Mr. BYRNS. Do I understand that the increases you propose are intended to cover the 5 and 10 per cent increases?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. BYRNS. In other words, you did not take into consideration the fact that Congress may possibly continue the 5 and 10 per cent increases, or do even more, when you submitted these estimates for increases in salaries?

Mr. PUTNAM. We have made them as though they were original recommendations; they are scattered all through the bill and are very numerous because, in every case where there has been a 5 or 10 per cent increase for this year, we have specified it as a new recommendation.

Mr. BYRNS. And those increases aggregate 370 in the library and building?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir; I think so. To retain that extra compensation, as provided this year, the gross sum necessary will be $26,675 for statutory positions in library proper, and the independent increases which we recommend, because of special conditions in the particular positions, which absolutely prevent our retaining people for that work, would aggregate $6,226. Of the additional positions asked for the two in the reading room are, of course, most pressingly needed, because that is the direct service to the public as well as to Congress.

LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE BUREAU.

The other item alone that I should care to bring out for emphasis is the increase in the legislative reference service. The legis-i Îative reference service was instituted three years ago. It was. rather experimental, of course, but it has developed until we are quite clear that it is needed; that it is useful and that it ought to be amplified, because of the need that has developed. We have had, from the start only the limited sum of $25,000. The pressure upon it is such that with that sum we cannot get adequately even the subordinate services, and are particularly handicapped in the inability to get research workers who are requisite for any thorough research. men, we will say, from $2,000 to $2,200. The report this year gives a resumé of the work that has been done during the past session by that division. I have had that section of the report reprinted, and if you have an opportunity to glance over it I think you will be impressed with the range of the subject matter, and the importance of it, covered by this service.

Our Government and Congress are engaged in operations of tremendous importance, involving the experience as well as the opinion! of foreign nations. Taking that alone there is absolutely no other resource equally available to you for ascertaining what a foreign Government is doing at this time and finding it out in a form in which you can conveniently use it. If any Senator or Member desires to know what Italy, Australia, England, France, and so on. are enacting by way of legislation and how their jurists interpret obligations, either fact or authority, they can simply make a requisition upon us and the compilation will be prepared in this divisior and it will be furnished. Irrespective of such a need prior to 1914.j

it has developed during the past three years as of exceedingly urgent importance. Even the States, through their State legislatures, have found the need of such a bureau, and in the States where it has been most active-Wisconsin, Illinois, and New York-they are providing $30,000 a year for it as against our $25,000. With reference to the qualifications needed in the experts ours here would be one or two hundred per cent greater, because while the State legislative bureaus, of course, do look into foreign legislation, the experience of New Zealand, for instance, in civic, social and economic questions, they do not have to consider subject matters of the range and intricacy that would come up to Congress in great international questions.

When this organization was first provided it was of course supposed that it would later have to be amplified. I have wanted to proceed in my recommendations very carefully and wanted to have the experience of two full sessions, at least, so I did not ask for any increase last year or the preceding year, but we must have an increase if we are to keep it up at all, because to make a profession of service and then not be able to respond is exceedingly injurious. I think that if you would glance at that report you would quite agree that $37,000, as provided for that sort of service, is moderate enough. I have asked for what would be only an advance of $10,000, the $2,000 additional being to cover these 5 and 10 per cent increases applicable to this year.

Mr. BYRNS. How many employees have you now in the legislative reference service, and how do the salaries range?

Mr. PUTNAM. They range from $4.80 up to $3,000. It is a fact, however, that the highest salary is not at the moment chargeable to this appropriation, because we are having the man who is looking after the legal end of this, Mr. Thompson, also look after the law library. We have been obliged to economize in the administrative positions, although in the States they have a $5,000 man at the head of this service. We have not at this moment any salary chargeable to this appropriation beyond $2.500. The law librarian looks after the legal end and the "administrative assistant," at $2,500, looks after what we call the subject data. I have here a list of the people with their salaries; they range from $2,500 to $4.80. The salary at the top is $2,500; the next salary is $2,000; two at $1,800; two at $1,500; one at $1,400; five at $1,200, and so on down.

Mr. BYRNS. How many would you expect to employ if this $10,000 were granted?

Mr. PUTNAM. We would apportion it as the needs would develop. What we lack particularly are people in the higher grades. The staff must be balanced. If you get in an additional research worker you must give him stenographic aid, and so on. It is particularly the people who would be our senior research assistants, at $1,800 and $2.000 that we ought to increase.

Mr. BYRNS. This work is done upon the requisition of Senators and Representatives in Congress?

Mr. PUTNAM. It is.

Mr. BYRNS. Any one else?

Mr. PUTNAM. No, sir; we are not at liberty and have not the physical ability to answer inquiries from any other source. It is for the service of Congress.

Mr. BYRNS. I notice in your report that during the fiscal years 1915 to 1917 there were 33 Senators who made calls for information and 98 representatives. That is the year 1915?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes. Then you see how the number increases.

Mr. BYRNS. Then there were 65 Senators in 1916 and 87 in 1917: 174 Representatives in 1916 and 224 in 1917?

Mr. PUTNAM. That does not mean that there have only been that number of inquiries from that number of Senators. It means that of the whole personnel of the Senate we have had inquiries from no less than 87 of them, because the same Senator may inquire time after time. The exhibit was merely to indicate the knowledge of the existence of this service and the utilization of it.

Mr. BYRNS. This appropriation was first made for the year 1915? Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. BYRNS. During that year you had a total of 269 inquiries? Mr. PUTNAM. Yes.

Mr. BYRNS. And in 1917 you had 1,280?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir. Those inquiries might be answered in a page or might require a compilation of 50 or 100 pages, so that the number of them does not signify anything. One can get at the work involved only by looking at the description in the report. Mr. BYRNS. I understand that, but it simply shows how your service has grown.

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; and we are unable to meet the demands; we shall have to come in, I think, for a deficiency appropriation this year. I do not know anything with reference to our service to Congress so important as this one.

Mr. STAFFORD. Are there any certain Representatives and Senators who avail themselves of the bureau more generally than others? Mr. PUTNAM. Oh, yes; of course there are some Senators and Representatives from whom we hear, perhaps, every fortnight during the session.

Mr. STAFFORD. How many are there of that class?

Mr. PUTNAM. You see, it is a little difficult to draw the line as to what is frequent and what is infrequent. I should say that there are 15 or 20 Senators and 40 or 50 Representatives, but I should be very chary about stating specifically without the list before me. Of course, they keep a record of each Senator and Representative, and we feel that while nothing should be confidential from your committee that we are not at liberty to quote the inquiry made by a particular Senator or Representative. Of course, in a general

way

Mr. STAFFORD (interposing). Of course, Mr. Putnam, we ought to know, without violating any confidence, how general is the use made of this service, whether it is used by a fractional number of the Members of Congress or generally by all of them.

Mr. PUTNAM. Of course, I would be very glad to give it to you, and if I had the information with me this morning would be glad to give to you now; we do not speak of it generally because we regard this as something that has a rather intimate relation to Congress.

Mr. STAFFORD. I have known instances where Members of Congress have procured compilations and stated that they were compila

tions made by them when they represented nothing more than the work of the legislative reference bureau.

Mr. PUTNAM. I think that is undoubtedly true, Mr. Chairman. We have not any vanity in it and are very glad to be anonymous. Of course, a great deal of material is called for which is simply fed into the Record in the form of speeches and which does not result in practical legislation, but that is true anyway.

Mr. STAFFORD. How general is its use by the committees of the House in framing legislation?

Mr. PUTNAM. I have not any memorandum of the call of committees since last year, but that also would be a little difficult to say. An increasing number of committees are hearing of it and utilizing it.

Mr. STAFFORD. Of course, nearly everyone knows about it. I have known of it for years, but have never taken occasion to utilize it. If you will permit me, I do my own research work.

Does your bureau in any way frame legislation similar to the Legislative Reference Bureau of Wisconsin as an aid to the legislators?

Mr. PUTNAM. No; we do not draft bills. That is a distinction. We are asked to supply data that may be useful to a committee or an individual Senator or Representative who wishes to frame a bill. We can assemble for him a compilation showing what legislation has been enacted on a given subject in this country or the other and we can point out to him phrases that have become standardized, for instance, to effect a certain purpose, but the drafting of a bill we do not undertake. That was originally proposed, to have a legislative reference drafting bureau, but the drafting feature was left out.

Mr. STAFFORD. It supplements in a way the work previously performed by your bibliographic section?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir; that is precisely what it does. There are three stages of the service. A Senator or Representative who wishes a particular book asks for it in the ordinary course of the reading room. The reading room responds to that request. He wants a list, we will say, of books upon a given subject or the books themselves dealing with a particular subject. The bibliographic division compiles such a list and sends over the books, perhaps, with the passages marked. The third degree is where he wants not merely the books or a mere list, but a statement drawn off, and that is for the legislative reference service, involving research. It may be a comparative statement, it may be of a legal phase, it may be simply a compilation of facts or statistics. That involves research.

Mr. BYRNS. Is there any reason why these positions under the Legislative Reference Bureau should not be carried specifically in the bill?

Mr. PUTNAM. I suppose that at certain times a portion of them should, as in the card section. It is more economical at present to have it a lump sum, because we shift back and forth. At certain seasons we do not need so many, and if they were statutory positions the salaries would be carried just the same.

Mr. BYRNS. You have some, however, whom you expect to retain. throughout the year?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir; but they would be the skeleton force. That office draws additional people during the session and drops them in the intervals.

Mr. BYRNS. Doctor, will you please submit with your hearings a statement showing what positions can be specifically carried and at what salaries you think they should be carried out of whatever lump sum Congress may appropriate, together with such sum as you think should be carried in a lump. I do not know what the committee may think about it, but we should like to have that statement along with the hearing, so if we should decide to put in a specific sum it can be done without injury to the service.

Mr. PUTNAM. On page 47 is given the classification of such a service, showing the organization in the abstract that we propose, and it would be simply a question of applying the $37,000 to the best advantage for such a scheme.

Mr. BYRNS. As I understand, you would not want the entire sum which was appropriated for statutory positions?

Mr. PUTNAM. No.

Mr. BYRNS. My idea is that you submit a statement showing the different positions which should be statutory and whatever you need in the others.

Mr. PUTNAM. Quite so.

Mr. BYRNS. Does this statement show the entire number of employees during the year 1917?

Mr. PUTNAM. We have always included that. Yes, pretty well. The maximum number employed during the year appears at the bottom of page 47.

Mr. BYRNS. My idea was that the committee would like to have a statement showing just what employments were made out of this $25,000 during the fiscal year 1917.

Mr. PUTNAM. That appears at the bottom of page 47. That shows, for instance, two translators, four junior indexers and compilers, 12 clerical assistants, and so forth. There was not an average of the year, but the maximum for the year. So we keep it fluid, saving during the recess, in order to amplify the service during the session. This shows the maximum during the past year.

Mr. STAFFORD. In case of a long recess of six to eight months, how do you utilize this force?

Mr. PUTNAM. The force is engaged in the preparation of material and apparatus, in indexing, for instance. We are keeping up on card indexes to our own legislation from the start. We have an elaborate index to the legislation of the United States which is constantly referred to and there is always indexing in preparation for the work of the succeeding session.

Mr. STAFFORD. They would be engaged in other character of work; they would not be eccupied in this work during the recess of Congress?

Mr. PUTNAM. They would be engaged in the preparation of material for the ensuing session. We should not be prepared to answer a particular inquiry if we did not have months of preparation in gathering material and organizing it for that purpose.

Mr. STAFFORD. You are anticipating inquiries?