If there is a criticism, it is that the bill failed to include in its general scheme of consolidation certain officers of the Department of State, such as chiefs and assistant chiefs of bureaus and divisions, assistant solicitors, drafting officers, and in fact all officers who do not belong to the clerical force. It would have improved the bill if such officers had been graded and made eligible for transfer to the foreign service, whenever it seemed advisable to send them into the foreign field. It would unquestionably improve the efficiency of the departmental organization and give them a proper standing not only with foreign diplomats but also with the members of our foreign service. Of course such a provision would impose upon the officers affected by it the passing of the examinations for entry into the foreign-service grades, but that ought not to be a hardship upon men holding these responsible offices, if they are qualified to perform their departmental duties.

The Rogers bill, if it is reintroduced in the Sixty-eighth Congress, as it doubtless will be, since it apparently has called forth no serious opposition, may be improved by including provisions grading officers of the Department of State. It is to be hoped that this can be done without jeopardizing the passage of the bill.

Taken altogether the bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives. and which apparently failed in the Senate only for lack of time to act upon it, was excellent. It was a long step toward putting the permanent service, which is caring for American interests abroad, on a sound basis and establishing a new system which would make for increased efficiency and better service in this important branch of our Government.

ROBERT LANSING.

FEBRUARY 2, 1923.

MY DEAR MR. ROGERS: I thank you for sending me a copy of your bill for the improvement of the foreign service of the United States (H. R. 13880) which I have read with satisfaction as it conforms with the ideas which I so frequently urged before your committee and before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, when I was Secretary of State.

If you have had before you the hearings before the committees from 1915 to 1919, you will find how earnestly I pressed for legislation similar to that embodied in the present bill, although this bill is a better one and goes further than any that I suggested. My chief purpose was to obtain an adequate salary for members of the regular Diplomatic Service, which was so meager under the law that no young man could enter the service unless he had a private income in addition to the salary which he received. This limitation of possible candi-dates for the service to young men of means is most undemocratic. It prevents bright and capable men, who would like to enter the service, but who have no outside income to supplement the small salary of a diplomatic secretary of the lower grades, from taking the diplomatic examinations. The situation has been one which has distressed those who have seen the United States, by continuing its policy of underpaying the regular service, make the possession of wealth an essential qualification for entry into the service.

The consolidation of the two arms of the foreign service, the diplomatic and consular, is excellent and will undoubtedly materially increase the efficiency of the general service. The rigid line drawn between the two branches has prevented the utilization of consular officers in diplomatic matters, however ad-visable it might be. This inelasticity, furthermore, has been due in a measure to the failure to have similar scales of salaries in the two services, a difference which your bill cures by consolidation and proper grading.

I earnestly hope that your bill will be passed. It is a good bill and will do much to improve the foreign service and will offer inducements to enterprising young men to enter the service and make it a career.

I am, my dear Mr. Rogers,

Very sincerely yours,

ROBERT LANSING.

THE WHITE HOUSE, Washington.

MY DEAR MR. PORTER: Following the reference made in my recent message to the need of foreign service reorganization and improvement, I desire now to refer to the bill, H. R. 17, introduced by Representative John Jacob Rogers,

FOREIGN SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES.

35

H. R. 13880, which passed the House of Representatives and was reported without amendment by the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate in the Fourth Session of the Sixty-seventh Congress.

This bill had the support of President Harding, and I trust that it may receive the favorable consideration of your committee.

Very truly yours,

Hon. STEPHEN G. PORTER,

CALVIN COOLIDGE.

House of Representatives.

Chairman Committee on Foreign Relations,

THE WHITE HOUSE, Washington.

MY DEAR MR. ROGERS: I have written a letter to Chairman Porter and one to Senator Lodge indorsing your bill, H. R. 17, for the reorganization and improvement of the foreign service. The four main features of the measure appear to be complementary and to provide an adequate basis for a general reorganization of this important branch of the Government service.

In view of the peculiar requirements of the foreign career and the length of time that the service has operated on a civil service basis the retirement provision would appear to be of special importance in accomplishing the objects sought. I trust that the bill may be well received.

Very truly yours,

Hon. JOHN JACOB ROGERS,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

CALVIN COOLIDGE.

Mr. ROGERS. I print herewith an amendment which I propose to offer at the proper time as a substitute for section 16 of H. R. 17:

SEC. 16. The President is authorized to prescribe rules and regulations for the establishment of a foreign service retirement and disability system to be administered under the direction of the Secretary of State and in accordance with the following principles, to wit:

(a) In no case shall the annual cost to the Government of the United States exceed the total annual contributions of foreign service officers.

(b) There is hereby created a special fund to be known as the foreign service retirement and disability fund.

(c) Five per cent of the basic salary of all foreign service officers eligible to retirement shall be contributed to the foreign service retirement and disability fund and the Secretary of the Treasury is directed on the date on which this act takes effect to cause such deductions to be made and the sums transferred on the books of the Treasury Department to the credit of the foreign service retirement and disability fund for the payment of annuities, refunds, and allowances herein provided.

(d) All basic salaries in excess of $9,000 per annum shall be treated as $9,000 and all basic salaries less than $2,500 shall be treated as $2,500.

(e) When any foreign service officer has reached the age of 65 years and rendered at least 15 years of service he shall be retired: Provided, That the President may in his discretion retain any such officer on active duty for such period not exceeding five years as he may deem for the interest of the United States.

(f) Annuities shall be paid to retired foreign-service officers under the following classification, based upon length of service and at the following percentages of the average annual basic salary for the 10 years next preceding the date of retirement: Class A, 30 years or more, 60 per cent; class B, from 27 to 30 years, 54 per cent; class C, from 24 to 27 years, 48 per cent; class D, from 21 to 24 years, 42 per cent; class E, from 18 to 21 years, 36 per cent; class F, from 15 to 18 years, 30 per cent.

(g) Those officers who retire before having contributed for each year of service shall have withheld from their annuities to the credit of the foreign-service retirement and disability fund such proportion of 5 per cent as the number of years in which they did not contribute bears to the total length of service.

(h) The Secretary of the Treasury is directed to invest from time to time in interest-bearing securities of the United States such portions of the foreignservice retirement and disability fund as in his judgment may not be immediately

required for the payment of annuities, refunds, and allowances, and the income derived from such investments shall constitute a part of said fund.

(i) None of the moneys mentioned in this section shall be assignable, either in law or equity, or be subject to execution, levy, or attachment, garnishment, or other legal process.

(j) In case an annuitant dies without having received in annuities an amount equal to the total amount of his contributions from salary with interest thereon at 4 per cent per annum compounded up to the time of his death, the excess of the said accumulated contributions over the said annuity payments shall be paid to his or her legal representatives; and in case a foreign service officer shall die without having reached the retirement age the total amount of his contributions with accrued interest shall be paid to his legal representatives.

(k) The President is authorized from time to time to establish, by Executive order, a list of places in tropical countries which by reason of climatic or other extreme conditions are to be classed as unhealthful posts, and each year of duty at such posts, while so classed, inclusive of regular leaves of absence, shall be counted as one year and a half, and so on in like proportion in reckoning the length of service for the purposes of retirement.

(1) Whenever any foreign service officer, after the date of his retirement, accepts a position of employment the emoluments of which are greater than the annuity received by him from the United States Government by virtue of his retirement under this act, the amount of the said annuity during the continuance of such employment shall be reduced by an equal amount: Provided, That all retired foreign service officers shall notify the Secretary of State once a year of any positions of employment accepted by them stating the amount of compensation received therefrom and whenever any such officer fails to so report it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to order the payment of the annuity to be suspended until such report is received.

(m) The Secretary of State is authorized to expend from surplus money to the credit of the foreign service retirement and disability fund an amount not exceeding $5,000 for the expenses necessary in carrying out the provisions of this section, including actuarial advice.

(n) The Secretary of State shall submit annually estimates of appropriations necessary to continue this section in full force and effect and shall make a comparative annual report showing all receipts and disbursements on account of refunds, allowances, and annuities, together with the total number of persons receiving annuities and the amounts paid them.

(0) Any diplomatic secretary or consular officer who has been or any foreign service officer who may hereafter be promoted from the classified service to the grade of ambassador or minister, or appointed to any official position in the Department of State shall be entitled to all the benefits of this section in the same manner and under the same conditions as foreign service officers.

SEC. 16. (a) There is hereby created a special fund to be known as the foreign service retirement and disability fund which shall be administered separately and apart from the civil service retirement and disability fund as provided in the act of May 22, 1920.

(b) The Secretary of the Treasury shall on the date on which this act takes effect cause deductions to be made at the rate of 5 per cent on that portion of the basic salary not in excess of $9,000 of all officers eligible to retirement under the provisions of this act and said sums shall be transferred on the books of the Treasury Department to the credit of the foreign service retirement and disability fund for the payment of annuities, refunds, and allowances as herein provided. (c) When any foreign service officer has reached the age of 65 years he shall be retired: Provided, That the President may in his discretion retain any foreignservice officer who has reached the age of 65 years for such period not exceeding five years as he may deem for the interests of the United States.

(d) For the purposes of this act the period of service shall be computed from the date of original oath of office as secretary in the diplomatic service, consul general, consul, commercial agent, vice consul of career, vice consul, consular assistant, interpreter, or student interpreter, and shall include periods of service at different times in either the Diplomatic or Consular Service, or while on assignment to the Department of State, or on special duty, but all periods of separation from the service and so much of any period of leave of absence as may exceed six months shall be excluded: Provided, That the President is authorized from time to time to establish, by Executive order, a list of places in tropical countries, which by reason of climatic or other extreme conditions are to be classed as unhealthful posts, and each year of duty at such posts while so classed, inclusive

of regular leaves of absence, shall be counted as one year and a half, and so on in like proportion in reckoning the length of service for the purposes of retirement: Provided further, That service in the Department of State prior to appointment as a foreign service officer may be included in the period of service, in which case the officer shall pay into the foreign service retirement and disability fund a special contribution equal to 5 per cent of his annual salary for each year of such employment, with interest thereon to date of payment compounded annually at 4 per cent.

(e) No annuity shall be paid on that part of the annual basic salary in excess of $9,000.

(f) All appropriate provisions of the act approved May 22, 1920, entitled "An act for the retirement of employees in the classified civil service and for other purposes, as amended, except the maximum and minimum restrictions on annuities contained in the provisos of section 2 thereof, are hereby made applicable to foreign service officers: Provided, That wherever the words "civil service retirement and disability fund" occur in the said act the words "foreign service retirement and disability fund" shall be understood: Provided further, That hereafter no amendment to the act approved May 22, 1920, shall apply to the foreign service unless expressly so stated in each case.

(Thereupon, at 11.55 o'clock a. m., the committee adjourned to meet again at 10 o'clock a. m., Tuesday, January 15, 1924.)