Mr. WALES. No; it would not. It applies to the classified service, plus three or four groups that are specifically mentioned in the retirement act. Mr. WOOD. Have you mentioned all those that are not in the classified service? Mr. WALES. Not quite. Mr. YADEN. There is another thing, and that is in connection with the exceptions. I think the committee would be interested in that. There are large groups in the different departments which are excepted from the civil service. Mr. WOOD. We would like to know what groups those are. UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION, Washington, D. C., January 22, 1926. Memorandum as to main groups of employees in the executive civil service of the United States who are not subject to examinations conducted by the Civil Service Commission Emergency Fleet Corporation. War Finance Corporation. Federal Reserve Board. District of Columbia government (except Police and Fire Departments). Library of Congress. Federal Farm Loan Board. United States Employment Service, Department of Labor. Deputy collectors of internal revenue; field employees and executive officers, prohibition service; deputy marshals; employees of the Immigration Service appointed under the contract labor act; special agents, Bureau of the Census: attorneys, naval architects, special experts and examiners, Shipping Board: special experts, Tariff Commission; attorneys, special experts, and examiners, Federal Trade Commission; employees of Bureau of the Budget paid at a rate in excess of $5,000 a year; employees of General Accounting Office paid at a rate in excess of $5,000 a year. Attorneys, assistant attorneys, and special assistant attorneys; all officers and employees in the Federal Service upon the Isthmus of Panama, except those who are to perform the duties of clerk, bookkeeper, stenographer, typist, surgeon, physician, trained nurse, or draftsman; also appointments to clerical positions on the Isthmus of Panama paying not more than $80 in gold per month are made without examination under the civil-service rules; drafting officers and assistant solicitors, State Department; attendants employed at not more than $75 a month at quarantine stations, hospitals, and sanitoriums in the United States and at any salary elsewhere, under the Public Health Service and the Veterans' Bureau. National-bank examiners and receivers under the office of the Comptroller of the Currency; five Deputy Commissioners of Internal Revenue; superintendent of prisons, assistant superintendent of prisons, wardens, and physicians, United States penitentiaries or prisons, Department of Justice; one clerk to each United States district attorney; examiners, Department of Justice; any person employed as field deputy in the office of the United States marshal or whose chief duties are to serve process; all positions and employments deemed by the Attorney General to be legal or confidential in their character and which relate to temporary service or which grow out of appropriation acts committing to the Attorney General the execution of some purpose of the law and the expenditure of the funds therefor, but not creating specific positions. Clerks in charge of contract stations appropriated for as such and so reported under the Post Office Department. Inspectors whose duties are of a confidential nature in the office of the Secretary of the Interior and who are appropriated for by the Congress; inspectors of coal mines in the Territories, Interior Department; six special agents of the General Land Office to investigate fraudulent entries and other matters of a criminal nature; consulting engineers of the Reclamation Service; superintendents of livestock, stockmen, stock detectives, and line riders in the Indian Service; special officers to assist in the suppression of liquor traffic in the Indian Service and among the natives of Alaska; superintendents or officers in charge of national parks or reservations. One statistical agent in each State and Territory where authorized by law under the Department of Agriculture. Four assistants to the Secretary in the office of the Secretary of Commerce. IMPORTANCE OF ORAL EXAMINATIONS Mr. DEMING. I think you would be interested in having Mr. Yaden state the importance of oral examinations. Mr. YADEN. The different departments are pressing the commission more and more, from month to month, to give oral examinations, oral tests to their prospective appointees, particularly to those who have to meet and deal with the public. The purpose of the oral examination, of course, is to test person ality and adaptability, ability to think along the lines of the duties of the position, and various other personal characteristics, such as you would expect to have, if you were a private employer and were going to employ a person to perform a certain line of work. I think one concrete illustration will be illustrative of the entire matter. In the last Congress you appropriated for the Interstate Commerce Commission something like $1,900,000 over and above what was estimated by the Bureau of the Budget to bring some work up to date. The Interstate Commerce Commission, on its own motion, has an agreement with the Civil Service Commission to the effect that we will hold examinations for attorneys, examiners, and other positions in the Interstate Commerce Commission in connection with that work. The positions of attorney are, in reality, not under the civil service, but the Interstate Commerce Commission prefers to secure them as result of examination by our commission. In addition to that, the Interstate Commerce Commission wanted a large number of engineers and land appraisers. We announced examinations, say, for attorneys, at entrance salaries of $1,860, $2,400, $3,000, $3,800, and $5,200. They insisted that we give oral examinations to those persons who met the entrance requirements. Mr. DEMING. That is, to supplement the regular examination. Mr. YADEN. Yes, sir; and we did that for them. Let me tell you. what the solicitor of the Interstate Commerce Commission has to say about this job of work, which we did not anticipate when we were here before. There is another job pending now that we did not anticipate when we submitted our estimates to the Bureau of the Budget; that is, if this buildings bill goes through we will be called upon to get hundreds of employees-that is, we are likely to be called upon to secure hundreds of employees, engineers, architects, etc. We did not anticipate that when we submitted our estimates. Here is what Doctor Needham, solicitor of the Bureau of Valuation, Interstate Commerce Commission, thinks of our oral examinations; this letter is dated September 24, 1925, addressed to the President of the United States Civil Service Commission, and reads as follows: In March, 1925, Congress appropriated certain funds to enable this commission to complete its primary valuation of the properties of common carriers. This work necessitated the employment of a large force of technically trained At the request of this commission, open competitive examinations were men. held by your office to recruit this force. It may be of interest to you to know that we are well pleased with the caliber of the attorneys and examiners who have been appointed, and I have the utmost confidence that their work in the future will justify the high estimate we now have of their ability. That you were able to secure such competent men through open competitive examination was due, in a large measure, I believe, to the oral examination to which the applicants were subjected. In my opinion the personality test, such as was incorporated in the examinations for attorney and examiner positions, is invaluable in determining the ability and general fitness of applicants, and also eliminating from consideration those candidates who lack the necessary personal qualifications for such important work. Mr. WOOD. Would not that same thing prove true with reference to examinations for everybody else? Mr. YADEN. That is true, Mr. Wood, and particularly with respect to those people who have to deal with the public. Now, the other departments are pressing us along the same line, but that little $18,000 item for travel would not last long with the present Pullman rates and railroad fares. We used to be able to travel for 2 cents a mile, and now we pay 3.6 cents per mile. Mr. WALES. We have recently held an oral examination for Federal-prison guards, with great success. CONTINGENT AND MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSE Mr. WOOD. Your next item is for contingent and miscellaneous expenses of the Civil Service Commission, including furniture and other equipment and repairs, $38,000. Have you all the furniture. that you need? Mr. DEMING. That is a very small part of it. The item includes such things as telephones, laundry, freight, express, etc. Mr. WOOD. Tell us something about that item. Mr. VIPOND. When we appeared before the Bureau of the Budget, their representatives stated that they considered $12 per employee as a fair expenditure for office stationery and supplies. We spent less than $8 per employee for that purpose. We are well within what they consider a reasonable figure. Another heavy item of expenditure from this appropriation is the money for envelopes and paper. Last year the cost of envelopes and paper exceeded $10,600, and that leaves some $28,000 for taking care of our automobiles, telegraph and telephone service, freight transportation, repairs and alterations, typewriters and other office machines, and furniture. Our total expenditure last year for- typewriting and other machines, addressograph, and mimeograph was only $6,900, and we are figuring on $6,500 for next year. Mr. WOOD. What becomes of your old waste material that you have? Mr. VIPOND. That is taken by Major Grant's office. He is in charge of our buildings. That waste material is all sold. Last year the receipts from the sale of waste paper, including obsolete examination papers, in our own offices totaled $138, and that money was turned into the Treasury. Mr. WOOD. It would be interesting to know what it amounts to for all of the Government. It must go into the thousands. Mr. VIPOND. It is reported in the Budget under the head of receipts, but I do not suppose it is figured out under the heading "Waste paper." It is under the heading of "Sales of miscellaneous Government property.' Mr. WOOD. Have you ever had any surplus left out of this itemyour miscellaneous expenses? Mr. VIPOND. No, sir. Mr. WOOD. You will not have much this year, I do not expect. Mr. VIPOND. I do not believe so. We have tried to bring our typewriting machines within reasonable age, but we still have some that were purchased in 1917. RENT Mr. Woon. The next item is for rent of building for the Civil Service Commission, $24,592. I see you still have to pay rent for your establishment down there? Mr. VIPOND. Yes, sir. Mr. WOOD. You ask the same amount this year as we gave you last year? Mr. VIPOND. Yes, sir. PRINTING AND BINDING Mr. WOOD. The next item is for printing and binding, $58,000. Give us some information in reference to that, Mr. Vipond. Mr. VIPOND. Last year we spent for three main items of work, examination questions, applications for examination, and announcement of examinations, $44,000-a little more than $44,000-leaving $14,000 for all the rest of our printing, which includes information pamphlets on transfers, reinstatements, veterans' preference, political activity, removals, and general information. We use those pamphlets to save correspondence. Mr. WALES. And also the annual report. Mr. VIPOND. And the annual report. We saved on the annual report some $900 by changing it to a paper-bound volume. Mr. DEMING. With the exception of a limited number of volumes. Mr. VIPOND. Seven hundred copies are cloth bound for the permanent record. One feature of our annual report is the fact that it is the working tool for personnel officers and appointing officers throughout the Government. It is not just a report of work done, but it includes the civil service acts, the rules, and new regulations. that are issued concerning specific services. We send a copy to each personnel officer in the Government service, so that he knows how to operate his office under those laws and rules. Mr. WOOD. How many annual reports do you have printed? Mr. Wood. And you send them indiscriminately around to all Mr. VIPOND. Because we understood they wished to have them. Mr. WOOD. If you would simply send those requested, and if all the Government departments would apply that sort of practice, it would save millions of dollars to the Government. I expect that 90 per cent of the Congressmen when they receive them throw those things in the waste basket, unless they have some particular use for them. Mr. VIPOND. Of course, we could write to Members of Congress and ask them if they care for those copies hereafter. Mr. WOOD. I do not speak of your report particularly, but to my mind it is one of the greatest sources of waste, because if every Congressman were to keep all these things that come to his office he could not get into his office at the end of the year. Mr. WALES. Of course, we think Congressmen ought to read our report. Mr. WOOD. Yes; but they have not the time to read it, and all the reports that they receive; if they did, they could not do anything else. These reports, of course, are very valuable and they ought to be accessible whenever they are required, but this indiscriminate sending of these publications all around is an incalculable waste. Mr. DEMING. We reduced the number of copies last year from 7,500 to 6,000, and we have eliminated the cloth-bound copies except for 700 copies for permanent record. Mr. Woon. I know the law provides that these gentlemen shall receive them, but it is a very great source of waste. Mr. VIPOND. We correct our mailing list every year, mailing them to individual people. Mr. WOOD. Do you get any receipts in your office from any source? Mr. VIPOND. No, sir; not for ourselves. I would say that the only receipts that we report are receipts from waste paper, and that goes into the Treasury; that is not our money. Mr. WOOD. You do not sell anything to the public? Mr. VIPOND. No, sir. Mr. WOOD. Aside from this waste paper? Mr. VIPOND. No, sir. Mr. WOOD. And you do not get the receipts from those sales? Mr. WOOD. You do not sell copies of any reports or things of that character, the same as other departments do? Mr. VIPOND. No, sir. Mr. DEMING. We have a good many calls for this report from libraries and institutions of that kind. Mr. WooD. They have to have them in libraries, because they are very useful, and when you want them you will know where to get them. Nine times out of ten when a lawyer wants this information he goes to a library or goes to the Civil Service Commission, because that is the only place he can get it. Mr. VIPOND. We refer a good many of our requests for copies to libraries, because we have no surplus copies to send them. Mr. DEMING. We send a certain number of copies to our district officers, and then a number of our secretaries in different places.call for them because they need them. This book is much more than an ordinary report; it is a digest of the laws and rules and regulations governing the commission and covers our precedents down to date. Mr. WOOD. How about the cost of paper for printing? Is it any cheaper than it has been? Mr. VIPOND. No, sir. The cost of printing has increased. Last year the cost increased 15 per cent. |