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Gen. MCCAIN. That is it; by the promotion of the old men to fill the places, by raising the older men.

Mr. SHERLEY. Let me ask you this: Suppose no promotions were made at all, would you still want to fill at the same salaries these additional places that you now propose to fill, or some of them, by the promotion of old men?

Gen. MCCAIN. Do you mean to fill them by new men?

Mr. SHERLEY. Yes.

Gen. MCCAIN. Yes, sir; if I had the money and were not allowed to promote them I would pay it to the new men.

Mr. SHERLEY. Here is what I am trying to get at, whether the character of the work that is to be done by the force of 1,133 clerks is such that, irrespective of the promotions, it will require a pay roll such as has been submitted?

Gen. MCCAIN. I think so, undoubtedly.

Mr. SHERLEY. So that, assuming that to be true, the question of the promotion of the old men would simply mean that the new men you bring in would be taken in for the lower grades rather than for the higher grades?

Gen. MCCAIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHERLEY. That is my understanding of your position.

Gen. MCCAIN. That is the idea.

Mr. BYRNS. If you are not to make any promotions, why is it necessary to appoint new men at $1,200, $1,400, and $1,600 on the temporary roll?

We could un

Gen. MCCAIN. I do not say that it is necessary. doubtedly get the men, but many men we have now will not accept it. The salary is too low. I do not know how many positions have been rejected all over the country, because we could not pay enough. Some men who will not come for $1,000 will come for $1,200. They say that they can not afford to leave their places at that salary, but for $1.200 or $1,400 we could probably get a better class of clerks.

Mr. BYRNS. These men get the 5 and 10 per cent, do they not?
Mr. SCOFIELD. No, sir; they do not.

The CHAIRMAN. The plan would work out like this: If you have a man at $1,100 a year now and take him off the statutory roll and put him on this roll at $1,200, he will get $1,200 year, while the man you appoint in his place will get $1,100 plus 10 per cent, so that while he ostensibly gets a higher salary by promotion, he gets less money. Gen. MCCAIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCOFIELD. Will that apply to a man appointed since the 1st of July?

The CHAIRMAN. It applies to persons paid out of that appropriation during this fiscal year.

Gen. MCCAIN. As a matter of fact, we have not promoted anybody in my office yet on this proposition. I am trying to work on that very thing. We have not done anything about it, although we are about ready to do it.

Mr. SHERLEY. Here is the thing that seems to be important, but which I am not clear upon, in view of the question asked by Mr. Byrns and your answer; and that is, whether it would be necessary to pay these higher salaries to order to get the additional help.

Mr. SCOFIELD. May I answer that from my experience? In the Ordnance Bureau they had to do it, and they have had to do it in

other bureaus. We can not get enough stenographers and typewriters at $1,000, because while in their declarations on the civil-service slips when they take the examination they state that they will come for $1,000, for example, they will not come for $1,000 now. They want $1,200, $1,400, $1,500, and sometimes more. We have appointed hundreds of them at $1,000 and $1,200, and they reject the appointments. In some cases they do that after having been appointed. In the case of the Ordnance Bureau they found it necessary to get some highgrade clerks at $1,600. They were accounting clerks. There was nobody in the office that they had capable of filling the jobs.

Gen. MCCAIN. Answering for my own office, we have not gotten all of the emergency clerks authorized, and many of them declined because of the pay. We will eventually get all that we are authorized to get at $1,000, but they are not the best clerks. They are offered bigger salaries on the outside, and after we get them many of them resign.

The CHAIRMAN. I should think this is the situation: The department needs a very large additional force, and we are desirous of giving them the force required, but the question arises as to whether this money should be utilized in paying increased compensation to the persons now in the department. There are instances in which some employee in the department is peculiarly qualified for some position that is required, the work of which is so manifestly different from the work that he is doing that he should be promoted to it, but this is a proposition to take a whole string of clerks and increase the individuals $100——

Mr. SCOFIELD (interposing). That has not been the intention of the department.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what the Inspector General states. Mr. SCOFIELD. I think he is mistaken to some extent in that. The restrictions put on by the Secretary are that promotions shall not be simply for an increased volume of work, but for a change of work to a higher grade of duties.

Mr. SHERLEY. The increase necessary in each office, or what is necessary in each office, has been determined by the head of that office, and it was then sent in to the Secretary. Now, has there been any supervision of those estimates?

Mr. SCOFIELD. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHERLEY. By whom?

Mr. SCOFIELD. The way it was figured out was this: They sent in the number that they wanted or would want, and we found from our experience so far that it is costing about $1,100 to get a person

Mr. SHERLEY (interposing). You do not get my point. You were simply figuring the average cost per clerk, but I am asking whether anybody other than the head of the department making the request has supervised that estimate as to the number? For instance, the ordnance people were asking for so many clerks. Did anybody undertake to pass judgment other than the Ordnance Department as to whether that number was needed or whether a less number or a greater number was needed?

Mr. SCOFIELD. No, sir; except that we found out that they had considered it very carefully and that the Chief of Ordnance had reduced it materially.

Mr. SHERLEY. I was just taking the Ordnance Department as an illustration. You could take The Adjutant General's office, the Surgeon General's office, or any other office. Now, they submitted the number required, and that was done without any supervision?

Mr. SCOFIELD. There was no particular supervision, upon the theory that in this emergency the bureau chief knew the conditions in his bureau better than anybody else.

Mr. SHERLEY. My question is not implying whether it should or should not be, but I am trying to get at the facts.

Mr. SCOFIELD. That is the fact. It has not been supervised with a view to cutting down the number. The conditions are such now that it is pretty difficult to make an estimate that really has the value of an accurate estimate.

INCREASES IN SALARIES.

The CHAIRMAN. The Secretary, in his memorandum about these promotions, states that the Judge Advocate General had rendered an opinion that there were no legal objections to making the appointments as proposed and the consequent promotions. The act of March 4, 1913, reads as follows:

That no part of any money contained herein or hereafter appropriated in lump sum shall be available for the payment of personal services at a rate of compensation in excess of that paid for the same or similar services during the preceding fiscal year, nor shall any person employed at a specific salary be hereafter transferred and hereafter paid from a lump-sum appropriation a rate of compensation greater than such specific salary, and the heads of departments shall cause this provision to be enforced.

How does the Judge Advocate General get around that?

Mr. SCOFIELD. The Judge Advocate General's Office, or the acting Judge Advocate General, considered the proposition in connection with the comptroller's decisions upon the law. He did pass upon the legal effect of this.

The CHAIRMAN. I know what the intention of Congress was. I do not know what the comptroller has decided. Here is an act passed four years ago, and I know what was meant and intended and what abuse it was directed at. Has this question been submitted to the comptroller?

Mr. SCOFIELD. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Under the law you are entitled to get his opinion in advance, and he is the only one to give it.

The CHAIRMAN. No; he considered something different. He held that a clerk getting $1,200 a year could be promoted to $1,400 a year when he was on a lump-sum appropriation if the statement was made that the duties to be performed were of a substantially different character.

Mr. SCOFIELD. That is it exactly.

The CHAIRMAN. This provision specifically prohibits the transfer of a person from a specific position or a statutory position to a lumpsum appropriation at a greater compensation than was paid him on the statutory roll.

General, have you a detailed estimate of this force you are asking for?

Gen. MCCAIN. A detailed explanation?

The CHAIRMAN. A detailed statement of the places required.
Gen. MCCAIN. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You made one up, did you not?

Gen. MCCAIN. I made a lump estimate of 550 employees that we needed in addition to those in my office.

The CHAIRMAN. At a cost of how much?

Gen. MCCAIN. We put them in at $550,000, but it was estimated that they would cost about $1,100 apiece, and that would be $575,000. The amount of money put in was put in by the Secretary's office. I made the estimate of the number of employees.

The CHAIRMAN. Without stating the compensation desired?

Gen. MCCAIN. Yes, sir. We put in the number of additional employees needed in our force, and the compensation was put in in the Secretary's office.

The CHAIRMAN. If I understand it, you did not attempt to indicate the character of the clerical services you required, but you estimated that you needed 550 individuals?

Gen. MCCAIN. Yes, sir; and I intended, if I got them, to assign them to different parts of the office as the work required.

The CHAIRMAN. Is the clerical work required of these clerks of a particularly difficult character?

Gen. MCCAIN. Yes, sir; we have all sorts of work, and it is all changing. You take, for instance, the question of officers. The clerks must keep the status of the officers, the commissions and qualifications of officers, and of candidates for office. They must keep a statement of services, and draft orders, and memorandums of all descriptions for information on military questions. There is such a variety of subjects that come up there that I would not know how to detail to you what we would expect of them. It is changing all the time, but the work of the office requires the very highest clerical capacity.

MONDAY, JULY 16, 1917.

OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL.

STATEMENT OF COL. W. T. WOOD, RETIRED.

TEMPORARY EMPLOYEES.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you ask for, Colonel?

Col. Wood. We have an appropriation of $16,000 and we ask for $12,250 more.

The CHAIRMAN. Why is that asked?

Col. WOOD. Because of the increase of work, requiring more clerical help.

This office has been allowed six additional clerks, at an authorized annual pay of $7,000. These clerks are actually employed and we desire to retain them. The deficiency estimate to carry us to June 30, 1918, is based upon the following items:

Pay six additional clerks at the authorized rate..
Increase of pay, old clerks.

$7,000 1,650

Pay three clerks, at $1,200 each, to audit accounts of American National
Red Cross, this work having recently been assigned to the Inspector
General's Office by the War Department---.

3,600

Total__.

12, 250

If the increase in pay of the old clerks, amounting to $1,650, is not approved, then the money required to June 30, 1918, would be:

Pay six additional clerks at the authorized rate-
Three auditing clerks for Red Cross accounts__

Total.

$7,000 3, 600

10, 600

of

pay

In further explanation of the above it is stated that for the all employees of the Inspector General's Office to June 30, 1918, we require:

For the pay of clerks..

For the pay of messengers (there being no increase in the pay or number of messengers).

Total

There has already been appropriated for clerks.
For messengers_.

Total.

Leaving the deficiency, as shown above, of___

$28, 250

2, 160

30, 410

$16,000
2, 160

18, 160

12, 250

The CHAIRMAN. You have at present $16,000?

Col. WOOD. Yes, sir. That does not include six $1,000 temporary clerks allowed us out of the $900,000.

The CHAIRMAN. You want them continued?

Col. WOOD. Yes, sir. We want three more clerks, and we want to make promotions in our own force.

The CHAIRMAN. What promotions do you want to make? How much will that be?

Col. WOOD. The promotions amount to $1,650.

The CHAIRMAN. What are those promotions?

Col. Wood. One clerk from $2,000 to $2,250. He is our chief clerk. Another clerk from $1,600 to $1,800; another clerk from $1,400 to $1,600; another clerk from $1,400 to $1,600; two $1,200 clerks to $1,400, and two $1,000 to $1,200.

The CHAIRMAN. You propose to increase the compensation of everybody in your office?

Col. WOOD. No, sir. We are doing that in accordance with a letter which we have from the Secretary of War that it was better to increase the pay of some of our old clerks than to get in a whole lot of

new ones.

The CHAIRMAN. This proposition is to increase the compensation of 11 clerks?

Col. WOOD. We have 18 clerks.

The CHAIRMAN. Congress did not intend to have this money used to promote people. It intended to give this money for additional

services.

Col. WOOD. We have this letter from the Secretary of War's office. The CHAIRMAN. Is it considered that a person who is now receiving $1,400 and is to be increased to $1,500 comes within the terms of this order?

Col. WOOD. We have lost three of the old clerks.

The CHAIRMAN. How did you lose them?

Col. WOOD. Two of them went to France and one was appointed a captain quartermaster in the Reserve Corps. We have to promote a few men in that way. That accounts for one man jumping so high-the service he is now going to render.

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