Page images
PDF
EPUB

into consideration in formulating its estimates of economies. If some of these estimates can be shown to be too high, others are probably too low. The commission accordingly believes that its figure for total savings of $150,000 is a conservative one.

This economy, moreover, represents but a part of the advantages that would accrue from the change. A great improvement would result from the relief that would be afforded to the Treasury Department. The work of the Life-Saving Service in no way pertains to the general duties of that department. Taking this service from under this department would relieve the Secretary of the Treasury from his present responsibility for the proper administration of that service, and thus permit him to concentrate his attention more exclusively upon matters pertaining to the management of the financial affairs of the Nation.

In another report the commission has recommended the abolition of the Revenue-Cutter Service. Affirmative action upon the recommendations contained in this report will complement the action there proposed. If the recommendations contained in both reports are accepted and acted upon, a long step will have been made toward relieving the present congested condition of the Treasury Department and toward a more logical and satisfactory grouping of services having to do with maritime affairs. Respectfully submitted.

F. A. CLEVELAND,

Chairman.

W. F. WILLOUGHBY.
W. W. WARWICK.
FRANK J. GOODNOW.
HARVEY S. CHASE.
M. O. CHANCE,

Secretary.

EXHIBIT NO. 1A.

REPORT OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE LIFE-SAVING SERVICE AND THE BUREAU OF LIGHTHOUSES, 1911.

The undersigned committee, appointed at the request of the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency and representing that commission, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Commerce and Labor, submits the following report of its investigation and consideration of the relations existing between the Lighthouse Service of the Department of Commerce and Labor and the LifeSaving Service of the Treasury Department.

The committee does not consider it necessary in this report to set out at length a history of either service. The laws establishing and changing from time to time the organization and methods of work of each service and the printed regulations must be referred to for detailed information as to the organization, powers, and duties of these services. We shall refer to the law, the regulations, and the practices as the same may be pertinent to the particular subjects discussed in this report.

At the beginning of the Government, work similar to that now done by the Lighthouse Service was recognized and encouraged. Through

various changes in organization and management the service came to the time, in 1852, when the Lighthouse Board, composed largely of Army and Navy officers, was created to manage the work of the Lighthouse Establishment. The board was under the Treasury Department until the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor, in 1903, when it was transferred to the latter department.

By the act of Congress of June 17, 1910, the Lighthouse Board was abolished and the Bureau of Lighthouses, in charge of a Commissioner of Lighthouses, was created. A civilian inspector, to be in charge of each of not more than 19 districts, was authorized by law, in place of the former plan of having a Navy officer as inspector and an Ármy officer as engineer assigned to each district. The service has appropriations of more than $5,000,000 annually. Its employees number about 5,000 and are engaged in the maintenance of the many thousands of lights and other aids to navigation. The commissioner, since his appointment, has been engaged not only in the management of the work but in effecting changes in organization and methods in order to decrease the expense of the service and to increase its efficiency.

The Life-Saving Service dates from 1871, although appropriations had been previously made, such as that in 1847, of $5,000 for furnishing the lighthouses on the Atlantic coast with means of rendering assistance to shipwrecked mariners." Since 1871 various laws have been passed to make the service separate and distinct from the Revenue-Cutter Service, of which it was at first a part; to make the employees independent of political influence; and in other ways to make the service more efficient as well as more extensive in its operations. The present general superintendent has been in charge of the work since 1871. Under his supervision the service was practically created and has been built up and expanded. At the present time it includes about 280 life-saving stations and houses of refuge, more than 2,300 employees, and has appropriations of about two and a half million dollars annually.

The Lighthouse Service establishes and maintains lighthouses, light vessels, buoys, and other aids to navigation for the protection of commerce on the coasts and rivers of the United States and outlying possessions. The Life-Saving Service is charged with the duty of saving life and property from vessels stranded or endangered as a result of wrecks occurring or threatening along the coasts of the United States. The work of the two services, as carried on along the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the shores of the Great Lakes, is similar in that the purpose of both is the prevention of the loss of life and property, and the work of both services is performed at about the same places. It is found on investigation that practically every life-saving station is near a lighthouse, some being within a few hundred feet, while a few are a number of miles distant.

When considering this similarity of duties and the geographical location of the posts of the two services the committee has been led to the conclusion that the maintenance and operation of the two services should not be under separate executive departments of the Government, but that both should be under one department, and that the Department of Commerce and Labor. The latter has charge of lighthouses and other establishments, such as the Bureau of

Navigation and the Bureau of Steamboat Inspection, having to do with commerce and maritime affairs. In the management of Government business it is recognized that close cooperation is not possible, as a practical question, between two services connected with different executive departments. The laws and appropriation acts are not such as to bring about a convenient use, by a service in one department, of the facilities of a service in another department. It seems to us that when two services, such as those under consideration, are closely related in character of work and in location of posts and stations, it is advisable they be maintained and operated under one department in order to secure that measure of cooperation that leads to economy without decrease of efficiency.

It also appears to us that, by combining the Life-Saving Service with the work of maintaining and operating the Lighthouse Service, substantial savings in the following classes of work might result without decrease in the efficiency of either service:

1. In the work of supervision and direction from the bureau office in Washington, including the handling of personnel, the plans for the construction and repair of buildings and the direction of the work, the supervision and direction of advertising for bids and contracting for supplies, and the direction of the necessary field inspections.

2. In the supervision and direction of the work in the districts and especially in the construction and repair of buildings, in disbursing money for salaries and other expenses, in clerical service in district offices, and in the frequent inspections of stations and equipment, and the maintaining of discipline.

3. In the management of storehouses, the handling of supplies, and the delivery thereof to stations.

Under the existing law (sec. 4249 R. S.) all life-saving stations must be erected under the supervision of two captains of the RevenueCutter Service. This section should be repealed and the construction and maintenance of life-saving stations be cared for as in similar work in the Lighthouse Service.

Under the act of June 18, 1878, the Secretary of the Treasury may detail officers of the Revenue-Cutter Service as inspectors and assistant inspectors of life-saving stations. During the fiscal year 1911 nine of these officers made 750 inspections, the pay, allowances, and expenses of the officers amounting to $45,041.67, an average of $5,004.63 for each inspector and of $60 for each inspection. Three of the inspectors made a total of 396 inspections, while six inspectors made a total of 354 inspections. In the case of the latter the average number of inspections made by each inspector was but 59. The cost of inspection by Revenue-Cutter off cers appears to be excessive in comparison with the cost of the work by other agencies. The committee is of the opinion that the inspection of life-saving stations should be made by officers connected with the Life-Saving Service. This would produce more satisfactory results at a great saving of expense. The necessity for the use of Revenue-Cutter officers in this work has long since passed. The General Superintendent of the LifeSaving Service states:

Another important duty assigned to Revenue-Marine officers in the beginning was that of drilling the crews, who, although expert surfmen, were entirely unaccustomed to disciplinary government. The superintendents were also equally untrained in methodical means of handling organized bodies. The training which the Revenue

Marine officers had received in their own corps was of very great use in this respect, although they themselves had to acquire from the life-saving crews a familiarity with the art of handling boats in the surf, an art which is no part of the profession of a sailor, whose business it is to conduct vessels from one port to another and to keep as far away from the dangers of the surf as practicable. They also had to learn the method of handling the wreck ordnance, so unlike any then used on shipboard. Owing to the fact that now, as has been the case for nearly a quarter of a century, promotions to the position of station keeper in the Life-Saving Service are made from the ranks of the surfmen and those to the position of district superintendents from the keepers by merit, these officers have become fully as competent to drill the crews as the RevenueCutter officers, whom, as a matter of fact, upon their first assignment to this duty, they have to instruct. So it will be seen that the service itself possesses among its keepers, and it might be said even among its surfmen, an abundance of men who are entirely competent to discharge the inspection duties now performed by the assistant inspectors detailed from the Revenue-Cutter Service.

The expenses of the Life-Saving Service, excluding the salaries of district superintendents and the salaries and allowances of keepers and surfmen, are approximately one-half million dollars. This latter amount includes the purchase, handling, and delivery of apparatus and supplies, maintenance of telephone lines, rebuilding and repair of buildings, inspection service, traveling and miscellaneous expenses, and salaries and expenses in connection with the items named. With the possible exception of the telephone line service, it is our opinion that all this work could be efficiently handled through similar agencies maintained by the Lighthouse Service.

The committee has not attempted to reach a conclusion as to form of organization, number of employees needed, salaries to be paid, etc., in the service that would be established to do the work now done by the two. It does not feel competent to do so without making a detailed investigation in every district. The working out of the plan for using the facilities of both services without duplications, and with full cooperation, must come after the combining of the two services is decided upon. It is a work that can be properly done only by those upon whom the responsibilities for directing the work will fall.

The committee is of the opinion that if one bureau to administer the lighthouse and life-saving work is provided, as recommended, the overhead or indirect cost ought to be less by at least $80,000 a year than at present. After the first year, and when the present services are completely brought together, the reduction in expense should be considerably larger.

A minority report, made by Mr. O. M. Maxam, representing the Treasury Department, is attached hereto.

W. W. WARWICK, Representing the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency.

R. L. FARIS,

Representing the Department of Commerce and Labor.

OCTOBER 24, 1911.

MINORITY REPORT BY MR. O. M. MAXAM, REPRESENTING THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT.

My understanding has been that the purpose of the investigation just concluded by the committee was to ascertain what changes, if any, might be made with respect to the organization and work of the Lighthouse Service and the Life-Saving Service, as related to each other, that would result in increased economy and efficiency.

Naturally, through my connection with the Life-Saving Service, I am more familiar with the laws, organization, regulations, history, work, and needs of that service than with those of the Lighthouse Service, but I have endeavored to arrive at as complete an understanding of the latter as could be gained from discussion with my colleagues on the committee and the examination of available publications relating to the service.

The foregoing statements of the majority of the committee with respect to the past history and present organization and control of the two services seem in the main sufficient for the purposes of this report.

Briefly stated, the province of the Lighthouse Service is to establish and maintain aids to navigation for the prevention of loss of life and property from shipwreck.

Briefly stated, the province of the Life-Saving Service is the preservation of life and property from shipwreck.

Both services probably find their origin in that clause of the Constitution which gives to the Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States.

While the ultimate aim of both services may be said to be identical, the means, processes, methods, apparatus, equipment, and personnel employed by each to accomplish its authorized functions are of necessity totally different.

Light stations and light vessels are fixed agencies requiring the constant, undivided, and vigilant attention of their keepers and crews on the spot.

Life-saving stations ashore are merely the headquarters of the crews, whose duties require them to go wherever their services may be needed at wrecks and also to patrol the beaches and maintain watches for the early discovery of wrecks and the hastening of relief. Their heaviest work is performed at the scene of trouble, in the great majority of cases miles away from their places of abode. They must take with them, as is well known, of course, the equipment necessary to effect the rescue of those to whose assistance they go.

There is but little if any similarity in the duties of the members of the two services.

There is rarely occasion calling for cooperation between the two services in the performance of the dutics of the men.

The requirements as to the qualifications of the members of the two services are entirely different, as I understand them. Professional experts in surfmanship and wreck craft are indispensable in the LifeSaving Service. The service is one of experts, preeminently the case in reference to station keepers and crews, upon whose professional skill and experienced judgment so often rest the issues of life and death. Men posscssing these distinctive qualifications, it is understood, are not essential to the successful conduct of the business of the Lighthouse Service.

The present life-saving system was introduced in 1871, and from that time until 1878 its duties were conducted in connection with the Revenue-Marine (now Revenue-Cutter) Service of the Treasury Department. On June 18, 1878, an act entitled "An act to organize the Life-Saving Service" was passed by Congress, which provided for the appointment by the President of the United States, by and with the consent of the Senate, of "a suitable person, who shall be familiar

« PreviousContinue »