(Witnesses: Hill, Zappone.)

The CHAIRMAN. Still, he ought to have sufficient intelligence to express himself in the English language with reasonable facility, ought he not?

Mr. HILL. He ought to; he is generally a man of education.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not almost incredible that a man who is a sufficiently intelligent scientific expert in the work of any of those bureaus to make these investigations, which involve a very large amount of original study on his part and consultation of the authorities, should not have sufficient linguistical capacity to express his ideas in fairly decent English?

Mr. HILL. No, sir; that is not incredible at all. I have been an editor of newspapers and have done some magazine work, and I have been perfectly amazed-I have had cases, actually, where there has been quite a difference of opinion between one of my readers and myself as to what the author meant.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a case of an ambiguous phrase.

Mr. HILL. It was so thoroughly ambiguous; and a great many men who are expert investigators expert men in the laboratory-have not a great deal of facility in writing, especially for the apprehension of ordinary mortals. They would be understood by their confrèresby scientific men-much more readily than they would by the layman. The CHAIRMAN. The fact, then, is that while the original investigator, who is an expert in his line, dictates the original article, and then it is afterwards revised by an editor who is supposed to have all these sources of information and supposed to be an expert in the use of language

Mr. HILL. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN (continuing). That after those men have gone through it, then there are mistakes ?

Mr. HILL. Sometimes; but the usual mistake, Mr. Chairman, if you can call it a mistake, is a want of apprehension of what the Secretary would wish to say on the subject under consideration. For instance, suppose the question of colored labor should come up. I am just citing a case at random; I do not say it ever has; but a question might arise in regard to colored labor.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not have anything to do with colored labor, do you, in the Department of Agriculture?

Mr. HILL. We have a great deal to do with colored labor. I am speaking of a bulletin which deals in colored labor.

The CHAIRMAN. I have never run across any labor investigations in my examination of the Department. What branch of the Department investigates labor questions?

Mr. HILL. The Bureau of Statistics has published some articles upon labor questions.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not come across that.

Mr. ZAPPONE. It is more directly bearing on the matter of wages. Mr. HILL. And the Secretary's idea of what it would be desirable to say in regard to our colored brethren might be very different from that of the chief.

The CHAIRMAN. My impression was that that was confined purely to statistics, simply to fixing rates of wages. I did not suppose that any bureau in the Agricultural Department went out into the general labor question. However, you only use that as an illustration?

(Witnesses: Hill, Zappone.)

Mr. HILL. I am just using that as an illustration. It might be, for instance, in regard to foreign labor; it might be in regard to foreigners and their methods of agriculture. There might be a very sharp criticism made along that line. I remember one case that happened several years ago, where a man went into the matter of labor from southern Europe coming into this country, and denounced it, which was entirely beside the mark.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean a member of the Agricultural Department?

Mr. HILL. Yes. He deplored it. It was only a little while ago

that

The CHAIRMAN. That is, your judgment in that case was that the Secretary did not want to express any opinion on that subject?

Mr. HILL. That he did not want to express himself at least as strongly; but I do not think he wanted to express himself at all on that subject any more than was absolutely necessary for the purpose in hand. In other words, the author had enlarged a little.

The CHAIRMAN. He had gone beyond the scope of the investigation? Mr. HILL. He had gone beyond the absolute fact-beyond the mere recital of facts, the citation of facts.

Mr. ZAPPONE. Mr. Chairman, may I interject a remark here?
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. ZAPPONE. The Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, in his testimony, stated that his Bureau compiled statistics in regard to the wages paid for farm labor. At that time you asked him if that duplicated the work of the Bureau of Labor. He said it did not; and you had before you the Chief of the Bureau of Labor within the next few days.

The CHAIRMAN. And he claimed that there was no duplication.

Mr. ZAPPONE. He claimed that there was no duplication, and that he was willing to cover the field, but that his force, the force at his command, had not enabled him to take up that work.

The CHAIRMAN. That is perfectly true. That simply involves statistics.

Mr. ZAPPONE. Exactly.

The CHAIRMAN. And not labor conditions.

Mr. ZAPPONE. No, sir; the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics will be before you again in a few days and will be able to answer this question personally. It is my understanding that the Department of Agriculture does not look into the statistics of labor in this country at all, except farm labor.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not think we will have occasion to go into that matter any further, because he stated that what he did was done after conference with Doctor Neill, of the Labor Bureau, and it was conceded that it was Doctor Neill's business; but under the circumstances, the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture was going on for a while until Doctor Neill was ready to take it up. That is about the size of it.

Mr. ZAPPONE. That is it, sir; precisely.

Mr. HILL. For instance, there is occasionally a chief of a bureau who discusses some matter which leads him into the field covered by another bureau, which involves a reference by me to the chief of the other bureau to see if that is all right.

(Witnesses: Hill, Zappone.)

The CHAIRMAN. What is the reason that a competent man can not eliminate those things-one man, instead of having two men? Mr. HILL. We edited last year 55,000 printed pages of matter, which means that in the manuscript there were probably 70,000 pages the equivalent of that.

The CHAIRMAN. That is, your seven or eight men?

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir; and if we were to read for the chief and the Secretary, we would need more men; there is no question of that. The CHAIRMAN. You read these documents all through for your purpose?

Mr. HILL. All through.

The CHAIRMAN. Otherwise you would not know whether these things were in or out?

Mr. HILL. We read them all through, and we prepare them for the printer. I was going to say another thing-we prepare them for the printer, with the experience that the bureau editors do not have and do not need to have.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course not; but you could bring your same experience to bear on the first reading?

Mr. HILL. We would have to have the man doubly educated; he would have to be educated to the work of that bureau.

The CHAIRMAN. What harm is there in having a man of that character?

Mr. HILL. If you could

The CHAIRMAN. In your judgment, is it impracticable?

Mr. HILL. I do not think it is a very practicable thing, sir. I thing that Mr. Pickens, for instance, the editor of the Bureau of Animal Industry, has advantages that none of my men could have by reason of his long service in the Bureau of Animal Industry.

Mr. ZAPPONE. Do not some of these bureau editors also do a large amount of miscellaneous work in connection with the duties of their bureaus? In other words, is their work confined exclusively to editing?

Mr. HILL. No; I think they look after a great deal of abstracting. Mr. ZAPPONE. Notably in the Office of Experiment Stations; the editor there is also a scientific man.

Mr. HILL. They do a large amount of scientific abstracting.
The CHAIRMAN. This Mr. Pickens that you refer to

Mr. HILL. Mr. Zappone was speaking of the Office of Experiment Stations. This Mr. Pickens is the Bureau editor of the Bureau of Animal Industry. He has had a long service in the Bureau.

The CHAIRMAN. He is thoroughly familiar with that subject? Mr. HILL. He is thoroughly familiar with the subject. He is thoroughly familiar with the policy of his Bureau.

The CHAIRMAN. Is he equally familiar with the policy of the Secretary of Agriculture?

Mr. HILL. No; by no means, because he has not been brought into immediate consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture as I have been.

The CHAIRMAN. How long would it take a man now to familiarize himself with the policy of the Secretary of Agriculture?

Mr. HILL. During the first year of every Secretary's incumbency I have to bother him a great deal. I have to learn his views; I have

(Witness: Hill.)

to learn what his policy is going to be. He formulates it slowly himself if he is a prudent man. A good deal of the first year elapses before he makes up his mind on a good many questions of administration. For instance, a bureau chief in one of his publications will advocate a certain policy for the Department to follow administratively. He will say that he thinks it is the duty of the Department to do thus and so. That is a case where I would stop him. I would go over that with the very greatest care, and I might very possibly differ with him and say: "I do not believe the Secretary would like you to put that in that way. I do not think the Secretary is prepared to adopt this policy as a part of the policy of the Department." The CHAIRMAN. Are you the only man connected with your Bureau that gets into personal contact with the Secretary for the purpose of familiarizing yourself with his ideas?

Mr. HILL. My first assistant does so when I am not there.
The CHAIRMAN. Then you two are the only men?

Mr. HILL. We two are the only men who come in personal contact with the Secretary.

The CHAIRMAN. You two are not able to do all this work, are you? Mr. HILL. Yes, sir; in the way we do it.

The CHAIRMAN. How do you do it?

Mr. HILL. My men thoroughly understand, by training under a competent chief, who is the associate editor next after my first assistant, and who is what might be called "chief of the editorial division" a man who has been with me a great many years that they are to bring everything to my attention about which there may be the slightest doubt, and everything that relates to policy or administration, whether they approve it or whether they think the Secretary will approve it or not. I can not read all the things, but the process is this:

A bulletin is submitted by a chief of bureau, and it goes to the editorial department, where it is docketed and marked and its receipt is recorded. Then it is given to a reader, one of these assistant editors, who is very often selected according to his special qualifications for the class of work under consideration. For instance, if the matter involved is very considerably tabular matter and is pretty complicated in the matter of making up for the printer, there is one man that we would choose. My mind reverts at once to one man that I would give that kind of work to. Another bulletin I would give to another man, according to its style and subject-matter.

The assistant editor reads that manuscript and takes his paper and writes: "Folio 19, see query." He queries a paragraph for my attention. He gets to folio 26 without noting anything more. Then he says: "See alteration." He makes an alteration which he thinks makes the meaning more clear. He goes in that way through the whole manuscript. He will bring it to me sometimes with eight or ten references and sometimes with forty or fifty references. The CHAIRMAN. And many times with none?

Mr. HILL. Very seldom with none-very seldom. There is almost always something to be queried. Then, before it gets to me, perhaps it will go through the hands of Mr. Stallings, the Chief of the Editorial Division, or my first assistant. They will eliminate some things that in their larger and longer experience they think there is

(Witness: Hill.)

no use bothering me about, and so on; and we will say that, beginning with thirty references, it gets to me with twenty. I will eliminate eight or ten or twelve more, and the burden will fall upon these seven or eight cases in which I think an alteration or elimination or modification of some kind is absolutely necessary. Then we go to the chief of the bureau, and he says: "Well, all right; see the author about it."

The CHAIRMAN. You refer to the chief of the bureau from which the publication came?

Mr. HILL. The chief of the bureau from which the manuscript came. He will either take up the matter himself and say, "Yes; I think you are perfectly right about that," or he will say, "I doubt that; I think you had better see the author about that; " and we have conferences in that way with the author and with the chief. Sometimes it only takes a conference with the bureau editor. We point out to the bureau editor some things that can not go through in their present form, and he may accede to our suggestion. Another time he may say: "I will have to see Doctor Galloway," or "I will have to see Doctor Melvin," or "I will have to see this one or that one in regard to it before we consent to these changes." Sometimes there is a conflict and we have to go to the advisory committee of the publication committee or to the Secretary. Occasionally a bulletin is held up entirely.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the average size of these bulletins? Mr. HILL. The average size in printed pages will perhaps be from 60 to 75 pages. Of course the Yearbook is a different thing. The CHAIRMAN. Oh, yes; that is another proposition.

Mr. HILL. And the annual reports.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you edit the Yearbooks and the annual reports?

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How many errors do you say you not infrequently find in one of those bulletins of 60 or 70 pages?

Mr. HILL. Well, I would not describe them as errors.

The CHAIRMAN. How many things that require correction in your judgment or in the judgment of these other men?

Mr. HILL. Sometimes from three or four to a dozen.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought you said about thirty a little while ago. Mr. HILL. I said thirty, but many of them would be eliminated by the process I speak of.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I mean. How many things that require alteration is it frequent or usual for your readers to find in a bulletin of that sort on the first reading under your department— three or four, thirty or forty, eight or ten?

Mr. HILL. The first reader, you know, reads without reference to whether it requires correction or not. There are certain subjects. that he calls my attention to anyhow.

The CHAIRMAN. Who digs up these thirty that you use for illus tration?

Mr. HILL. The first reader.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well. Now, about how many errors have you known that first reader to find?