir; a typewriter.

The CHAIRMAN. Are all these stenographers also typewriters? Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir; the distinction is that a typewriter does not do any stenographic work-can not take dictation. Miss Steuart, as a matter of fact, is in charge of the catalogue of our soil samples, and keeps the records of the samples that come in. We have a very large collection of soil samples, amounting to about 15,000 in number, and the records of where they were collected have to be kept carefully.

The CHAIRMAN. You have to preserve the identity of the samples? Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir; and to file a record of any examination that is made of the samples. She has charge of all that work. The CHAIRMAN. What do the stenographers do; simply take dictation and then transcribe it on the typewriter?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that correspondence, or what is it?

Professor WHITNEY. Correspondence and the preparation of technical reports and bulletins. We have a stenographer assigned to our laboratory and have a stenographer assigned to the soil survey division and to the other branches of our work.

The CHAIRMAN. Does it keep those three men engaged taking dictation and transcribing in these departments?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir; it takes all their time. We are working with a small force, a very efficient force, and we get a great deal of work.

The CHAIRMAN. How many men dictate to the stenographers; more than one to each stenographer?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir; one stenographer is assigned to the laboratory where we have five or six men who dictate directly.

The CHAIRMAN. So that during the day he may be given dictation from each one of those five or six men?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. In transcribing, do they use the graphophone? Professor WHITNEY. No, sir; they do not.

The CHAIRMAN. Each stenographer transcribes his own dictation on the typewriter?

Professor WHITNEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Has there been any increase in the personnel of your bureau during the last two or three years, or, I will say, since the bureau was organized, to any extent?

Professor WHITNEY. Well, I think not in the statutory places. Perhaps there have been two or three different places added. I am not quite sure. Not more than two or three.

The CHAIRMAN. You had an unexpended balance September 30, 1906, of a little over three thousand dollars?

Mr. ZAPPONE. $2,867.28. That is the amount that will ultimately be turned back into the Treasury.

Professor WHITNEY. Is that the final amount?