(Witness: Neill.) Bureau you could give from time to time the rate of wages in a certain industry? Mr. NEILL. No; but we do this: We take the wages in certain given industries each year, year after year, in the same industries and the same establishments, and they are published each year on exactly the same basis, and summaries are made showing the comparison year by year. The CHAIRMAN. Then you do summarize them in that way? Mr. NEILL. Oh, yes; undoubtedly; unquestionably. Now, on that very matter, for example, take a single agent: We have some men who have worked, say, in the steel industry, and handled that for a number of years. If we should take them and put them to getting wages, say, in cotton mills, they could not do one-half the amount of work there that they had been doing; and if you took a cotton man and put him into steel, he could not do half the former amount of work there. Those men have become practically experts in handling the different methods in which wages are paid in order to get what we want to get, the correct earnings per hour for comparative purposes. The CHAIRMAN. Then you do make summaries of the detailed information that you get? Mr. NEILL. Oh, yes-always; always. The method of presenting our work is that the first few pages of a report give the text, explaining in full the larger tables, and then every large table is summarized so that anyone that wants the information can, in the first few pages, get a summary of exactly what has been done. Then the students of the subject, who want to go further, can turn over to the more complete tables and follow them through and get all the detailed information they want. And I am thinking now of even having a third method: That is, first giving the results simply in text, in a very few pages, so that anyone can pick the volume up and in a very few minutes see exactly what it brings out. Then, second, having a slightly more elaborate text, going further with the summaries. Then, third, having the large, elaborate tables, which are invaluable for students, but not for the general reader, or the man of intelligence who simply wants to get the net results and see some of the different factors in the results. The CHAIRMAN. You spoke in the first instance of examining your own Department carefully in reference to duplication of work in that Department. Mr. NEILL. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. That was about the time of your taking charge, I suppose? Mr. NEILL. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. What percentage, if any appreciable percentage, did you find was being duplicated in your own Department? Mr. NEILL. Practically nothing. There were some cases in which the same work was apparently being done; but when we came to look into it we found, as I have said, that we had done the work in one way and another Bureau had done it in another way. The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean by that that you were both reaching the same result in a different method? Mr. NEILL. Oh, no; we were both investigating different phases of the same general subject. (Witness: Neill.) Let me take as an illustration a case that is up at present. There has been a great deal of discussion in Congress about it. Take the question of an investigation of child labor. There has been a question raised as to whether that had not been done by the census. Mr. North will say very frankly that the kind of investigation that is desired his Bureau can not make, and I will say that there are certain parts of the investigation that we could not undertake, that could only be made by census methods. The Census Bureau can furnish a large amount of very important and valuable data on the subject; but when that was done, unless it was supplemented by a further investigation, it would be of very little use, and so our investigation would be of little use unless we had the supplementary work of the census. They can give you data concerning the number of people at work in various occupations, and things of that kind; but let me put it this way: I understand that they will be able to show the death rate say, in given occupations. That death rate is an average. Suppose you take a given occupation; it is the average death rate that they give. Suppose, now, you get it in various sections of the country, and in the country as a whole. The most important question there is, what is that average composed of? Is it an inevitable death rate, or is it a death rate that could be and ought to be lessened? The CHAIRMAN: Yes; upon what factors is it based? Mr. NEILL. Yes. Now, our idea was to take certain industries, for example the best and the poorest factories of that industry, have a careful study made of those, running over months, and have the records, if possible, and go over their pay roll; or, rather, go over, for example, the death list of the city for several years past and select their employees and find what percentage of them died of certain diseases, and make a comparison. You might find then that this death rate was lower, perhaps, than the average in the best factories and higher in the poor factories. I am thinking of one industry now in which I am told-I have never looked into it carefully, but I believe it is true that probably 70 per cent of the men die of tuberculosis, and probably with proper ventilation and sanitation not over 10 per cent of them would die of tuberculosis. Those are things that can only be worked out by careful study on the spot, lasting over months, and under the charge of competent men. I have been asked "How would you undertake that kind of an investigation?" To begin an investigation of that kind would present an enormous problem. The way I would go about it would be to take the census records first and select from them the lines of work employing the greatest number of women and children, or those in which certain other factors were most important. Then I would take three or four of my best field agents, and I myself would go into the field, and we would make a general study of the whole situation, probably for some months, before we did any planning of any sort. Then we would sit down, after having covered the field in a general way and having gotten a knowledge of what the problem was, and proceed to map out a tentative plan of going at that kind of an investigation and getting at what we wanted. After having done that, we would have to submit our plan to people engaged in the various lines of work, experienced in the field, to find if that would get at what we wanted to get in the easiest way, or if there (Witness: Neill.) was a simpler way of getting at it; and it would be a matter of five or six months of hard study, with assistance from experts outside, before we would even know how to begin our problem. us. I state that to show you the nature of the problems that confront That is work that the Census Bureau is not equipped to do and ought not to be equipped to do. As Mr. North himself has said to me time and again, "We could not go into that kind of work. That intensive work is not a part of census methods." The CHAIRMAN. The terms "intensive" and "extensive" are used by you as practically synonomous with "detail" and "special" as compared with "wholesale" and "general?" Mr. NEILL. Yes; certainly. We go into what I may call intensive or almost microscopic work to show the detailed working out of these things of which they give us the general scope and the trend. That general trend, as I tried to make clear here, can not always be understood. It may be very misleading, unless you get down and find the details that further explain that general trend. It may represent the combination of two factors, or it may represent the combination of thirty factors, and how you are going to handle it and how you are going to eliminate this or that condition, or reach this or that net result, will depend on how many factors enter into making it. As you say, you have got to know how many factors you have in your equation. The CHAIRMAN. In order to undertake to analyze the whole proposition, you have to segregate it into its various factors? Mr. NEILL. Certainly. The CHAIRMAN. In that way the general information acquired by the Census Department is available simply as a basis? Mr. NEILL. Certainly. The CHAIRMAN. Is there any work being done in your Bureau that could be with propriety transferred to the Census Bureau? All Mr. NEILL. No; I think all the work we have ever undertaken that could be transferred has already been transferred. Formerly, before the permanent census was organized, the Eureau of Labor was the only bureau that had a permanent field force. When Congress wanted any work dore, whether or rot it bore directly on the furposes of the Bureau of Labor, it was turned over to that Eureau. For example, the first investigation of the question of marriage and divorce was made by the Bureau of Labor, although it had rothing to do with its work. Later on the statistics of cities were taken. those things were entirely outside the origiral scope of the Eureau, but they were undertaken simply because there was no other existing bureau with an adequate field force. Now those things have all been turned over to the Census Bureau. The present investigation of marriage and divorce is being taken by the census agents; the statistics of cities are now being conducted by census agents; and all work of that kind that did not have a direct bearing on or did not require an intensive study of labor or industrial cor ditiors has been taken up ard given to the Census Bureau. Our Bureau is trying to confire itself now more particularly to the study of labor problems or different aspects of industrial problems. The CHAIRMAN. Are you familiar with the statistical work performed by other bureaus in other Departments? 23848 07-44 (Witness: Neill.) Mr. NEILL. I do not think I am sufficiently familiar with that work, Mr. Chairman, to discuss it for record or to make any statement that would be of value to the committee. The CHAIRMAN. So that you would not be able to state whether the work done by the Bureau of Statistics is being duplicated in the Department of Commerce and Labor. Mr. NEILL. No; as I say, as far as the committee of our Department goes, we can only see that we do not duplicate any work in our own Department. It seems to me (if I may venture this suggestion, which just occurs to me now) that a similar board might be organized, composed of representatives from all Departments, which would meet once or twice a year and have submitted to it, before they were undertaken, all the proposed investigations of any bureau undertaking statistical work. They could be looked over then by this joint committee; and if any of them seemed to be duplications they could be further studied, and if they were duplications the duplication might in that way be prevented. The CHAIRMAN. Is there any such board in existence to-day? Mr. NEILL. No; I do not think there is. Outside of our own Department, I do not think there is any committee at all. The CHAIRMAN. I think that is a good suggestion. That would tend not to eliminate, but to harmonize-to unify. Mr. NEILL. Yes, sir. There is another thing that board might do. If they found, for example, that two bureaus or two departments were beginning investigations along very similar lines it might be that by extending one of them or both of them very slightly they might be coordinated and much more valuable results obtained. Very often, you know, in an investigation a little lapse here and there on an important point will render the work useless. For example, in sending out schedules, if a single question is answered in three or four different ways it is simply useless. You have to get it so that they all come in on exactly the same basis; otherwise you can not tabulate. In the same way you may get two investigations that, if they were just a little closer together, would have given you very valuable, wider results. Mr. SAMUEL. Very often the information gathered in one direction would dovetail in with the other? Mr. NEILL. Exactly. For example, I feel that certainly railroad labor is too important a thing to be eliminated from our annual wage report. The CHAIRMAN. Where is the only information we now have on that subject obtained? Through the Interstate Commerce Commission? Mr. NEILL. Through the Interstate Commerce Commission. I have already discussed the question informally with the statistician of the Commission, to see if it was not possible that they could continue to collect the figures, but do it in such a way that we could use them in connection with our figures; in other words, collect them on such a basis that we could add them to our figures and give a fuller report than we now give. I am afraid it is going to be impossible, because of the methods of railroad payments. I do not think we can ever get it reduced to a uniform basis. The CHAIRMAN. Can you state offhand the number of departments (Witness: Neill.) that have statistical bureaus connected with them? For instance, we have the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture. Then we have the general statistical bureau over which Mr. Austin presides. Mr. NEILL. That is in our Department. The CHAIRMAN. That is in your Department? Mr. NEILL. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. How many statistical bureaus are there in the Department of Commerce and Labor? Mr. NEILL. There are the Bureau of Labor, the Bureau of Statistics, and the Bureau of the Census. The Bureau of Immigration has published a good deal of statistical work. I do not know that the Bureau of Corporations has yet undertaken any work of that kind. I do not recall any others now, but there are four of five, at least, in our own Department. Outside of that Department the only one that occurs to my mind now is the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture. The CHAIRMAN. This commission that you speak of might well be composed of the heads of the various bureaus? Mr. NEILL. Yes; I say I think if the heads of the statistical bureaus of all departments were combined into a committee, and required to meet once in so often, and each one submit an outline of the work that was to be undertaken the following year, it would not only avoid duplication, but they might find that two of them would get on ground so close to each other that by conferenceThe CHAIRMAN. A little increase in scope? Mr. NEILL (continuing). By a little increase in scope, they could bring them together, and almost double or treble the value of each study, on account of the assistance it would get from the other study. I think, Mr. Chairman, in a word, that there is a very large field for improvement; not so much in the exclusion of duplication, for I think there is not so much of that, but in the question of coordinating, harmonizing, and bringing together, in such a way that they will assist one another, the Federal bureaus of statistics. The CHAIRMAN. Nothing of that kind exists to-day, I suppose? The CHAIRMAN. Of course no bureau chief has any power to originate a proposition of that kind? Mr. NEILL. It does exist in our own Bureau. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; in this particular Bureau. The CHAIRMAN. But, I say, there is no coordination between bureaus? Mr. NEILL. Yes; as I say, Mr. North is the chairman of the committee. Mr. North, Mr. Austin, and myself are a committee in our own Department, organized with a view to do exactly that work of excluding duplication; and we have also taken up the question of seeing if we could not bring about coordination. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; but at present there is no coordination of all the bureaus? The CHAIRMAN. I think that covers everything we wish to ask you. We are much obliged to you, Mr. Neill. |