(Witnesses: Hill, Zappone.)

Mr. HILL. Or more responsible work.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Yes; or more responsible work.
Mr. HILL. Exactly; that is about the idea.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. I do not know but what that is right, too.. Mr. ZAPPONE. Mr. Chairman, if you have finished discussing that particular subject, I would like to return to the subject of editors in the other bureaus, and ask Mr. Hill to answer the question I put to him while that matter was under discussion, as it will clear up the record to some extent.

The question I asked was whether it is not true that some of the editors in one or two of the different bureaus, in addition to their editorial functions, perform scientific work, or duties of a miscellaneous or occasional character in no way related to or connected with editing notably in the Office of Experiment Stations, which I named at that time. For instance, there is a Mr. Beal, chief of the division of editing in that office. He is the gentleman that Doctor True referred to as assisting him in examining the financial accounts of the various State experiment stations all over the country. They divide up in a way on this inspection work. I think that possibly in another bureau the conditions are the same, but I am not sufficiently familiar with it to make a statement, and I would therefore like Mr. Hill to tell us about that.

Mr. HILL. It would be a little difficult for me to answer that question.

Mr. ZAPPONE. In a general way, if you please.

Mr. HILL. My impression is that there is a good deal of work devolving upon these gentlemen, assigned to them by the chief, which is apart from the actual editing. At the same time, the intention in the appointment of these men was that while being paid by the Bureau where they were employed, they should be regarded as my men, helping me in my work. They are supposed to study the character of our work, and to assist us by bringing their bulletins as far as possible into line with our requirements before we get them. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. By your direction, or by their chief's direction?

Mr. HILL. It ought to be by my direction; and some of them do that. I can think of one man now that always comes to us, when he is in any quandary, for us to decide on everything except those few things that relate particularly to his chief's views.

Mr. ZAPPONE. Take the case of Mr. Beal: Have you not knowledge of the fact that he is a scientific investigator, and assists Doctor True on this experiment-station work?

Mr. HILL. Oh, yes; you might call him an inspector of stations

to a certain extent.

Mr. ZAPPONE. That is what I wished you to say, Mr. Hill, because I know it to be the fact that he is a scientific investigator.

Mr. HILL. I have understood that both Doctor Allen and Mr. Beal, particularly, do a great deal of that work.

Mr. ZAPPONE. This shows that their duties are not confined exelusively to editing. This is the point that I wish to bring out.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Have any of the editors or associate editors in your division any other kind of work to perform?

(Witnesses: Hill, Zappone.)

Mr. HILL. My first assistant has a good deal of supervisory work besides editing. In fact, half or perhaps more than half of his work is of a supervisory character. We have a very busy office. When I tell you that we handled last year 6,400 separate requisitions for printing work, you will see that our office must be busy, with a great many people coming to it. A great many of them come to me; but my assistant tries to dispose of all the routine cases, and it keeps him pretty busy.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. $1,800 and two at $1,600. of their work?

You have three assistant editors, one at
What is the difference in the character

Mr. HILL. The man at $1.800 is practically the chief of the indexing section. He has special charge of that.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. What is the work of the two $1,600 men? Mr. HILL. They are just assistant editors. There are three at $1,600. There is an editorial clerk at $1,600 and two assistant editors at $1,600; and they ought to be all made assistant editors. Their work is similar. The editorial clerk at $1,400 also does practically the same work, but he is the new man. We bring a man in at that figure. It is the "entrance salary," as it were, to our editorial force. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Your chief clerk, I presume, has the same duties as those other chief clerks?

Mr. HILL. Yes; and they are pretty arduous, because it gives just as much trouble to a chief clerk to look after 100 cheap people as it does to look after 100 dear people; and while our salary expense is comparatively small, the salary list is very large. We have a very large number of employees.

Mr. ZAPPONE. I would like to add that in addition to his duties as chief clerk he also audits the accounts of that division. I know that the accounts come to my office in the most excellent condition.

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Mr. Zappone.

Mr. ZAPPONE. He is a very superior man.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Have you any clerks in your division that are employed in any other Department or bureau?

Mr. HILL. Occasionally there is a detail to the Secretary's office, which is the only thing that is permitted us by law, if I mistake not. Mr. ZAPPONE. "I think the chairman means in other branches of the Government service, at additional compensation.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Have you any employees in any other branch of the service?

Mr. HILL. Oh, no, sir; no, sir.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Have you ever had any?

Mr. HILL. Never. I once employed a man, in ignorance, who was holding a position in another place, but he was not getting any pay there. He was a per diem man, and he was laid off; but the auditor held that I had no business to do so. That is the only time I have ever had such a case. He was a man who was not receiving compensation elsewhere. He held a commission from the other concern, but his compensation was so much a day when actually at work, and he was not actually at work when I employed him. That is the only case of the kind.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. It was a violation that was not a viola

(Witnesses: Hill, Zappone.)

Mr. HILL. I do not think it was a violation myself. I think if Mr. Zappone had been the auditor there would have been no trouble.

Mr. ZAPPONE. Those matters have to be watched very closely in our Department, Mr. Chairman, on account of that law, which pertains exclusively to our Department; and our auditors sometimes hew pretty close to the line, because we do not want to run the risk of a disallowance by the Treasury Department.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Are any of those persons employed on the outside?

Mr. HILL. Occasionally a man is allowed, on application, to do a little outside work of the character I will describe. He is obliged to apply; he is not allowed to take any work, even of the most temporary character, without applying for permission, and its acceptance has to be recommended by me and referred to the Secretary, where it involves any compensation. It is very rarely-I do not think it has happened more than a dozen times since that rule was established-that we have had to make an application of that kind. One of my men assists his wife in running a little publication occasionally; but we do not allow them to assume any responsibility outside of our office. For instance, one of our artists did some heraldic work, painted some china for a man; but he did it just temporarily, during his evenings. We would not have allowed him to undertake a contract for any such work. We would not, for instance, allow a man to read proof for a publication that came out regularly. One of my men had a proposition made to him to assist in the proof reading of a publication of some consequence; and he consulted me, and I advised him against it. I said: "You will be having two masters." Said I: "If you simply wanted to go two or three evenings and help a man who got behind with a little job of proof reading, I would make no objection; but this is assuming a steady responsibility, and I think it would be unwise."

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Do those editors write articles for journals and periodicals outside of the Division?

Mr. HILL. Sometimes, but very rarely. I have done it myself on rare occasions; perhaps half a dozen times in twelve years. One of my editors, my first assistant, recently brought me a little article of about six pages of typewriting which he had prepared, and wanted my approval of it, as it related to the business of the Department. He was proposing to contribute it without remuneration, however, simply to help out a space writer, a syndicate writer, who had asked him for some notes from which to prepare an article. He got into it, and wrote an article which was so good that the syndicate writer wanted to use it as it stood. That is all.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. You censor all articles that are written outside of the Bureau, do you?

Mr. HILL. The rule of the Department, not only in my division, but in all of them, is that any departmental matter that is discussed by a man for publication must be submitted by him to his chief, whether he gets compensation for it or not, and whether he has special permission or not. If I were to write an article upon the meat-inspection work, I would feel bound to show it to Doctor Melvin, and not publish it unless Doctor Melvin said, "That is all right." That is your understanding, is is not, Mr. Zappone?

(Witnesses: Hill, Zappone.)

Mr. ZAPPONE. It is, sir. Oftentimes, when a bureau inadvertently endeavors to issue instructions or forms that overlap the work of another bureau or division the Chief of the Publications Division will bring it to the attention of the bureaus concerned, so that they may be apprised of the matter before it has gone any further, and take it up and discuss it with a view of preventing any duplication of work. I think that is one of your duties; is it not, Mr. Hill?

Mr. HILL. That is one of the things that, as departmental editor, devolve upon me exclusively, I think. For instance, a man gets up a blank in which he discusses methods or gives instructions in regard to the methods of preparing accounts. I would send that in to Mr. Zappone and see whether it squared with the fiscal regulations of the Department.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Your censorship applies to articles which are published without remuneration as well as to those which are published for remuneration?

Mr. HILL. Entirely: yes, sir.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Does it apply in the case of delivering lectures? Are the lecturers supposed to outline what they are going to talk about?

Mr. HILL. They are supposed to. I do not know how far that goes, but I think every chief would expect his subordinate to give him a chance to look over his paper before he went outside to read it. I think it is generally done. I could not speak for that in other divisions. I know I would certainly expect it. If one of my men went out to give a talk upon the publication work of the Department of Agriculture, I am quite sure that he would bring me the paper that he had prepared before he read it.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. You have no work outside of Washington, have you?

Mr. HILL. No work outside of Washington; no, sir. Once in a while I have sent the chief of the illustration work to investigate some new process of illustration which it was thought might possibly be made available with economy in our work. I think he has made two trips of that kind in the course of the last five years at a probable total expense of $60 or $70. But we have practically, I may say, nothing outside of Washington.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Are all of the clerks in your division fully employed?

Mr. HILL. Very fully, sir; to the full extent of their capacity. I think I may say with some gratification, as an evidence of improvement in the character of the personnel and in the assiduity with which the great majority of my people attend to their work, that we have increased the work of the division every year from 10 to 20 per cent, with an increase of the expenses running from 3 to 5 per cent.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. With what increase in the personnel of the force?

Mr. HILL. The increase in the expense would be very much in the same proportion as the increase in the force.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. How do you make promotions?
Mr. HILL. Of course you mean to ask how I start to get a promo-
I do not make any, of course. I have no promotive power.

tion.

(Witnesses: Hill, Zappone.)

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Your recommendations are to the Secretary, I suppose?

Mr. HILL. But I make the recommendations for promotions, when a vacancy occurs in a grade, after consultation with the chief of that line of work. (I can not call them, for convenience, anything but chiefs, though they are not chiefs.) Taking that into account, and also the efficiency reports for the last year or two, it generally resolves itself into a question of two or three people. For instance, we will say an $840 vacancy occurs. I will go over the $720 people who are eligible for promotion under the laws of the classified service; and as a result of consultation with those who have direct charge of the work of those people, and the efficiency reports, we will get down to perhaps two or three.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. How do you reach that conclusion?

Mr. HILL. By consultation with the gentlemen who have charge of their work, and by reference to the efficiency reports. For instance, if a man's efficiency report does not aggregate 85 out of the total of 100, he is thrown out at once.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Are your efficiency reports arrived at by the same method as in the other bureaus?

Mr. HILL. I suppose so, though I hardly know about that. I do not know exactly what system they follow. I have never discussed that with them.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Is there not an established rule as to securing those efficiency reports in the Department?

Mr. HILL. I do.not think there is. At least I have always used my own judgment in filling up an efficiency report.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Does the same efficiency procedure that obtains in the other bureaus obtain in your Bureau?

Mr. HILL. I think so; yes, sir. I think so.

Mr. ZAPPONE. So far as the efficiency blanks themselves are concerned, they are all made out uniformly, and made out under instructions from the Secretary.

Mr. HILL. From the Secretary; we make them out every six months.

Mr. ZAPPONE. And those questions are passed on by the general Department board on promotions, consisting of the chief clerk, the appointment clerk, and the chief of the bureau or division in which the vacancy occurs.

Mr. HILL. Exactly. The chief clerk has to coincide in my recommendation, and the appointment clerk has to certify that the appointment is one which is legal and in accordance with the regulations of the classified service.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Have those clerks access to the efficiency reports?

Mr. HILL. Well, I do not keep them, you understand; I turn them over as soon as I make them; but I should not hesitate to show any of my clerks (although they are called "confidential ") his own or her own report. I would not show them the reports made on anybody else, because the instructions that I have received are that these ratings are confidential. But as I do not keep them, you know, it would only be possible for such a request to be made and

23848-07-33