are telegrams, phone calls, and so forth. It reaches a high of 20,000 a day. And it has sustained that high volume for many days in succession. Six or seven clerks cannot sort, open, read, and acknowledge letters that run into that number. About the only way they can approach it is by an extreme effort, by a great sacrifice, by working day and night. I find them willing to do it in this building constantly. In view of that long and arduous service, I believe they ought to be rewarded in some manner, so that when their Member leaves the service they won't be abandoned on Capitol Hill for someone else to take over.

Mr. RILEY. Death has to overtake all of us eventually as it did Senator Copeland who preceded you. I don't know what has happened to his staff, perhaps they have been taken on by other Members or transferred. I don't know what the situation is, but it is just one of those instances where something should be done. Congress, it seems to me, should anticipate the matter for future

cases.

Senator MEAD. Some of the employees of the Senator's office were for a long time looking for places.

Mr. RILEY. Quite true.

Senator MEAD. I had more clerks as chairman of the House Post Office Committee than the Senate would permit me to put on the pay roll and so it was impossible for me to take care of them except one, and I have done that. But there is an illustration of what happens to a faithful personnel after many years of service when the Member they work for is defeated, or retires, or dies. I believe that suggestion which you offered is a very good one and should be included in an omnibus bill of this character.

Mr. RILEY. If the committee will indulge me just a moment, I would like to make the observation particularly as it relates to Senator Mead. He and his former committee associates in the House established an enviable record in the setting forth of beneficial regulations for those in the Postal Service, and some of the things in here, Senator Mead, that I have mentioned, are in the direct line with those which you and your committee established for the Postal Service. I think this great middle class of clerical groups and others who are not now enjoying such benefits as seniority in promotion, demotion, or dismissal, should have their place in the sun with elimination of as much red tape as possible; I think if we can just give a little thought to getting some of the benefits that you have so splendidly put into force for the postal employees and start extending these benefits as well to those in the classified services, then we can all be proud.

Senator MEAD. I don't take the credit for new legislation that went out of the Post Office Committee for the benefit of post-office personnel, but it is singular and worthy of note that, during the years I was chairman of the committee, the Post Office Department spent more money in the care of personnel, took in more money as a result of the increased efficiency of the service and balanced the bona fide postal budget more constantly and consecutively than at any time since Benjamin Franklin's time.

Mr. RILEY. You might say that indicates that the more money spent to increase efficiency, the greater the return on the investment to the public.

Senator MEAD. The Department's experience and this increase prove that that is so.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Riley, I think the committee would be interested in an expression of your views with reference to the mode of procedure whether extension of the Classification Act should be left to the President or whether it should be by congressional act.

Mr. RILEY. I am glad the chairman mentioned that. The bill in its present form delegates to the President and the Civil Service Commission to take over what in large measure today is a legislative function. Rather than go down that road, I would much rather see the salaries returned to the statutory basis and have Congress take over the direct jurisdiction. It has been said before this committee and it has been said time and again that classification in a degree guarantees equal pay for equal work, but we can go ahead on that thing and say that it also levels up salaries and it also brings down a good salary to the basis of the lowest salary, and that is the way we get our equal pay for equal work. That just plays havoc with the service generally. It is one of those intangible things, and while it is intangible it is insidious. It makes it entirely ridiculous, it seems to me, to hunt for the lowest priced work in a comparable occupation and bring everything down to that level.

It has been also testified that the benefits to be derived from this type of extension of the Classification Act is problematical. Well, it is problematical. It is problematical on both sides. It is problematical from the public's side, or the Government's side, and it is problematical from the employee's side. It is less problematical from the employee's side, it seems to me, because it has been demonstrated that the Classification Act is an all-leveling influence, and while it is a standardizing influence it also brings the better class employee down to the level of the poorer class.

For that and for other reasons I feel that the committee should give more actual thought to this plan to delegate to the President the power over pay. I think it should give more than secondary thought to turning over its vast power-this important function, let us say, to any other than the legislative branch.

I feel that the Congress should continue to repose in its hands the same degree of control over those salaries. The employees can present their cases a lot better here in open court and the committee can thresh it out and get to a reasonable basis rather than on an impersonal basis before a commission or a board or any other type of public service branch.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to get your views in the case of reduction. How in your judgment should that be handled? seniority?

By

Mr. RILEY. Seniority, straight seniority. That will go far toward eliminating all the troubles. If among a group of employees some no longer are to remain on the job, then the only question after that, it appears to me, is on the general proposition, the order of progression for elimination. The efficiency rating system, the human element that enters into it, through the increases, the granting of promotions, and so forth-why not a straight seniority basis? The most efficient industries in this country are operated on a straight seniority basis. That also eliminates politics in those branches where we feel

that politics should be eliminated. So that, let us say, a State committeeman cannot call on the phone and say, "This person is a very good person"-the comeback then is, "Well, Mr. Committeeman, your man was the last to be taken on. Somebody else's friend was the first one on, and in this case the first one on is the last one off, and the last one on is the first one off." We are coming to a point in our streamlining where we are getting into the insanity cycle in personnel administration. We have got over the country, let us say, in one State on the eastern seaboard one group and on the Pacific coast another, and between these we have a great game of rivalry today. These groups over here contrive a new device they think is good in personnel management; those on the Pacific coast say, "We have a better one, you hold off on this." It is just a case of trying to see who can be more screwball than the others. I think now is the time to pause just a little bit to take stock. We are going headlong into a lot of matters that are putting us into that Annapolis entrance examination basis. While one must not have false teeth, one may not do this, or do that, we have to start having a few standards for a change and let them be common-sense standards.

The CHAIRMAN. We are very much obliged to you.

Mr. RILEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

STATEMENT OF MILLARD W. RICE, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, my name is Millard W. Rice. I am the national legislative representative of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The V. F. W., as it is commonly called, is a national veterans' organization of veterans of campaigns in which the United States has been engaged during the last 40 years. It isn't, therefore, merely a one-war outfit or one-generation outfit, but consists of veterans of several wars and of several generations, ranging from a little more than 20 years of age to over 90 years of age, and therefore its membership brings to the organization the viewpoints of these various classifications of war campaigns and expeditionary veterans who in several generations of American citizenship in this country have served the Nation in its most hazardous employment, military or naval service.

Our organization, as represented at its several national encampments, has gone on record in the form of national resolutions to include all full-time, non-policy-making governmental jobs in the classified civil service. It hasn't gone to the extent of stating by what methods that should be done, but it has set the objective along that

route.

This bill, as I understand it, is primarily for the purpose of providing a method by which to cover into the classified civil service the Federal employees in non-policy-making jobs who are not now under the status of classified civil service.

We would much have preferred that all employees of the Federal Government become employees through the process of competitive examinations. We believe that would have been the better method

from the standpoint of finding the best qualified persons and we believe also that it would be more nearly approaching merit in the selection of prospective employees.

We also believe that the method of selecting employees through the competitive examinations would have given a better opportunity to veterans to secure eligibility for appointment to civil-service positions.

Although there are no statistics available from the Civil Service Commission or any other Federal agency to show how many preference persons now occupy civil-service positions or how many noncivil-service positions are occupied by veterans, it is my estimate that the percentage of non-civil-service appointees consisting of veterans is much less than the percentage of civil-service employees.

In other words, a much greater percentage of the civil-service appointees are preference eligibles than of the non-civil-service appointees, in our opinion. That is in part because of existing civilservice preferences provided for by Executive order and by law. Parenthetically let me say that we are of the opinion that there are many big loopholes in the existing law in civil-service preferences for veterans which make it possible for appointing officers to evade the intention of Congress without a violation of the law. That is well substantiated by statistics which we have to show the great variance of percentage of veterans in the Federal agencies.

Be that as it may, however, we do believe that it is desirable by whatever means that it be done, that as many full-time jobs in Federal agencies as possible be covered into the civil service. We can well see that it would be inadvisable to cover into the civil service by competitive examinations all of the jobs now occupied by noncivil-service employees and that that would work a great hardship upon them. Therefore, although we believe that a much greater number of veterans would be appointed to such civil-service jobs in the event that the appointments were made on the basis of competitive examinations, we are nevertheless willing from the standpoint of the future of Federal employment generally that the Federal positions now not under classified civil service should be covered into the classified civil service on the basis of noncompetitive examinations as provided for in this bill. However, we do believe that the same preferences should apply to the veterans who may be covered into the civil service under this bill as would be applicable to them on the basis of original competitive civil-service examinations. Rule 7 of the Civil Service Rules provides that the apportionment rules shall not apply as to preference eligibles. We believe that the apportionment rules should not be applicable as to veterans in covering the non-civil-service employees into the civil service as would be anticipated by the provisions of section 2 (b) of H. R. 960. There is no exception as to veterans in such subsection, therefore, we believe that it ought to be amended so as to change the period at the end of subsection 2 (b) to a semicolon, and then by adding the following language:

Provided, however, That this shall not apply as to any person who, under the provisions of Rule VI of Executive Order No. 7915, June 24, 1938, would be entitled to have five or ten points added to an earned rating on an original civil-service examination paper.

I will furnish copies of that amendment to the members of the committee.

If you were merely to insert the words "excepting veterans" you would perhaps leave out some preference eligibles. If you inserted the words "preference eligibles" it could perhaps be interpreted that all of those now classified as preference eligibles under rule 6 would be exempted from the provisions of the rule provided for under section 2 (b), but we believe the language we have suggested is very specific and leaves no doubt whatsoever as to those to whom such preference rules should not apply.

We hope that the committee can see its way clear to include such an amendment in this bill because it will mean considerable to the veterans generally who are now in non-civil-service jobs and would also mean considerable to veterans seeking classified civil-service jobs in the future. If there were no such exemption it would prevent those from States in excess from being appointed.

In other words, it would in effect sustain the present preferences relative to apportionments so far as veterans are concerned until the situation had been equalized as provided in section 2 (b). At the present time the practice relative to the retention on the basis of efficiency ratings works many injustices. It is true that preference eligibles are given a preference of retention if they have an efficiency rating of "good" or better, but that can be gotten around, evaded, avoided, disregarded completely, by a change in the efficiency ratings. Numerous instances have come to my attention where a veteran has been satisfactorily employed for 3, 4, or 5 years, with efficiency ratings of "very good," "good," or "excellent," and then suddenly a month or 2 months prior to the time the force is to be reduced, a rating of "fair" takes away that preference of retention. There is no way by which to establish that that man should be entitled to an efficiency rating of "good" or better. The fact that his efficiency rating has been reduced to "fair" prevents the veterans' organizations from coming to his assistance for fear the Administrator is right. We do not wish to defend those whose ratings are not satisfactory. We believe that preference should be granted to veterans. only in the event they are qualified to satisfactorily do the jobs, but the fact that they have occupied those jobs for months or years would seem to me sufficient indication that they have been qualified, and the sudden reduction acts to take away the proper preference of retention.

We believe that the preference of retention rule on the basis of efficiency rating is one that can be gotten around and especially one that has no actual efficiency or efficacy in the event the appointing officer wants to avoid it. Therefore, we believe that the method should be completely changed and to that end we propose, in section 7 of H. R. 960, that the language therein be stricken out and in lieu thereof the following language be inserted:

SEC. 7. Section 7 of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended (42 Stat. 1490; U. S. C., 1934 edition, title 5, sec. 667), is hereby amended by striking out the words, "the appropriate efficiency ratings," and inserting in lieu thereof the words, "satisfactory service."

As I indicated previously, an employee who has rendered satisfactory service over periods of months or years ought to be continued in service, and the fact that he has been so employed would seem to indicate that his service has been satisfactory. That would apply not only to veterans but also nonveterans as well. We believe that