Mr. PINDELL. Two years last August. I have been connected with the department for about eight years.

Mr. JOHNSON. Have you been with the Department of Commerce and Labor ever since it was organized?

Mr. PINDELL. No, sir; I came in in 1904, and the department was organized in 1903.

DEPUTY DISBURSING CLERK, ASSISTANT CHIEF APPOINTMENT DIVISION, AND ASSISTANT CHIEF DIVISION OF PUBLICATIONS.

Mr. JOHNSON. The next item is the deputy disbursing clerk. That seems to be a new office.

Mr. PINDELL. It is proposed to drop out one $1,800 clerk, and that would simply be a promotion. The same would be true of the Assistant Chief of the Appointment Division and the Assistant Chief of the Division of Publications. Now, with your permission, I would like to treat these three together.

Mr. JOHNSON. Very well.

Mr. PINDELL. All three of these are important divisions. The chiefs of the divisions are necessarily absent either officially or for other reasons for a portion of the time, and the positions therefore become of more than average responsibility. Taking the average responsible position in the Government service that is of the highest clerical order as being worth about $1,800, these positions are clearly worth these salaries that are requested here.

Mr. GILLETT. What do you mean when you say they are absent officially or for other reasons?

Mr. PINDELL. I mean when the official is taking his annual leave, or if he should be sick or something of that kind. Of course that occupies but a small portion of the time, but it occurs nevertheless.

The next item is the proposed increase of the salary of the Chief of Appointments Division from $2,500 to $2,750, and then this increase in the salary of the Chief of the Division of Publications from $2,500 to $2,750. There is also an increase asked for the Chief of the Division of Supplies from $2,100 to $2,500. Now, the same reasons which prompted us to make that recommendation apply to all of these positions.

DISTRIBUTION OF DOCUMENTS.

Mr. JOHNSON. Just in that connection, I suppose this is as good a place as any to bring up another matter. I see the word "publications" there, which reminds me of the matter, and I might otherwise have forgotten it. The last legislative bill provided that all public documents should be mailed from the Government Printing Office instead of from the various departments. How is that law operating with respect to your department?

Mr. PINDELL. Of course the transfer just took effect on October 1, and I do not know that we have had sufficient experience to express a very deliberate opinion. We dropped out, as required by the law, all those persons who were exclusively on that work, or whose work could be dispensed with by reason of the transfer. We dropped one $1,000 clerk, one assistant messenger at $720, one laborer at $660, and three laborers at $480 each, and at the present moment we are complying strictly with the law. That is to say, we are sending copies of

our mailing lists to the Public Printer, and are furnishing franked slips upon which he can send out these documents.

Mr. JOHNSON. When you receive a letter asking for publications what do you do with that letter?

Mr. PINDELL. That letter, if it comes to the Secretary's office, as a great many of them do, is put in the box for the messenger to carry over to the chief of the bureau to which the publication relates. He indorses on it "O. K." or whatever proper words he wants to use, and it goes to the Division of Publications. It is sent by a messenger with no written communication of any kind. If the order is to send the document, the Chief of the Publication Division prepares a franked slip and forwards it to the Public Printer, and the publication is

sent out.

Mr. JOHNSON. What becomes of that letter?

Mr. PINDELL. That letter is filed in the Division of Publications. I believe certain letters are being returned to the writers.

Mr. CABLE. Letters coming from persons other than Members of Congress and Senators are returned to the persons sending them with a printed slip attached or something to the effect that the request will be complied with through the Public Printer. The letter is sent back to the writer. In the case of a letter from a Member of Congress or Senator, a letter is prepared in the Division of Publications for the signature of the Secretary or Assitant Secretary stating what disposition has been made of the request or communication, and that letter is filed.

Mr. JOHNSON. Then you do not encumber your files by keeping these communications?

Mr. CABLE. No, sir; we have put in the system of sending them back.

Mr. JOHNSON. Suppose the request, instead of coming to the Secretary, should go to a bureau in the first instance. Suppose, for instance, it should be addressed to Bureau of Corporations as a bureau?

Mr. PINDELL. That may be handled in one or two ways. The bureau might follow that scheme that was explained a moment ago, and it does do that with some simple requests, but frequently these letters requesting publications ask also for some information that is not published, and a letter has to be prepared by somebody who is familiar with that subject. In that case the letter would be prepared in the bureau and a franked slip would come to the Division of Publications, so that that division could make a record on the mailing list, and the slip would then go on to the Public Printer to have the publication sent out.

Mr. JOHNSON. You say you have dispensed with the services of some people by reason of that law. Have you been embarrassed by reason of it in any way?

Mr. CABLE. Mr. Chairman, up to the present time, if I had to answer the question one way or the other, I would say no, we have not been; but the system is so new that it is difficult to give any very good answer. I am frank to say that my own personal observation has been that this new system of distributing publications has worked better than I for one thought it would. We were opposed to it in the department. The department hopes it will work out all right,

but we have had it in effect for such a short time that it is difficult to tell.

CLERICAL FORCE.

Mr. JOHNSON. Coming back to the Secretary's office, I see you have dropped three clerks of class 4. That is explained by this promotion you are asking for before that.

Mr. PINDELL. Yes, sir; that is correct, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. Below that is a slight increase in the force?

Mr. PINDELL. Yes, sir; one clerk in class 3 at $1,600. That is a recommendation that was made last year, I believe, also. There is a corresponding reduction in the force of the Immigration Bureau to take care of that. We have asked that a man who has been on detail from the Immigration Bureau to the Secretary's office be transferred to this salary. That is not an increase in the appropriation for the Department of Commerce and Labor, but it is taking it out at one place and putting it in at another.

Mr. JOHNSON. What about the others?

Mr. PINDELL. There is a position of clerk of class 2, additional, that we are asking for the editorial work in the Division of Publications. The Division of Publications has never been properly manned so far in connection with editorial work. Now, competent editors and proof readers are required there. Their presence has a very direct relation to what happens to that large printing allotment. We have about $400,000 for that purpose, and unless the work is competently edited and proof read we are liable to spend more money than we ought, and the expenditure of a few hundred dollars in a salary there might result in saving several thousand dollars of that appropriation.

It is very important that that work should be properly manned. I think we are fully justified in asking for one $1,400 position for that division, and one $1,200 position, which figures in the increase from 11 to 15, which is indicated below. This increase from 11 to 15 also is proposed to take care of three details to the Secretary's office from other bureaus. Now, there are corresponding reductions in those bureaus to meet that proposed increase. In other words, where we have asked for an increase in there, we have asked that it be dropped somewhere else, so that it does not change the appropriation for the department. You will find that in the estimates as you go along. There is one additional clerk at $900, also, that we have asked for. That clerk is asked for the Appointment Division. They have not been able to properly keep up with their work. It is safe to say that the work of the Appointment Division is not going to decrease for a time. They have had to work a great deal overtime, there and a great deal of the work they should do is very much delayed simply because of insufficient clerical force.

WATCHMEN, TELEPHONE OPERATORS, ETC.

In the following items we have asked for an increase in the salary of the chief telephone operator from $720 to $900. That was asked last year. We have asked an increase in the salary of the captain of the watch from $900 to $1,200, and in the salary of the engineer

we have asked an increase from $1,000 to $1,200. These increases are asked for simply to make the salaries commensurate with the duties and to conform to the general practice. Our captain of the watch is paid less than the captain of the watch in any other department of the Government. I have never understood the reason for it. He is certainly a very efficient man, and he looks after the business properly. He has a force of watchmen under him. He has three buildings under his charge, besides the Coast Survey Building, and it requires an active man to perform his duties. It requires an efficient man; otherwise we would be liable to have something happen to us. That man works night and day. He pays for his own telephone in his house in order that he may look after the watchmen during the night and see that they do not sleep or go out of the building.

Mr. JOHNSON. How many men are under him?

Mr. PINDELL. He has 11 men on the central force and 4 in the Coast Survey.

Mr. JOHNSON. You have not found it possible to reduce the number of watchmen around these public buildings since you were here last time?

Mr. PINDELL. We have 11 watchmen to look after three buildings, and I would like to compare that with any other force doing like work.

Mr. JOHNSON. We passed a provision in this bill last session that reduced the number of watchmen, but in the Senate it was restored, and this committee could not well afford to stand out against it, because most of these people are old men and we did not want to legislate them out of positions, but I thought that when a place became vacant it would be permitted to remain vacant.

Mr. PINDELL. We have the smallest watch force in Washington. I think I can say that. As soon as we get this new building, which we hope to get this year, then I may give you a reduction.

TELEPHONE OPERATORS.

Mr. JOHNSON. Referring to the item on page 270, in which you ask for a chief telephone operator at $900 and a telephone operator at $720 in lieu of two telephone operators at $720 each, you want to increase the salary of one of them to $900 and leave the other as she is. Why do you make such a difference?

Mr. PINDELL. Just for the same reason that on a different scale the assistant chief of a division is generally paid a less salary_than the chief of the division. This woman who is in charge there is not purely a telephone operator, who simply makes the connections as the calls come in. She has to keep whatever records are necessary in the office, and there are considerable records kept in connection with the long-distance telephone messages, which involve a considerable amount of money in the course of a year. That has to be done accurately. She does this bookkeeping. In regular telephone exchanges they have people employed to do that and pay them higher wages than are paid to the telephone operators. I do not think there is a chief telephone operator in any of the Government departments in Washington who gets as little salary as she does to-day. Mr. JOHNSON. On page 271 I notice that a number of people have been dropped, in compliance with the provision of section 8 of the last legislative act.

Mr. PINDELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you mean to say that these people were separated from the service, or were they transferred to some other place? You did not have to turn anybody off, did you?

Mr. PINDELL. I do not believe that anybody was turned off. I think we transferred every one of them to vacancies that occurred. Mr. JOHNSON. In other words, you took care of these people in filling vacancies?

Mr. PINDELL. Yes, sir. They were taken care of either in our department or elsewhere in the service.

CONTINGENT FUND.

Mr. JOHNSON. You will find the contingent appropriation on page 296. How much are you reducing that this time?

Mr. PINDELL. We are continually turning a good deal back into the Treasury, I am sorry to say, for some reason. Our present contingent appropriation ought to be really treated in two parts, because last year the form of the appropriation was materially changed.

The appropriation for those bureaus of the department not having appropriations of their own was $60,000, and, then, in addition to that, sums amounting to $66,500 were subtracted from other appropriations in charge of various bureaus and added to ours, without increasing the total amount appropriated, in order to facilitate the purchase and distribution of supplies through one place without reimbursing one appropriation from another. We have asked this year for an increase in the total appropriation. I want to increase the appropriation of $126,500 to $137,000; $5,000 of that is added to conform to the estimate of the Director of the Census for the increase of his miscellaneous expense appropriations from $15,000 to $20,000 and $500 is to cover the estimated increase in his appropriation for books and periodicals from $500 to $1,000. Now, in addition to that, we are asking for an increase of $5,000 in our original appropriation of $60,000, and the reason for that is this: Last year Congress gave us a new bureau, the Children's Bureau, but it gave us no appropriation at all for miscellaneous expenses or travel or rent, or anything else for that bureau. Congress simply gave us the salaries. That bureau was organized this summer, and it is now just fairly started. In connection with its force, it has several special agents and other employees, and in the very nature of things these agents will spend a large part of their time in the field.

Of course, the traveling expense will be considerable. We have met whatever expense they have incurred thus far from our contingent fund, and we can do that for the remainder of this fiscal year. Next year, however, they expect to be running at full blast and expect to need a substantial amount for their various contingent expenses, including travel requirements and such special books and publications as they may need, and for their other miscellaneous expenses, such as furniture, stationery, supplies, and equipment. the purchase of labor-saving appliances we have used the contingent appropriation wherever it was possible. Wherever we thought money could be saved by the use of mechanical appliances in the performance of clerical work we have purchased them. That policy has been

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