The appeal procedure is not technical. An appeal may be instituted by a letter or by oral argument accompanied by any material which the applicant desires to place before the appeal board. Any new evidence is considered along with a review of the evidence obtained in the examination and the decision is based upon the entire file. The only restriction which has been made upon the right of appeal is the requirement that appeals must be filed within a reasonable time after notification of rating. Whenever the evidence raises doubt respecting the action taken, the commission directs further investigation. On the other hand, if the evidence appears to be reasonably complete and to be free from material error or irregularity, the board of appeals disposes of the case upon the evidence in hand. The following table shows, as of the date indicated, the results obtained in the several examinations: 1 At the time the respective examinations were announced. • Competitors in this examination were not passed or failed on the oral test, but the results of the oral test were considered with the results of the character investigation. 'These figures are subject to slight modification as the result of action on appeal cases, uncompleted cases, reopened cases, etc. Not completed. NOTE.-The above table relates to examinations for the following positions: Position : Assisbtant Commissoiner of Prohibition. Senior prohibition investigator, senior alcohol and brewery inspector__ Junior prohibition agent, prohibition agent, junior prohibition investigator, prohibition investigator, junior alcohol and brewery inspector, alcohol and brewery inspector_. Warehouse watchman Junior attorney, assistant attorney, associate attorney, attorney. Deputy Commissioner of Prohibition, chief of field division, motor- Announcement 185 117 118 119 122 124 130 131 Miscellaneous. PRESIDENTIAL POSTMASTERS During the year the commission held 937 examinations to furnish eligibles for the position of postmaster in offices of the first, second, and third classes. This was a decrease from 1,199 during the preceding fiscal year. Appointees to these positions are subject to confirmation by the Senate, and the positions are not in the classified competitive service. The commission does, however, hold competitive examinations for these positions under the Executive order of May 10, 1921, and certifies the highest three eligibles, from whom the Post Office Department makes selection to fill the vacancy. The effect of this procedure is that incompetents are eliminated, and undoubtedly the service has benefited by the fact that only persons who have successfully met the commission's tests of fitness are considered for appointment. The commission's function consists in eliminating the unfit by means of appropriate tests, arranging the qualified applicants in the order of their fitness, and certifying the names of the highest three to the Post Office Department for consideration in making selection. In these operations political considerations have no place and are not allowed to influence the commission's findings in any particular whatsoever. Once certification is made the commission's function ceases, and if beyond that point politics enters into these appointments that is a matter not in the commission's control. The purchase of any appointive office is subject to fine or imprisonment, or both. FINGERPRINTING In recent years the commission as a part of its character investigation, has employed fingerprinting of eligibles and searching of police records in a few of the larger cities. During the present year all applicants who passed the preliminary examinations for the prohibition service, in addition to a personal investigation, were fingerprinted. This method has also been employed in assisting ex-service men, applying for military preference, to establish their identities when their discharges were lost or issued in names different from those under which they applied, or where the War Department was unable from the statement of service given to locate their records. The limited use of this method has been successful in detecting persons with criminal records which had been concealed in their applications for examination, and the commission has been granted a small appropriation for the coming fiscal year with which to establish a central fingerprint section in the Washington office where the fingerprints of all persons appointed to the service in certain of the larger cities will be filed after search has been made locally and through the Department of Justice fingerprint bureau. RECRUITING Under the competitive-examination system the purpose is not merely to insure that the persons appointed are qualified but that they are the best qualified that can be obtained. The better the quality of the employees the smaller their number need be. The commission aims to save money for taxpayers by keeping incompetents out of the service and by bringing in the most competent. Therefore, wide competition in examinations is desirable. During the year ended June 30, 1928, 509 examinations were announced by the commission at Washington in addition to those announced by district secretaries. The examinations announced under the district system are for the most part given local publicity only, but the central office at Washington renders assistance to district secretaries when they have difficulty in their recruiting through the usual publicity methods followed in district offices. In giving publicity to the examinations announced from the office of the commission all announcements go to local boards of examiners for posting, to appropriate educational institutions, public libraries, public (not commercial) employment offices, and certain other places. Publicity is given to all examinations through newspapers and appropriate periodical publications and through broadcasts from approximately 60 radio stations. Besides this general distribution, such special distribution is made in each instance as appears to be needed. Examples of the individual attention given to examination announcements may be of interest. In connection with the public-buildings program upon which the Government has embarked, the Office of the Supervising Architect needed a considerable number of architectural, construction, electrical, mechanical, and structural engineers. In addition to the general distribution of advertising matter, the announcements were sent to employment offices of engineering societies; departments of architecture, civil engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering at colleges; engineers', architects', and draftsmen's associations and unions, and secretaries of chapters of the American Institute of Architects. Four hundred and thirty applications were filed. The Coast Guard had two vacancies in naval architect positions, one in the associate and one in the assistant grade, the salaries offered being $3,000 and $2,400 a year, respectively. Naval architects are not plentiful, and those who are willing to accept the salaries offered in this instance are rare. In giving publicity to this need the commission enlisted the aid of employment offices of engineering societies; architects', draftsmen's, and engineers' associations and unions; departments of civil engineering, naval engineering, and marine engineering of colleges; shipbuilding companies and members of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. Twentyone applications were filed for the associate grade and 13 for the assistant position. Sometimes the only additional publicity required may be secured through newspapers. For example, 23 applications were filed for a position of overseer of an experimental cotton textile mill under the Bureau of Standards as a result of newspaper publicity in the parts of the country which have considerable numbers of cotton mills, and a like number were filed for instructor-foreman in the lasting department of the shoe factory at the penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kans., in response to newspaper publicity in the larger centers of shoe manufacturing. When an examination announcement is drafted it is studied in the section of recruiting, and while the announcement is at the Government Printing Office arrangements are made for such publicity as seems to be needed in the individual case. Each of the 509 examinations announced from the commission's office during the year was given as careful attention as those mentioned above. During the year 97,397 personal or telephone calls were received at the information bureau of the commission's Washington office. Between 500 and 600 letters are received in the application division each day in response to the country-wide advertising of examinations. Offices of district and local secretaries in the aggregate receive a great many more responses than the central office. VETERAN PREFERENCE The present law providing that preference in appointments to the civil service shall be given to veterans, to their widows, and to the wives of injured veterans who themselves are disqualified for appointment by reason of their disabilities, was approved July 11, 1919. Between that date and June 30, 1928, 123,235 appointments to the classified service were made of persons entitled to preference under the law. The extent to which veterans profit by the provisions of the law and rules in their favor is shown by the chart on page 12. An analysis of the chart shows that during the year 231,425 persons entered examinations for the classified service, of whom 50,830, or slightly less than 22 per cent, were given preference. Of 37,796 appointments, 9,208, or 24.3 per cent, were of preference eligibles, whereas less than 22 per cent of all the applicants were in the preferred class. The number of preference eligibles appointed during the year is more than 18 per cent of all preference applicants, whereas the number of nonpreference appointees is less than 16 per cent of the whole number of nonpreference applicants. In the past five years alone 5,729 disabled veterans have been appointed to classified positions. The commission is represented by local boards of examiners in each of approximately 4,800 cities, and announcements of examinations are sent by these boards to veterans' organizations and to publications circulated among veterans to inform them of the opportunities of examination and the preference accorded to them. The commission began its plans in the interest of veterans before the end of the World War. On July 18, 1918, an Executive order was issued, upon the recommendation of the commission, which provided for the reinstatement in the civil service of those who left to participate in the war. Also, arrangements were made whereby the names of those who had passed examinations and had not been appointed and whose eligibility was interrupted by war service should be restored to the eligible registers upon their return. In order that the service men might have early information concerning opportunities for employment, the commission placed its examination announcements on the transports which brought the men home and appointed special representatives at all establishments where men were to be assembled for mustering out. The commission also appointed a representative to supply civil-service information at each hospital where yeterans were treated. All of these things were done before congressional action liberalized the veteran preference law. The commission gave to the veterans every advantage that it could give them under the law as it existed then, just as it now gives them every advantage that may be given under the present legal provision and Executive order. The commission continues to give special attention to the interests of disabled veterans. It sends all of its examination announcements to veterans' hospitals and is most liberal in waiving the physical requirements in favor of disabled veterans. The regulations governing the reopening to veterans of examinations which are closed to applicants generally are especially liberal as they apply to disabled veterans. The President has shown much interest in the subject of veteran preference and has provided by the Executive order of June 9, 1928, for its further study. The order creates an advisory committee "whose duty will be to study, analyze, and report upon the civilservice rules relating, to veteran preference. Its main purpose will be to ascertain ways and means for making Government positions available for the disabled veterans." The order empowers the committee “to make a survey of the positions available in the executive branch of the Federal Government and to draft recommendations to be submitted to the President not later than December 1, 1928. The report of the committee should include advice as to what modifica |