(Witness: Olmsted.) The CHAIRMAN. Then, so far as your observation goes, there is no difficulty in your own Department in getting appointees from the civil-service examinations? Mr. OLMSTED. So far. In fact, I will say that the people I have secured from the Civil Service Commission have been very valuable people so far. I have had no trouble at all either in getting the people or in finding them satisfactory when secured. The CHAIRMAN. Have you any knowledge as to how many eligibles there now are? Mr. OLMSTED. No, sir; I have not. The CHAIRMAN. Or how many there may be on the waiting list? Mr. OLMSTED. I have not any idea at all. The CHAIRMAN. How do these salaries that you pay compare with the salaries that are paid in employments of a like character in private life, if there are any private employments with which your Bureau can be properly compared? Mr. ÓLMSTED. I think that our higher grade, higher paid clerks, who are engaged in very important computations and calculations, could probably, if they had the opportunity, if a position were open, earn more salary in similar work outside than they can in the office. For instance, we lose men every once in a while who have been offered higher salaries. I have been offered higher salaries myself. One of our experts there, who was receiving $1,800 in our office, was given a position in New York at $4,000 to do exactly the same kind of work. Another man that we had employed in field work was offered a higher salary outside, and accepted it. We have that hanging over us all the time. When we get a good man, and have him trained well, somebody outside finds out about him and offers him inducements to leave us. The CHAIRMAN. Where did these two particular people happen to go? Mr. OLMSTED. They were offered an opportunity to make more money. The CHAIRMAN. In what employment? Mr. OLMSTED. In some statistical work; I do not know just what. The CHAIRMAN. Private work? Mr. OLMSTED. Private work. I can myself, at any moment, get a much higher salary than I am receiving now, in statistical work. The CHAIRMAN. And your salary now is what? Mr. OLMSTED. Three thousand five hundred dollars. I will tell you why that is. The statisticians of the country are few and far between, and a man who is trained in statistics is in demand. I have found that out in my own experience. I have been in demand many times. The CHAIRMAN. You mean a man who is trained in statistics-not only a man who can put statistics together, I suppose, but who can analyze them? Mr. OLMSTED. Analyze them and compare them and correlate them. The CHAIRMAN. And get results that the average man can appreciate? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes. There are only a few of us in the country. You can count them on your two hands. (Witness: Olmsted.) The CHAIRMAN. I do not suppose that statistics are of very much. value, if they are gathered together in a big mass, without any analysis? Mr. OLMSTED. No; they are of no value at all. The CHAIRMAN. I want to inquire about a few of these men, as to their particular duties. Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Here you have an editorial assistant at $2,300. Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. What duties does he discharge? Mr. OLMSTED. That is a gentleman named Daugherty. We publish every month in the Bureau a little paper, which you receive a copy of, I suppose, called the Crop Reporter. About two or three years ago it was found that that Crop Reporter, the way it was managed under Mr. Hyde's administration, was not satisfactory. Mr. Hyde could not give it personal attention, and it was not edited properly. The material that was printed in it did not go in in proper shape, and it was not properly arranged, and so on. So Mr. Hyde had Mr. Daugherty, who is a very finished gentleman, an educated, cultured gentleman, and a fine statistician, a very able man, appointed as editorial assistant for the purpose of supervising the publication of the Crop Reporter, which he did, and established the Crop Reporter on a very excellent basis. He rearranged things and superintended the material that went into it and edited it and laid plans for its future publication, so that it became really more valuable then than it had been before; very much more readable and much more in demand, that the editions had to be enormously increased to supply the demand for it. Mr. Daugherty continued in that office, and still continues in it; but we publish in the Crop Reporter reports of the European crop conditions, and we had an agent in Europe collecting that information, whose reports were not satisfactory either to the Department or to Mr. Daugherty, as editorial assistant. They did not come in good shape, and we frequently found that they were wrong, and we did not know his basis of information. So Mr. Hyde, just before I came back there, say about two years ago, decided, as Mr. Daugherty constantly complained of that feature of the Crop Reporter, to send him to Europe himself to lay proper plans and get in touch with proper sources of information, so that that material for the Crop Reporter, which is vastly important and which occupies a large space every month, should come to us in proper form and in reliable shape. Mr. Daugherty was, therefore, sent abroad for that purpose. He has been collecting information and preparing it for the Crop Reporter and laying a basis for the collection of future information-all for the Crop Reporter, nothing else, of which he is editorial assistant. I do not know how long he has been there now; nearly two years, I believe. The CHAIRMAN. He is away now? Mr. OLMSTED. He is away now; but I shall bring him back. I have already spoken to the Secretary about it, and in a month or two from now I propose to bring him back to America, because he has the ground so well prepared, from all I can judge from his letters and the reports that I have seen, that I can send another (Witness: Olmsted.) man over there to do that work now at a lower salary, and bring him back and use him in my office. He is too valuable a man; do not want to spare him any longer, and I will bring him back and put him in charge of this work here again. He is an extremely valuable man. The CHAIRMAN. What are the duties of these assistant chiefs of the Bureau? Here is Mr. Stephen D. Fessenden and Mr. C. C. Clark. Mr. OLMSTED. What was Mr. Fessenden's designation at that time? The CHAIRMAN. Assistant chief of the Bureau. Mr. OLMSTED. He was assistant chief; he is no longer assistant chief. Mr. Fessenden at that time was assistant chief of the Bureau, but he is now a special field agent. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Fessenden? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes; he is from New England. He is a member of the famous Fessenden family; his uncle was Secretary of the Treasury, and Senator Frye, from your State, and Senator HaleThe CHAIRMAN. What work is he engaged in now? Mr. OLMSTED. He is engaged in collecting agricultural statistics in the New England States for the Bureau, and he was appointed special field agent. He is no longer assistant chief. Dr. C. C. Clark, who was formerly chief clerk, is now the assistant chief of the Bureau and has been promoted to fill his position. The CHAIRMAN. The tabulated expenditures under your Department, found on pages 261, 262, and 263, with the exception of those at the bottom of the page, relate to expenditures in the city of Washington, I suppose. Do they not? Mr. OLMSTED. No; the heading of the table is "Statutory salaries, traveling expenses, and station and field expenses." That would include also expenses outside of Washington-"traveling expenses and station and field expenses." The CHAIRMAN. Yes; but they relate to your force in Washington? Mr. OLMSTED. Not the traveling expenses; not necessarily. They would be traveling expenses of people outside of Washington. The CHAIRMAN. But are not the expenditures set out on pages 261, 262, and 263 practically all confined to your force in Washington except so far as they are traveling expenses which would be incurred if a Washington man traveled outside? Mr. OLMSTED. I judge that they are, from the names of the clerks down here and the designations. The CHAIRMAN. Now, take the tabulation headed "Outside of Washington," beginning at the bottom of 263 and going over to 264 and 265. Mr. OLMSTED. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. That is your force outside of Washington? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes; it is. That is right. The CHAIRMAN. Are these special field agents and special agents that you have here men that are employed in the collection of statistics in a general way in the manner you have already described? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir; they are. The CHAIRMAN. That is, in the field and getting in personal touch with the conditions they are looking for? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir. (Witness: Olmsted.) The CHAIRMAN. And not necessarily all confined to the cotton crop? Mr. OLMSTED. Oh, all crops. The CHAIRMAN. But all matters involved in the collection of agricultural statistics? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir; that is correct. The CHAIRMAN. Of the general character to which you have called attention? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. What is done with the work of all these field inspectors, special field agents, and special agents that are in the field, and with the statistics that are collected by the Bureau from the correspondents of the Department? What do you do with the results of the work of these individual men? Mr. OLMSTED. As I have already explained, I think, these men report to us every month. The CHAIRMAN. You have explained that in connection with the Mr. OLMSTED. Exactly the same method of procedure is followed in other crops. The CHAIRMAN. Are we to understand that in case of all the subjects that you investigate you take the results of the work of these men who make the investigation, and of the correspondence that you engage in in connection with that subject, and then tabulate and analyze them so that you get a concrete result? Mr. OLMSTED. That is the idea. The CHAIRMAN. Which can be compared with the results from year to year? Mr. OLMSTED. Exactly so. The CHAIRMAN. So that whoever has occasion to investigate the work of your Bureau, or get information therefrom, can get, at stated periods, from time to time, the concrete, analyzed result of your work? Mr. ÓLMSTED. You have stated that exactly as it is. We deal with all the crops in just exactly the same way that we do with cotton. The reports of these various agencies, voluntary and salaried, are brought together in parallel columns for each quarter or each month. The CHAIRMAN. And if any gentleman desirous of obtaining information in relation to any particular crop as to which you collect information writes your Bureau, you have certain periods as to which you could give him concretely, by turning right to your records, the result in connection with that particular subject? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir; we can do it, and we can do it very conveniently, for the reason that we keep it in print. We publish it in printed form in the Crop Reporter in parallel columns, month by month, for all these crops, and that is on file. The CHAIRMAN. And is the Crop Reporter the medium through which you get to the public the result of the work of your Bureau? Mr. OLMSTED. That is one medium. The CHAIRMAN. What other mediums do you have? Mr. OLMSTED. As rapidly as we make these estimates we furnish mimeograph copies to the principal newspapers of the country, and we send them all out the same day, and they are published in the press all over the country. They are so important that the telegraph (Witness: Olmsted.) systems of the country hold their wires open for a few minutes-both the Postal and the Western Union- and refuse all commercial business or any business of any other kind until these reports can be transmitted to the press of the country. We give them out to the Associated Press and to the United Press, and to the representatives of other press associations, and also send by mail, the same evening, mimeograph copies of the estimate to the principal papers of the country. The CHAIRMAN. Do you make daily reports? Mr. OLMSTED. Oh, no; monthly reports. The CHAIRMAN. Monthly reports? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. So that when you do get around to your monthly reports those go not only by these mimeograph copies, but go by telegraph to the important papers of the country? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir; through the press associations. The CHAIRMAN. And they become part of the news of the Associated Press? Mr. OLMSTED. They do, and of the United Press; and in addition to that we publish them in the Crop Reporter from month to month, and publish them in comparison with similar figures for the same month in previous years. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other documents or pamphlets issued by your Bureau? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir. Every year we prepare for the yearbook, with which you are familiar, what is called a statistical appendix, in which all of the figures for each different crop are brought together and placed in comparison with the figures for previous years, so that anyone can look at them. We have that appendix published separately also, as well as bound in the report, so that in answering people seeking information along the lines of our work we can just send them a marked copy of the appendix to the yearbook, not only for this year, but for a series of years. The CHAIRMAN. Is that a summary or collection of the information you have been sending out monthly? Mr. OLMSTED. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. All collected in one table? Mr. OLMSTED. All collected in one table, for the current year and preceding years. Then we issue bulletins on various subjects from time to time. My annual report there shows what we prepared last year in the way of special bulletins, etc. The CHAIRMAN. Those are pamphlets or leaflets? Mr. OLMSTED. Pamphlets or leaflets; always less than a hundred pages. Here they are. They are the things that are outside of our regular crop-reporting work. Those are the things we have issued during the year. [Referring to printed documents.] The CHAIRMAN. Are the publications which you refer to in your report as numbers 35, 36, 37, and up to 47, inclusive, bound publications or pamphlet publications? Mr. OLMSTED. No, sir; they are not bound. They are pamphlet publications. The CHAIRMAN. Bulletins such as you have just described? |