but that of the transportation of himself and his family from the post may arise later.

The second point concerned the number of letters of inquiry regarding the diplomatic service, to which I referred. I asked the bureau of appointments to inform me on that point, and I have here a memorandum which, perhaps, emphasizes it better than I was able to do yesterday:

The number of tentative inquiries regarding the diplomatic service was somewhat greater in 1923 than in previous years.

About 3,000 diplomatic pamphlets were sent out in 1923—perhaps 500 more than in any year previously. That is in response to inquiries about the foreign service.

About 45 formal applications for secretaryships were received in 1923, which is about the same number as in 1922 and 1921.

I think that demonstrates the fact that while the interest is increasing, yet the situation which we have endeavored to explain during the last two or three days is such as to discourage this increasing number of interested prospective applicants who are of the caliber which we desire from entering the service.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. What number was designated out of the 45 who applied?

Mr. WRIGHT. If my memory serves me correctly, 36 were designated to take the examination.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. During 1923 ?

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. There was only one examination for the diplomatic service in 1923?

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes; only one examination, which was held in July, and in which 11 applicants passed.

Mr. LINTHICUM. I note you sent out 3,000 pamphlets. I presume those were responses to inquiries from people who wanted to enter the service or thought they wanted to enter the service.

Mr. WRIGHT. All of them were inquiries; none otherwise.

Mr. LINTHICUM. And you only had applications from about 45? Mr. WRIGHT. Only 45, of whom a few less than that number, apparently, considered that they desired to enter the service.

Mr. LINTHICUM. Mr. Collins suggests an inquiry as to how many vacancies you had to fill at that time.

Mr. WRIGHT. That brings up a point to which I endeavored a moment ago to refer. Our position as far as filling secretarial posts in the service is rather peculiar. We do not now have to fill a certain number of vacancies in posts or in grades of the service. As far as posts are concerned the exigencies of a post like Mexico, for instance, may require one counselor and two secretaries when conditions are normal, while a month or so later it may require two or three more. The same is true of Berlin, Paris, or a small legation. There is no set number for each class. There are numbers beyond which we can not go, but I believe I am right in saying, in illustration of my point, that as far as the diplomatic service is concerned, our limits are set by financial considerations rather than by any limitations as to the number at posts or in grades. This same ques

tion bes

at the present moment only the der before restor

FOREIGN SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES.

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nor how many secretaries we have in each grade; it is how many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of secretaries we have per fiscal year. That, in itself, has a direct bearing upon several important phases of the subject. Is it or is it not fair to allow a secretary to remain upon the unassigned list to which reference was made in previous testimony, and which I may say that we have now definitely determined to discontinue? That determination was made before these hearings began, in the first place because it might very easily hold in escrow a certain amount of money available for officers should they desire to be reinstated within that year, which is in our opinion a wrong system, and also because it continually upsets the administrative machinery of the department in its assignment of secretaries. Therefore, in answer to your question, we have to reconcile the number of appointments which we wish to make to fill the vacancies as the field looks to us at the time of the passage of the examinations with the amount of money we have available, first, for the appointment of those men and in defrayment of their salaries, and, secondly, which is an even more important point, for the promotion of deserving men for reasons of efficiency. Our entire problem is that we can not promote as many men as we would like to do and also take in a reasonable number of young new men to fill the posts; if we take in young men to fill the vacancies in the posts where there is a demand we can not always promote deserving men as we should like to do.

Mr. LINTHICUM. It looks to me like the field of selection is rather restricted when you have only 45 out of 3,000 men. It occurred to me whether the standard of examination was not too high or too many things were required. For instance, you require them to speak one language. They may select Spanish, German, or French. Several young men have come to me and said, one of them in particular, that he selected German, and he passed, and when he was appointed he was sent to South America where they did not speak German. and another one stated that he selected Spanish, and when he was appointed he was sent to France, where they did not speak Spanish or very little of it. It occurred to me whether or not a fellow ought not be left to take up the language after his appointment, because he can learn it more readily then. In ten days he can learn to speak more of the language of the country where he comes in contact with it than in six months in some college.

Mr. WRIGHT. I am particularly glad that you brought that question up because it touches upon one of the points to which I was about to refer. In answer to the first part of your question, it is our opinion that the examinations are not too rigid; I do not think that they are; I am speaking about the general questions of examinations. I think the point is that the system to which the Secretary of State and Mr. Gibson have referred in full previously, and myself in part, does not afford the guaranty of security of tenure of office, promotion for merit, reasonable compensation and proper retirement provisions, and thus estops a great many of these men who make up the difference between 45 applicants and 3,000 interested inquirers from entering the service. That we find continually by discussion with many men who have not yet made up their minds to take the examination or who have not been designated. They come,

to Mr Carr and to me for advice as to whether they should or should

not. I went to Princeton to talk to the Polity Club, composed of outstanding juniors and seniors, and I have talked with undergraduates at other universities; and the same question has always arisen. Mr. CONNALLY. Did you suggest to them in your speech that they could not get along on the present salaries?

Mr. WRIGHT. I did not, in my speech, but questions were asked me after such an address similar to those questions that have been asked here, and to which I referred in my reply to you yesterday. and to which I gave exactly the same reply and used identically the same language.

Mr. CONNALLY. You can not expect many of them to be enthusiastic after that kind of a talk.

Mr. WRIGHT. No, sir; I think that is a fact, but I felt compelled, if questioned, to touch upon the question of compensation which is one of the contributory factors which deter the men who want to go into the service and who are fitted for it and whom we wish to have.

Mr. CONNALLY. The department, since this bill has been introduced, has not been at all modest about letting the information get abroad over the country.

Mr. WRIGHT. I do not think that it has, no. What shall I say? We have endeavored to pursue the middle road of not necessarily advertising that fact because it would seem, if I may say it, rather ungracious for us to convey the idea that you gentlemen in Congress are not liberal enough to give us what we think are proper emoluarents for services of that kind, but we still can not be considered unable or unwilling to reply to the specific question.

Mr. CONNALLY. I just wanted to get the consideration that entered into this young man's mind in making a determination. No man whose employers would say that they think the employee can not live on the salary provided would be enthusiastic about the job.

Mr. WRIGHT. We do not say that they can not live on the salary. We say that the salary is such at the present moment that they can not live at all posts to which they may be sent. That may sound like quibbling, but nevertheless it is a fact.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. As to these 11 men who passed the examination out of the 3,000, have you information as to the private means which they possess?

Mr. WRIGHT. No, sir.

Mr. MOORES. How many of those men who took the examination were clearly disqualified? I will explain why I ask that. At least once a month in the 10 years that I have been in Congress I have been able to discourage some man from asking for examination who was to my mind disqualified. Have you any method of eliminating people of that sort-that is, methods of getting rid of the men who want to go into the diplomatic service who to my mind are utterly unqualified for the position?

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes, sir.

Mr. MOORES. Of those that took the examination, how many of them were either boneheads or absurd?

Mr. WRIGHT. That illustrates a point which I wish to bring out.. I should say, roughly, 33 per cent; in this instance, roughly, onethird were qualified to pass the examination, one-third we found in the intermediate stage, where your exhaustive inquiry should be

made, and one-third were manifestly unfit to take it. Now, that was shown and demonstrated not by their written papers, which in many instances or in a number of instances were very good, although palpably the result of "cramming," if I may use that expression, along the lines prescribed for the diplomatic examination, but by the oral examination, which in our opinion more than ever before has demonstrated its usefulness. During the oral examination we were able not only to determine the character of the man in question, his address, and the factors that go to constitute character and personality; but, in addition to that, his oral replies to more abstruse or more elastic questions, such as those concerning international law, showed the depth of his knowledge. In addition to that, there is a point which I should like to stress; it is that when we ask some such question as, "What, in your opinion, is the effect of present-day journalism in the portrayal of international affairs in your residential district?" or 'What are the newspapers in your part of the country conveying to their readers concerning the occupation of the Ruhr or mandated territories or the open-door policy in China?" we found that some of these men were able to give very intelligent and resourceful answers and that others blew up on the spot.

Mr. O'CONNELL. You referred the other day to the fact that you furnished a list of sample questions to the applicants.

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes, sir.

Mr. O'CONNELL. I would like to ask, through you or through the chairman, if the committee could be furnished with a list of those questions for our information?

Mr. WRIGHT. With great pleasure.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. They are available for every member of the committee in the register of the Department of State, which is published yearly and which is sent to the members of this

committee.

Mr. WRIGHT. And also pamphlets published by the Department regarding both services.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. Should you like to have them printed in the record of this hearing?

Mr. O'CONNELL. No.

Mr. COLLINS. Have you available, Mr. Secretary, the salaries and perquisites that are paid military and naval attachés and representatives of the Commerce Department abroad?

Mr. WRIGHT. No, sir; I have not those figures at the present moment, but I am sure that they could be made available. I would like to refer to Mr. Carr on that subject.

Mr. CARR. They are available, as I understand it, in the budget of the Department of Commerce and I presume they are in the budget of the War and Navy Departments.

Mr. COLLINS. Will you secure those and make them an exhibit to your testimony?

Mr. MOORES. Is it not a fact that the salary that they get is the pay of the rank of the Army and Navy which they hold?

Mr. COLLINS. But they get perquisites besides.

Mr. MOORES. I think not.

Mr. COLLINS. I think they do.

Mr. WRIGHT. In certain instances Army and Navy officers have perquisites attached to their detail in this country or elsewhere in performance of the line of duty. They have allowances for house rent and fuel, and transportation of effects. I think I am correct in that.

Mr. MOORES. That is unquestionably true.

Mr. O'CONNELL. There is a difference between home and foreign service.

Mr. CARR. There is a difference between foreign and home service expense, plus rent.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. The department could readily furnish a memorandum of salary and emoluments of military, naval, and commercial attachés in service abroad. Such a table would be very useful to have in the hearings.

Mr. WRIGHT. I will do that with pleasure.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. Proceed to your next point.

Mr. WRIGHT. There is one other point regarding languages, and the apparently manifest desirability of sending a man who can speak Spanish, to a post in Spain or to a Spanish-speaking country. It frequently occurs and yet it almost as frequently does not, either because an exigency or a demand arises elsewhere or because we have found that a knowledge of one Latin language helps very much in the acquisition of another. For instance, if a man familiar with Spanish were sent to a post where French, or Italian, or Portuguese was spoken, or vice versa, he would be far better off than were he without such Latin language. I admit that those apparent anomalies exist occasionally; they are not willful and in the long run they usually turn out to be assets.

I should like to stress the importance of languages, not only in the examination to which you have referred but also in the scheme that we have had in mind of requiring an examination in languages whenever an officer is promoted. That suggestion has been born of the fact that while a great majority of our secretaries in the service progress in the language of the countries to which they are accredited, or in French, some of them do not, and if it be possible I should like to see that familiarity assured before promotion is accorded. This familiarity should be both conversational and written, although, the former is more important, and there should be means whereby the examining board may determine whether due progress has been made in the language attainments of the individual, or, at least, that he has not deteriorated in that regard.

I should also like to emphasize the consideration that representatives of our country abroad should possess a knowledge of at least one other language than their own. French, of course, is the most generally accepted one. I think that with the full permission of every one concerned, because anticipatory of this hearing I asked whether I might and received assurance that I could do so, I may cite the experience of some of the gentlemen who represented this country at the Fifth International Conference of American States at Santiago, Chile, of our delegation to which, as I said yesterday, I was secretary. Three of those gentlemen were most distinguished