DIVISION OF PUBLICATIONS. COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES IN THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C., Friday, January 25, 1907. The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m. Present: Representatives Littlefield (chairman) and Samuel. Present, also, A. Zappone, esq., Chief of the Division of Accounts and disbursing clerk, Department of Agriculture; and George W. Hill, esq., Editor and Chief, Division of Publications, Agricultural Department. STATEMENT OF GEORGE W. HILL, ESQ., EDITOR AND CHIEF OF DIVISION OF PUBLICATIONS, AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT. (The witness was duly sworn by the chairman.) The CHAIRMAN. You have already, as I understand it, gone over quite thoroughly the character of the publications issued under your division? Mr. HILL. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. With reference to their utility and the demand therefor on the part of the public. Are any of your publications bound in law sheep? Mr. HILL. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Are those all in pamphlet shape? Mr. HILL. The great bulk of them are in pamphlet shape. Once in a while we bind one in cloth where it is of a size which necessitates the binding of a few of them for library use. But it is very rare that we bind a whole edition in any form except paper. I would except the Congressional publications, you know, which we do not control. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; I mean the publications that come-out under your division. Mr. HILL. They are all under my division; they all pass through my division; but the Yearbook, for instance, is one that we have nothing to say about. The CHAIRMAN. Have you already expressed an opinion as to the durability of the two kinds of binding? Mr. HILL. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Law sheep and cloth? Mr. HILL. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Have you had experience so that you have an opinion on that point? Mr. HILL. I prefer the cloth. 487 (Witness: Hill.) The CHAIRMAN. Why? Mr. HILL. I think it lasts better when it is made of thoroughly good material. The CHAIRMAN. Assuming that good material is used in each binding, you would say that cloth would last longer than sheep? Mr. HILL. We prefer the silk cloth, and I think that is the experience of my most experienced men. I think they would concur with me in that. Some librarians claim that buckram is the most durable material for binding yet discovered. Nearly all the binding we have done is for the library of the Department, where cowhide is largely employed. I very much prefer silk cloth for the very few bound publications we have for general distribution. The CHAIRMAN. Does the printing department send to you quite a list of public documents bound in law sheep? Mr. HILL. That I could not say, sir. I do not receive those. The library gets those. The CHAIRMAN. Oh, yes. Mr. HILL. I only have to do with the publications that we issue. The CHAIRMAN. Those that go out. You do not have anything to do with the material that comes in? Mr. HILL. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. You are the editor and chief, I understand. How long has this division been in existence? Mr. HILL. It was established in 1889, practically, as a part of the Bureau of Statistics, which had formerly done most of the publishing work and had charge of it. The CHAIRMAN. In 1889? Mr. HILL. In 1889. The first of the following July it was organized as an independent division, known as the Division of Records and Editing; and later on it was increased by the addition of the Illustrations Division, which had formerly been an independent division. That was made a part of the Division of Publications, the name being changed. It was also increased by the addition of another section which had been independent, known as the Folding Room, which had to do with the distribution of documents. These were all gathered into one division in 1895, and it became the Division of Publications, with these accretions. The CHAIRMAN. In 1895? Mr. HILL. In 1895. The CHAIRMAN. You are the editor and chief, and you have an editor and assistant chief, an associate editor, three assistant editors, and two editorial clerks. What is the nature of the work that is done by yourself and these editors? Mr. HILL. The first, and perhaps the most important part of my work, is to read for the Secretary from his standpoint, from his point of view, to see that nothing is printed which he would not wish to have printed, and that any matter relating to the policy of the Department that is of any consequence is referred to him. That is in addition, of course, to the general duties of editing, which are to see that the matter is clearly expressed and in good English-the general editorial work. But my special work is to be the eyes of the Secretary in this matter. The CHAIRMAN. Do you originate any publications yourself? (Witness: Hill.) Mr. HILL. Very few, sir. We have issued a historical sketch of the Department of Agriculture, and an organization list, and a few circulars and bulletins, and some indexes. The CHAIRMAN. Those are negligible in quantity? Mr. HILL. They are negligible in quantity, except the indexes. We are trying to do the indexing of all the publications of the Department, which had been for many years neglected. The CHAIRMAN. The work that you edit comes to your Department from the other bureaus? Mr. HILL. From the other bureaus; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. And so you do this work that you speak of—you and your assistants? Mr. HILL. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. That is, you have eight persons engaged in that work? Mr. HILL. I make it seven, I think, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Well, you have two editorial clerks, three assistant editors that is five-an associate editor, an editor and assistant chief, and yourself. Mr. HILL. And myself-ves; excuse me, I had not counted myself. The CHAIRMAN. I have found in examining these other bureaus, as a rule, that those that have any publications of consequence to issue also have editors, who, so far as I can learn, do just exactly what you are doing-look over the substance, smooth up the rhetoric, eliminate improper matter, and do general editing work. Mr. HILL. There is less duplication than you would suppose, Mr. Chairman; though there is a possibility of it which should be avoided. In the first place, in the days when very few bureaus issued a very great deal of matter, the chief (who is responsible as well as the author to the Secretary for all the scientific matter) read everything that was submitted. We do not print anything, no matter who the author is, unless it is recommended for publication by the chief of some bureau; and he assumes responsibility for it as far as its scientific worth is concerned. The bureau editor is supposed to read for him; where this work has become so great in volume-as in the case of the Bureau of Animal Industry and the Bureau of Plant Industry, for instance-it is more than the chief can possibly do to read all the bulletins that are submitted for publication; he has a reader who is responsible to him for the same class of work that I am responsible to the Secretary for. That is, he is supposed to understand his chief's views; and he is supposed, by devoting his time entirely to the editorial work of that bureau, to be familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the authors, and especially with the views of his chief. The CHAIRMAN. Is he not necessarily more familiar with those matters than your editorial people can be? Mr. HILL. Certainly; that is the purpose of having a bureau editor. The CHAIRMAN. Why is it necessary to edit the same publication twice? Mr. HILL. I edit it from the point of view of the Secretary, in regard to the practicalness, the policy, those things for which the Secretary is directly responsible. I take it that the public holds the (Witness: Hill.) Secretary only indirectly responsible for scientific statements-indi-rectly in the sense that he presumably indorses the chief who submits the matter. But in regard to other matters, economic matters, matters of policy and of administration and things of that sort, the Secretary is directly responsible for what he publishes when it goes out with the approval of the Department. It is to that that I pay particular attention. I pay no attention whatever to the scientific matter, except to see that I understand it. The CHAIRMAN. Do you read everything after these people? The CHAIRMAN. That is what I mean-your Bureau. Mr. HILL. Yes; we read everything. The CHAIRMAN. What is the reason that that is not an obvious duplication of work? Mr. HILL. They are seeking, or should be seeking, a different purpose than mine. For instance- -we will try to put it in more concrete form-we will say that here is a bulletin on leguminous plants and the attraction of nitrogen from the atmosphere. It is submitted to Doctor Galloway by one of his men; he turns it over to his editorial clerk, who reads it solely from Doctor Galloway's point of view. The CHAIRMAN. What difficulty is there in having that clerk sufficiently intelligent and informed so that he can make a final reading of it, and, when he is reading it, read it once for all? Mr. HILL. The probabilities are that he would be either not sufficiently good from Doctor Galloway's point of view if he were satisfactory from the point of book making and editorial work, or that he would be essentially Doctor Galloway's man and would fail on some of the practical points. I do not think the Secretary would be satisfied to have anything go through that I did not indorse. The CHAIRMAN. Suppose you were down there in the Bureau of Plant Industry, and had acquired the necessary knowledge of the Bureau chief's methods and habits and idiosyncrasies: What physical difficulty would there be in your taking a publication and reading it from both points of view at the same time? Suppose you were down there? Mr. HILL. The difficulty would be that it would take an extraordinarily versatile man to familiarize himself with the work of all the bureaus, and I do not see that you could duplicate me. The CHAIRMAN. Are these subjects so recondite and abstruse? Mr. HILL. No, sir; I am more modest than that; but I mean I could not be duplicated-I could not do the work in the Bureau of Soils and the work of the Bureau of Plant Industry and the work of the Bureau of Animal Industry in these different places. We would need a much larger force. In other words, if all the work were done in my Bureau to-day, we would need a much larger force than I have. If we read from the point of view of the bureau editor of the Bureau of Animal Industry and the bureau editor of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and the editorial clerk of the Bureau of Soils-ifread from their point of view and for their chiefs, we could so satisfactorily by assigning men almost exclusively to t those bureaus. In other words, a good deal of the wor done by the bureau editor would be done in my office. The CHAIRMAN. If it was done in your office. (Witness: Hill.) same man who does the editing now, and he could do both kinds of work at the same time, I can not quite see why you would not save something. Mr. HILL. I do not think that we would save anything. The CHAIRMAN. You could if you could eliminate one man by that process. Mr. HILL. I doubt very much whether we would eliminate a single man if we were to take their work. The CHAIRMAN. Is it not a fact that all these publications that come out of the various bureaus have their foundation in the views of the chiefs of the bureaus, or the men who write the articles? Mr. HILL. They have their foundation usually in an investigation. The CHAIRMAN. Certainly; that is where they originate; but I mean the article itself that is written. Mr. HILL. The article as it finally reaches us is supposed to express the ideas of the chief of the bureau. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; and no matter how many editors there are, the chief of the bureau is the man that furnishes the fundamental, substantive facts? Mr. HILL. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. About all that these editors have occasion to do is simply to see that the matter is in proper shape, is it not? Mr. HILL. They have to call the attention of their chiefs to a great many things, I fancy. The CHAIRMAN. Now, that may all be true Mr. HILL. Sometimes some of them escape them, and we have to go back to the chief and say: "Do you really want to express this in this way?" or " Do you want to say this at all?" or " Don't you want to modify this?" The CHAIRMAN. That is after two men have gone over it, the bureau chief and his editor? Mr. HILL. The bureau chief, you see, does not go over it. The CHAIRMAN. He dictates it in the first instance, does he not? The CHAIRMAN. We did not get that impression from some of the bureau chiefs. It may not be the bureau chief, I suppose, but the man in charge of the particular investigation. Mr. HILL. Yes; the author. The CHAIRMAN. That is, the scientific expert is the author? Mr. HILL. The expert. The CHAIRMAN. It may not be the bureau chief, but it may be some scientific expert that his bureau has employed? Mr. HILL. Yes; he writes it; he prepares it. The CHAIRMAN. Then the editor examines it? Mr. HILL. Then the bureau editor examines it and reports to his chief the nature of the bulletin, and all that he thinks his chief ought to know. The CHAIRMAN. You say that in some instances works prepared in this manner, first dictated by the man who is the expert Mr. HILL. Yes. The CHAIRMAN (continuing). Who knows about the subject, and who has the responsibility- Mr. HILL. But who is not necessarily a writer, you know. |