provisions of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, to any such offices or positions not at the time subject to such provisions: Provided. That in the case of any federally owned and controlled corporation organized under the laws of any State, Territory, or possession of the United States (including the Philippine Islands), or the District of Columbia, the President is authorized to direct that such action be taken as will permit the compensation of such offices or positions to be fixed in accordance with the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, consistently with the laws of any such State, Territory, or possession, or the District of Columbia, or with the charter or articles of incorporation of any such corporation.

(b) Whenever the President, upon report and recommendation by the Commission, shall find and declare that one or more officers or positions to which the Classification Act of 1923, as amended and extended, is applicable, may not fairly and reasonably be allocated to the professional and scientific service, the subprofessional service, the clerical, administrative, and fiscal service, the custodial service, or the clerical-mechanical service, as described in the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, he may by Executive order prescribe and define such additional classification services and grades thereof as he may deem necessary and shall describe, and fix the ranges of compensation for, the grades of such services within the limits of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, so that they shall be comparable, as nearly as may be, with the grades in said Act, as amended, for offices or positions that are comparable as to duties, responsibilities, qualifications required, and other conditions of employment.

(c) Whenever the President, upon report and recommendation by the Commission, shall find and declare that the rates of the compensation schedules of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, are inadequate for any offices or positions under such Act, as amended and extended, he may by Executive order establish necessary schedules of differentials in the rates prescribed in such compensation schedules, but the differentials in the compensation of any such office or position shall not exceed 25 per centum of the minimum rate of the grade to which such office or position is allocated under such compensation schedules: Provided, That the provisions of this subsection shall be applicable only to such offices or positions having the following characteristics:

Offices or positions which are located at stations that are isolated, remote, or inaccessible when compared with stations at which offices or positions of the same character are usually located, or which involve physical hardships or hazards that are excessive when compared with those usually involved in offices or positions of the same character, or which are located outside the States of the United States and the District of Columbia: Provided further, That nothing herein contained shall preclude the Commission from taking the factor of isolation, hardship, hazard, or foreign service into consideration in allocating a given class of offices or positions to a service and grade under the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, if such factor is uniformly involved in each office or position in the class, in which event no differential is authorized under this section. (d) Except as Congress may otherwise provide by law, the power granted to the President by this section shall not apply to the following:

(i) Offices or positions in the Postal Service the compensation of which is fixed under an Act of Congress approved February 28, 1925 (43 Stat. 1033), as amended;

(ii) Offices or positions of teachers, librarians, school-attendance officers, and employees of the community-center department under the Board of Education of the District of Columbia, the compensation of which is fixed under an Act of Congress approved June 4, 1924 (43 Stat. 367), as amended;

(iii) Offices or positions in the Metropolitan Police, in the Fire Department of the District of Columbia, and in the United States Park Police, the compensation of which is fixed under an Act of Congress approved July 1, 1930 (46 Stat. 839);

(iv) Commissioned officers and enlisted personnel in the military and naval services and the Coast Guard, and commissioned officers in the Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the compensation of which is fixed under an Act of Congress approved June 10, 1922 (42 Stat. 625), as amended;

(v) Offices or positions in the Government Printing Office, the compensation of which is fixed under an Act of Congress approved June 7, 1924 (43 Stat. 658);

(vi) Offices or positions of foreign-service officers in the Foreign Service of the United States the compensation of which is fixed under an Act of Congress approved May 24, 1924 (43 Stat. 140), as amended;

(vii) Offices or positions of clerks in the Foreign Service of the United States the compensation of which is fixed under an Act of Congress approved February 23, 1931 (46 Stat. 1207);

(viii) Offices or positions of commercial attachés, assistant commercial attachés, trade commissioners, and assistant trade commissioner in the Foreign Commerce Service of the Department of Commerce, the compensation of which is fixed under an Act of Congress approved March 3, 1927 (44 Stat. 1394), as amended;

(ix) Offices or positions of verifiers-openers-packers, clerks, guards, inspectors, station inspectors, and laborers in the Customs Service of the Treasury Department the compensation of which is fixed under an Act of Congress approved May 29, 1928 (45 Stat. 955), as amended;

(x) Offices or positions of inspectors in the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Department of Labor the compensation of which is fixed under an an Act of Congress approved May 29, 1928 (45 Stat. 954), as amended; (xi) Offices or positions the duties of which are to serve as an officer or member of the crew of a vessel, except that the President may by Executive order extend the provisions of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, to offices or positions in the Bureau of Lighthouses; and

(xii) Offices or positions the duties of which are to perform the work of an apprentice, helper, or journeyman in a recognized trade or craft, or other skilled mechanical craft, or the work of an unskilled, semiskilled, or skilled laborer, except that whenever such offices or positions involve work in the regular custody, operation, or maintenance of a Government building, or other Government property, or work which is subordinate, incidental, or preparatory to work of a professional, scientific, or technical character, the President, upon a finding that the characteristics and working conditions of such offices or positions render them substantially the same as comparable offices or positions in the District of Columbia included within the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, may by Executive order extend the provisions of such Act to include them.

SEC. 4. The President is authorized, after suitable investigation by the Commission, which shall include consultation with respresentatives of the heads of executive departments and independent agencies, in or under the jurisdiction of which the offices or positions hereinafter designated are located, and upon a finding that such action is necessary to the more efficient operation of the Government, to exclude by Executive order, from the provisions of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended and extended under this Act

Offices or positions on work which is financed jointly by the United States and a State, Territory, or possession of the United States (including the Philippine Islands), or political subdivision thereof, or cooperating persons or organizations outside the service of the Federal Government, and the pay of which is fixed under a cooperative agreement with the United States; offices or positions, none or only part of the compensation of which is paid from funds of the United States; offices or positions filled by inmates, patients, students, or beneficiaries in Government institutions; offices or positions outside the States of the United States and the District of Columbia filled by natives of Territories or possessions of the United States (including the Philippine Islands) or foreign nationals; emergency or seasonal offices or positions in the field service, or other field offices or positions, the duties of which are of purely temporary duration, or which are required only for brief periods at intervals; and offices or positions filled by persons employed locally on a fee, contract, or piecework basis who may lawfully perform their duties concurrently with their private profession, business, or other employment and whose duties require only a portion of their time, where it is impracticable to ascertain or anticipate the proportion of time devoted to the service of the Federal Government.

SEC. 5. When any extension of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, becomes effective under this Act

(a) The allocations of offices or positions to services, grades, and classes shall be made as set forth in section 4 of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, and in accordance with a uniform procedure to be prescribed by the Commission; and

(b) The initial compensation of the incumbents of the offices or positions_to which the provisions of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, are extended under this Act, shall be fixed in accordance with section 6 of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, except that if an officer or employee is receiving compensation in excess of the maximum rate prescribed for the appropriate grade, no change by reason of this fact shall be made in his existing compensation so long

as he continues to occupy the same office or position, but the office or position shall be correctly allocated and when it becomes vacant the compensation attached thereto shall be brought within the compensation schedule, in accordance with existing law.

SEC. 6. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to prevent the promotion of an officer or employee from an office or position in one class to a vacant office or position in a higher class at any time in accordance with civil-service laws, and when so promoted the officer or employee shall receive compensation according to the schedule established for the class to which he is promoted. Nor shall anything in this Act be construed to prevent the application of the existing veteran-preference provisions in civil-service laws, Executive orders, and rulings. SEC. 7. Section 9 of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended (42 Stat. 1490; U. S. C., 1934 edition, title 5, sec. 669), is hereby further amended by adding at the end thereof the following paragraph:

"Under such regulations as may be prescribed by the Civil Service Commission with the approval of the President

"There shall be established in each Department one or more boards of review, each of which shall be composed of three or more members, the chairman to be designated by the Civil Service Commission and the other members to be designated by the head of the Department concerned. The boards of review shall meet at the call of their respective chairmen for the purpose of considering and passing upon the merits of such efficiency ratings assigned to employees as may be submitted to such boards of review as hereinafter provided. Any employee shall, upon written request to the chairman of the appropriate board of review of his department, be entitled, as a matter of right, to a hearing and a review by such board of review of his efficiency rating. After any such hearing, the board of review may make such adjustments in any such efficiency rating as it may find to be proper."

Now, we have with us this morning Mr. Harry Mitchell, President of the Civil Service Commission, and we will be glad to have a statement from you, Mr. Mitchell, about this bill.

STATEMENT OF HARRY B. MITCHELL, PRESIDENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

Mr. MITCHELL. Well, do you want anything more than general approval of the bill?

The CHAIRMAN. Whatever you want to say about it.

Mr. MITCHELL. Naturally, we approve of this bill. It gives the President power to extend the Civil Service system to agencieswhere he is now prevented from doing so by legislation. We believe this is the orderly way to do it. Bringing them in in this way by Executive order will lessen the burden of work on the Commission and at the same time be more orderly from the standpoint of the various governmental agencies that are affected.

This bill provides for a noncompetitive examination. That was gone into quite in detail on an earlier bill, and the Commission favored a noncompetitive examination because it is practically impossible for us to hold competitive examinations for all the various sorts of positions that are in the various departments.

We also agree with the terms of the bill providing for salary classification, that that shall be done in the same way, in an orderly way. It would be impossible for us to go ahead and classify all the positions in the Government service in a short time.

In a general way that is all. If there are any questions the members would like to ask, I shall be glad to answer them.

The CHAIRMAN. Any questions, gentlemen?

Mr. KUNKEL. Mr. Chairman. What do you mean when you say it would be practically impossible to hold competitive examinations? Aren't they held very frequently?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes; but if we took it in, suppose you say the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, we would have to hold Nation-wide examinations for every sort of employee that was in there. Now, I don't know how many different kinds of employees there are in Home Owners' Loan, but let's say there are 100 different classes of employees from the guards up to the highest admir istrative position that would come in uder this bill. We would have to hold a Nationwide examination for each one of these positions and we would have just simply millions of applications.

Mr. KUNKEL. It wouldn't be any more impossible than it has been in other cases.

Mr. MITCHELL. That has never been done in other cases. When they are brought in, as a matter of fact, they have always heretofore, I think without exception, been brought in without any examination at all. President Roosevelt insisted on a noncompetitive examination for all that he himself has brought in by Executive order; but I do not recall an instance where a competitive examination for the incumbents of the offices has been held.

The CHAIRMAN. With one exception, Mr. Mitchell, that is, in the case of prohibition agents in the Coolidge administration.

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes; they were brought in and that was a peculiar condition there.

The CHAIRMAN. And that was a small group, was it not?

Mr. MITCHELL. A small group and they were all one class, practically speaking.

The CHAIRMAN. It only required one examination.

Mr. MITCHELL. It only required one examination for those prohibition investigators.

Mr. MARSHALL. Is there anywhere a list of the investigators brought in at that time?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes; we can give you a list of those. I think Mr. Vipond probably

Mr. MARSHALL (interposing). What is the total number of people to be covered in?

Mr. MITCHELL. I can't answer that offhand. There are something like 861,000 Government employees and there are about 582,000 in round numbers now in the civil service law, which would leave 279,000 outside. Now, these will not all be brought in, because there are a great many of those positions that are part time and carrying small salaries and so on that it is not advisable to bring in.

Mr. MARSHALL. You are bringing in a lot of the people employed under emergency statutes, aren't you, whose agencies are supposed to evaporate after a while?

Mr. MITCHELL. I cannot answer that. That is not my province. I don't know what they are going to do with those agencies. That is a matter for the Congress to determine.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Marshall, this bill, if you remember, does not bring anybody under. It simply removes the legal barrier put in the act creating these new agencies and in the case of some of the positions that are not now in new agencies at all, they are just positions in old agencies that have been heretofore exempted by law, and I think it might be well to point out this fact, that under this procedure the President and the Commission would have time to study the question of whether or not a particular agency is to be covered in and it wouldn't

be necessary to bring in any temporary or emergency agency that has a limited life, because we are not by this act proposing to automatically extend Civil Service, you see. Any further questions?

Mr. HARTER. Where would the seniority come in? Those that are already in, of course, are just the same as if they had qualified by examination.

Mr. MITCHELL. Just the same as if they had qualified by examination. They would have the same status as any other employee.

Mr. MOSER. Now, Mr. Mitchell, you say you favor this legislation because it will eliminate the necessity of open competitive examinations, is that right?

Mr. MITCHELL. No; this bill brings in agencies which the President has not now the power to bring in. The President has brought in most of the agencies that he has the power to bring in. This bill would allow him to bring in agencies which heretofore have been excluded by the act of Congress.

Mr. MOSER. That is correct, but you brought in the open competitive examination feature on the ground that it would bring millions of applicants. That isn't provided for in this bill. I wonder how you arrived at that conclusion or why you injected it.

Mr. MITCHELL. Because it was in a former bill.

Mr. MOSER. Which former bill?

Mr. MITCHELL. I have forgotten the number.

The CHAIRMAN. H. R. 2700 of the Seventy-fifth Congress.

Mr. MOSER. Do you feel that the Civil Service Commission under your administration as the executive head of it is less competent than it was under your predecessor?

Mr. MITCHELL. It is not for me to express an opinion on that. Mr. MOSER. You feel, though, that you would be bound to agree to and follow the trail that was blazed by the Commission before you came there?

Mr. MITCHELL. Certain regulations have been established by former Commissioners and naturally those are governing until we change them.

Mr. MOSER. And there have been regulations established under executive administration of it that you hold to be binding now?

Mr. MITCHELL. Why, if the regulations are still in force, yes.

Mr. MOSER. You have taken the authority to set up regulations that were not in existence before you became the head of the Commission?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes; that is true. We have changed some of the regulations.

Mr. MOSER. Would you be bound by the precedents established by your predecessors?

Mr. MITCHELL. If those have not been changed. Now, we are bound by the rules

Mr. MOSER (interposing). Have you changed the regulations with respect to determining the experience of a person within the classified service?

Mr. MITCHELL. In some particulars, probably we have. Generally speaking, it is about the same as it was. Each examination has specific requirements.

Mr. KUNKEL. Mr. Chairman, may I be excused? I would like to say at this point that I have read through the hearings on the Civil