the case, I want to say that the various bureaus of the Department of Agriculture place their purchase orders for the articles or supplies that may be required, and they are received by the property clerk. They are inspected and the account is checked against the property; it is then certified by the chief of the division who receives the supplies; it is then submitted to the chief of the bureau, who approves it and sends it to me. Now, they have all of the collateral papers and all the facts. I have nothing in my office except what the Auditor of the Treasury Department would have. In other words, my examination is practically the examination that the Auditor of the Treasury Department or War Department or State Department would make; and if I need any information in regard to the account in addition to that, I would have to send to the bureaus for it.

Secretary WILSON. I want to say this: I may have put more work on Mr. Zappone than the law asked me to put on him. As you know, the Department of Agriculture has been growing very fast, and we are constantly adding new men and taking up new work. I recall very distinctly that I told Mr. Zappone that I wanted him to be entirely satisfied that the bureau examination in regard to these accounts was correct, because Mr. Zappone is the only protection I have in that regard. After seeing to it that the spirit of the law is carried out with regard to the development of the department, the very next thing with me is to see to it that the money we have control of is wisely and honestly expended. I know that I have impressed upon Mr. Zappone that all the information that he might possibly need in the nature of a final examination should be given him before the payment of the money should be made by him. If he needs any information that these bureaus have, I have made it incumbent upon them to furnish that information. During the past 16 years we have had no trouble about money in the Department of Agriculture, and I may have gone a step beyond the law-that is, not in what the law forbids, because I would not do that, but in what the law may have required. I may have gone a step beyond that in my instructions to Mr. Zappone in reference to the examination of these accounts. I did that because I regard him as the man who protects me in such matters.

Mr. ZAPPONE. I want to say that I desire at all times to comply with your wishes and those of the Secretary, whatever they are, in reference to the examination of these accounts, and if in making the technical examination I have described I am making a more extensive examination than you think I should make, I will gladly stop it; but it will simply means the transferring of a few clerks from my office to the bureaus for the purpose of doing that same work. Mr. JOHNSON. How many clerks have you?

Mr. ZAPPONE. About 65,

Mr. JOHNSON. How much money do you disburse?

Mr. ZAPPONE. About $24,000,000 this year.

Mr. JOHNSON. Now, the disbursing clerk of the Treasury Department disburses $40,000,000 at an expense of about $20,000.

Mr. ZAPPONE. I have no idea what he disburses, sir; but I might say in that connection that the two offices are not at all comparable. Mr. JOHNSON. Then, where and how do you draw the distinction between them? That is exactly what has been troubling us. find that there is absolutely no comparison between what is required

We

in some departments of the Government to disburse money and what it is costing in others.

Mr. ZAPPONE. It is very difficult to make any such comparison, for the reason that the disbursing officers of some departments are given more work to do by the heads of those departments than is the case in others. In the Agricultural Department the work of accounting has been centralized in my division, and in the law that division is called the Division of Accounts and Disbursements. It is a division created by statute, and I do not know of any other like it in the law outside of the Treasury Department. In the Navy Department, it is true, they have a Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, and there is a Bureau of Supplies and Accounts in the State Department. But outside of that the disbursing officers in the other departments are disbursing clerks. In the Treasury Department, for instance, the disbursing clerk is an employee who is carried, I believe, on the statutory roll of the Secretary's office, and such clerks are detailed to him as may be necessary for conducting his work. That is true in most of the departments, and you would have no knowledge of the men employed in the work by simply taking those who are carried on that roll. However, I do not wish to make any invidious comparison. You have asked me to make a comparison, and it is a difficult thing to do. I think it would be better to describe the kind of work we are doing, and then let you form your own opinion in regard to the matter.

Mr. JOHNSON. Of course we do not want a disbursing officer to do things in a loose or illegal way, but we do not want an auditing office to grow up in every disbursing office, because we have auditors whose duty it is to audit accounts, and we have a Comptroller of the Treasury whose duty it is to pass upon all accounts and whose duty it is to give you information you may ask for in regard to the construction of the law. We are trying to avoid the auditing process in the disbursing offices, except such as is necessary to satisfy the disbursing agent that it is a legal claim and that it is provided for in the appropriation.

Mr. ZAPPONE. I understand that thoroughly, and I believe that is all I am doing at the present time. If I am doing any more than that, I assure you gentlemen I will go through the work of the division very carefully, and I will reduce the force that I have on transfer from the bureaus or I will do whatever else is necessary to bring about just that condition you speak of. I want to say, however, that there is no duplication of work between the bureaus and my own office. In other words, if you want an administrative examination and the technical examination that is made in my office, you really have but one complete audit of each and every account of the department before it goes to the Treasury, and I do not think you want the department to send accounts to the Treasury without receiving at least one complete examination as between the bureaus and my own office.

Secretary WILSON. We have about the same number of people in Washington that the Treasury Department has, and in addition we have between 11,000 and 12,000 people who are always in the field. We have to make disbursing officers of some of them in the field, and it is this class of expenditures that we are anxious about. I am anxious that Mr. Zappone, who is our main protection in the depart

ment, shall know that the accounts which come up to him from all over the world are correct. Now, that constitutes the great difference between us and the Treasury Department-we have such a tremendous force outside.

Mr. JOHNSON. Under how many acts of Congress do you have to disburse money?

Mr. ZAPPONE. About four or five. We have the Agricultural bill, which, of course, is our main bill. Then we have under the Weeks law $2,000,000 a year, and then we have the meat-inspection fund in a permanent appropriation of $3,000,000. In addition to that we have some cooperative funds that come under the Forest Service, that were originally in the Agricultural bill. The money is really derived from the sale of timber

Mr. JOHNSON. How many people do you have in the field under all these acts that you refer to?

Mr. ZAPPONE. The force of the Agricultural Department at the present time is over 13,000 people. It is between 13,000 and 14,000 people. A little less than 3,000 of them are here in Washington and the balance are in the field.

Secretary WILSON. And the islands of the sea.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1912.

DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS.

STATEMENT OF MR. SAMUEL B. DONNELLY, PUBLIC PRINTER.

Mr: JOHNSON. Mr. Donnelly, we were anxious to have a statement from you as to how the new law with respect to the mailing of public documents in the Government Printing Office is working.

Mr. DONNELLY. I have a report, Mr. Chairman, as to what has been done in carrying out the provisions of the new law. The law which brings together all these documents and the work of wrapping and mailing public documents in the Government Printing Office was not passed until the latter part of the month of August. It was originally contemplated that the Public Printer should have three months in which to take over the work, but the work was taken over by our office on October 1. In order to comply with the law I would only have had one month to take the documents over and have transferred all this work. The transfer of the work was commenced early in September, and we began the work of wrapping and mailing publications on the 1st of October. At the present time we are up to date on all of the work of wrapping, mailing, and dispatching Government publications, with the exception of miscellaneous publications of the Department of Agriculture, on which we are behind, but which will be up to date in about one week. The total number of publications transferred to the Government Printing Office to handle was 8,149,823. We have received, but have not been able to list or place on shelves, 23,352 documents. These have been received, but have not yet been placed on shelves.

There remain to be turned over to the Government Printing Office approximately the following lots of publications: Interstate Commerce Commission, 150 sacks; Geological Survey, 1,200 sacks; Reclamation Service, 6 sacks; Library of Congress, 35 sacks; Navy Depart

ment, 1,000 sacks; Treasury Department, 500 sacks; War Department, Engineer's Office, 75 sacks. This makes a total of approximately 227,700 publications. These publications could not be taken over until certain changes had been made to provide space for them; that is, until we could finish a floor in the garage at the Government Printing Office. This is now completed, and the documents will be transferred to the Government Printing Office within the coming week. We have received from the departments 351 mailing lists, these lists containing a total number of 555,054 names. These, however, do not include the mailing lists for the annual reports of the various departments, for the reason that they are sent out only once a year. We have a list of the property that was delivered to the Public Printer, including machinery, supplies, and other materials. There were transferred from the departments to the Government Printing Office 20 employees, of whom 15 are now working in the Government Printing Office. The work of moving this vast quantity of publications was commenced in September, and the cost incidental to moving it was $1,870.72. In the month of October the total cost of handling that work was $5,658.02. Now, the cost in the month of October was heavy on account of the departments permitting the work to lag and fall off in September, and as the election was approaching we considered it our duty to clean up and mail all the agricultural bulletins for which we had received orders, and that we succeeded in doing. Our fixtures for handling the work were not in shape, and our bins for assorting and our racks for holding mail sacks were not received until about the 1st of November. We are sacking publications now in accordance with the wishes of the Post Office Department, and are hauling 80 per cent of the publications direct to the Union Station sacked by States.

Mr. JOHNSON. How many people are engaged in the work of mailing publications?

Mr. DONNELLY. In the mailing of documents we are using at the present time our regular bindery force; that is, we are using regular employees as they can be spared from other sections of the office. The force employed for handling documents is a variable one, and the maximum, I think, that has been employed on any one day is about 55. Mr. GILLETT. Have you had to increase your force at all in order to do this work?

Mr. DONNELLY. I am increasing the force this week because we begin the congressional session and must organize our night force next week. The regular force of the office will be employed solely in the printing work, and I am now putting about 20 persons on the work of wrapping and mailing publications during the present week. Mr. JOHNSON. It is the usual practice to increase the force upon the convening of Congress anyway, is it not?

Mr. DONNELLY. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILLETT. You began this work in what was really the vacation?

Mr. DONNELLY. Yes, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. For the time this law has been in operation what is your judgment about it; do you think it will prove economical and satisfactory all around?

Mr. DONNELLY. I think this law is the greatest step in advance in the promotion of economy in the matter of printing and distributing

publications that has been taken in many years, for the reason that you will now have it concentrated under one roof where all of the documents printed by the Government for distribution can be inspected and examined. The result of that would be a great reduction in the volume of documents and in the size of the editions. The editions will be smaller, and there will be greater expedition in the work of distribution. I think that within one year, instead of having stored around in the departments in Washington approximately 12,000,000 copies of publications, you will have those that are of any use distributed and the balance disposed of.

Mr. JOHNSON. You spoke of the editions of public documents being made smaller. What do you mean by that?

Mr. DONNELLY. I mean that the Public Printer has not the room or the available space at the Government Printing Office to store any greater number of documents than those now in his possession, and that the Public Printer will of necessity be compelled to keep the editions of these publications moving. The departments will be compelled to consider the matter of distribution and proper mailing lists and determine to whom they are going to send the publications before they are printed, under that new system. That will result in the department reducing the number of copies to be printed to a computed quantity, and that will be determined after particular consideration is given to the documents that they have in mind. Under the present conditions there is a tendency to print a vast quantity beyond what is required to supply immediate requests and permit the remainder to lie in storage for an unreasonable length of time.

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you believe you will have sufficient space in the Government Printing Office to take care of this business that will come to you by reason of this change in the law?

Mr. DONNELLY. I have not space to handle any greater quantity than that now in my possession and about to be turned over, and it is my opinion that the number to be turned over and the number now in the possession of the Public Printer will not increase. Of this quantity turned over, there is a great amount of dead material, but what the percentage is I can not say.

Mr. JOHNSON. What is to be done with this worthless printed stuff or dead material as you call it?

Mr. DONNELLY. Under the law it must be mutilated and disposed of as waste paper.

Mr. JOHNSON. I saw in the paper the other day that a great volume of worthless documents are to be disposed of in the near future. Mr. DONNELLY. Yes, sir; we are disposing of them now.

Mr. JOHNSON. Did this legislation we had in the legislative bill last session expedite that action in any way.

Mr. DONNELLY. It expedited it to this extent, that we had to get rid of them in order to make room for the work you have ordered transferred to the Printing Office. The bulk of these documents consists of surplus publications received from many sources. Much of it was received from departments and bureaus during the past two years, and the balance of it was returned from depository libraries and from libraries other than depository libraries to which they had been sent by Congressmen.

For instance, in that lot of publications there are a number of sets that were bound for former Members of Congress, containing their

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