Doctor HILL. I am very much impressed with the importance of that subject. It is only a question of what is the best means of doing it. Now, I do not believe it can be done very well directly through the census. I do not believe it can be done very well while the enumerator is making his canvass.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Perhaps not.

Doctor HILL. And just how it should be done I am not prepared to say at this time. Perhaps the Department of Agriculture could do it better than we could.

Mr. DE ROUEN. Well, we would like to have you think it over. Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chairman, I would prefer to have the Census Bureau do it.

Mr. MOORMAN. Yes, I think the Census Bureau should do it.

Mr. RANKIN. Because this bureau seems to be more efficient in furnishing statistics than the Department of Agriculture in regard to crops.

The CHAIRMAN. As a matter of fact, the bill in regard to that got out of this committee, and got over to the Committee on Agriculture-I am referring to the matter of cotton estimates.

Mr. RANKIN. Yes.

Mr. MOORMAN. Mr. Chairman, to the end that those of us who are specially interested in this matter

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). Well, every one of us is interested in it.

Mr. MOORMAN. Well, I say especially so. I am asking for myself and perhaps the other members would like the same thing; I would like to have copies of those two schedules in order to study them. Mr. RANKIN. Suppose you mail copies to us, Doctor Hill? The CHAIRMAN. To each member of the committee. Doctor HILL. I shall be very glad to do that.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. May I ask, Mr. Chairman, that before we have our next committee meeting some one of these experts be prepared to tell us to what extent the Federal Census of 1930 is going to be comparable to the State censuses that have been taken, so that comparisons may be made? That is one question. And then, to what extent the Federal Census of 1930 can be made an ideal census, to supersede the State censuses. Now, Governor Smith, of my State, has advocated that we take no more State censuses. And I would like to have these experts give us information on those two questions. The CHAIRMAN. I think they will be glad to give us the information in full.

(Thereupon, at 12 o'clock noon, the committee adjourned until Tuesday, January 17, 1928, at 10.30 o'clock a. m.)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS,
January 17, 1928.

The committee this day met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. E. Hart Fenn (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. We will proceed now, gentlemen. We have representatives of the Civil Service Commission here who desire to speak.

STATEMENTS OF FREDERICK W. BROWN AND HERBERT E. MORGAN, UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I will call your attention to page 3, lines 11 to 18.

The commission has asked for an opportunity to present its views to the committee, and that was very graciously granted.

On this provision for special agents, supervisors, enumerators, interpreters, I have to say that as far as enumerators and interpreters are concerned we are not interested. They are only employed for a few days. Thirty days is the limit and we are not interested. Supervisors should be allowed to select those in the field without regard to the civil service law.

The supervisors, it seems to us, are rather a different proposition. Those men are very important cogs in the machine. They are men who must have administrative ability, organizing ability, and the commission has had 45 years' experience and naturally think that they are prepared to select men of that type, as we are doing constantly for other departments, and we are prepared to do it for them. It is true those are temporary jobs. I understand they will not run more than six months, most of them a shorter time than that. Mr. REED. Have you estimated how many of those there would be? Mr. BROWN. I think the Census told us there would be 375, approximately.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that supervisors?

Mr. BROWN. Supervisors.

We believe thoroughly that we can have lists ready of competent men when the Census wants them, and wherever they want them. We have our 13 districts scattered over the country. We can provide local men for those jobs without any difficulty whatever, using the regular machinery of the commission. We are prepared to do it.

As far as supervisors' clerks are concerned, there is no reason why clerks should be taken except from our registers. We have the registers established throughout the country. We can furnish them with local eligibles; take them off our list and employ them, and drop them when they are through.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you them on hand now?

Mr. BROWN. We have them on hand now.

I am particularly interested in the special agents. This provision of the bill is exactly, I believe, as it has always been. These people have been outside so far as I know always, and we have a great deal of difficulty with the special agent situation.

The Census people will tell us, I have no doubt, they are temporary jobs, and most of them are. They are selected for short periods, most of them, but I can cite you one case where the Census kept a woman on a job as a special agent for 13 years continuously, never was off the pay roll a minute.

The CHAIRMAN. A woman for 13 years?

Mr. BROWN. Yes. We announced an examination and made her take the examination when we discovered it, but she was there 13 years before we discovered it. We have no inspection service.

The special agent situation has been a thorn in the flesh for years, and our protests have served no purpose whatever, although I am told that they have stopped the practice which they have continued

for years, but if they have stopped it it is within the last few months, and that is appointing people as special agents and assigning them to any kind of classified work.

Mr. REED. About how many of those special agents?

Mr. BROWN. I shall have to call on the census people to give you that.

Mr. HIRSCH. There are none at present. About a year and a half ago there were some of our special agents detailed to the Department of Commerce. As soon as the Civil Service Commission found out about it they took the matter up with the Secretary of Commerce, and he agreed there would be no more special agents appointed for clerical work in the District of Columbia, and since that time he has rigidly enforced that.

Mr. REED. I want to know the total number. How many will be required?

Mr. GOSNELL. I can't say exactly. They vary in number at different times. We use special agents on various types of work in the field. We appoint clerks to transcribe records of marriage and divorce. We appoint city officials to make up reports on city finance, where we find someone who is competent to do the work. In that way we save about 50 per cent of the ordinary cost of doing the work.

We also appoint State officials to prepare State financial reports, which likewise saves half the cost of the work.

We use ministers and others who have to do with churches to collect statistics of the religious bodies.

Mr. REED. That is very interesting. What I wanted to get at was approximately how many men would be required. I know you can not give it exactly.

Mr. GOSNELL. Would you mind if I gave it to you in detail somewhat?

Doctor HILL. You are interested only in the census?

Mr. REED. Yes.

Mr. GOSNELL. We use agents more during the decennial census period, employing about 2,000 special agents.

The CHAIRMAN. As I understand it, the Census Bureau is authorized to make an arrangement with the State or with the municipality to take a census of the State or municipality.

Mr. GOSNELL. We have such a law now.

The CHAIRMAN. You have that authority?

Mr. GOSNELL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. When you make that agreement with the State or with the municipality to take the census, are the employees who do the work there under this classification of the Bureau of the Census, or are they partly State employees and partly agents of the Bureau of the Census?

Mr. GOSNELL. They are partly State employees and partly agents of the Bureau of the Census.

The CHAIRMAN. How would you apply civil service examinations under that condition without delaying the matter and all that?

Mr. GOSNELL. If I may make a statement regarding special agents, we employ the special agent for a period of 5 or 6 days, to 10 or 15 on the State and city financial work. Ordinarily we send a

person from Washington to prepare those figures. He is paid a regular salary which averages about $2,100 a year and a per diem in lieu of subsistence and traveling expenses.

The director is trying now, and has met with considerable success, to get State and city officials to prepare those reports on a basis as special agents, at approximately $5 a day.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not want to interrupt you, but I promised Mr. Brown the opportunity to speak first. He has another engagement. This is no discourtesy to any of you gentlemen, though.

Mr. BROWN. There is no interference as far as temporary employment of that kind is concerned. The civil service rule would not interfere at all. Any short time of 30 days or 60 days we will give the census blanket authority to employ, and the rules are flexible enough to cover a contingency of that kind.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that a rule of the department or is it a law? Mr. BROWN. That is a rule.

The CHAIRMAN. It is a regulation.

Mr. BROWN. Promulgated by the President, and has the authority of law. As I say, we will give them blanket authority to employ for a 30-day period, and give them an extension of 30-days if the job is not completed.

I want to avoid leaving this door open for the abuse which has taken place in the past. I can cite you 12 cases within the last year or year and a half of people whom the Census was carrying as special agents, and they are doing stenographic and other classified work in the department. I can cite you two cases of special agent punching card machines in the Census Bureau.

The fundamental act defines a special agent as a person appointed for temporary service, for the collection of statistics, and there is no excuse and never has been for the Census Bureau appointing such persons and using them on classified work, as they have done for years.

We have no inspection service. We can never catch those cases except by accident, and there are, I think, 12 or 15 cases in the last year that we have just stumbled on. How many men there may have been I have no means of knowing. They tell me they have stopped it.

As long as that door is open these men may not do it, but their successors may, and the commission believes the people should be under civil service. We are prepared to hold examinations and have men when the census wants them.

The CHAIRMAN. You say a special agent is operating a card index machine. Why should he not?

Mr. BROWN. Because that is classified work, regular classified work.

The CHAIRMAN. If they were short of help down there a special agent who must examine these card indices, when they come out if he takes it upon himself to run the machine and get his own card indices, why have two men to do one man's work.

Mr. BROWN. A special agent is not supposed to examine those cards. His job is to collect statistics in the field under the fundamental law, the law of 1902.

The CHAIRMAN. Then from your point of view no special agent ought to examine these cards when they come in his possession.

Mr. BROWN. Men under civil service should first do that. I have understood the Census Bureau is supposed to be a place where political or personal pressure is used to get a man a job.

The CHAIRMAN. That is new to me. I am glad to know that. Mr. TRUESDELL. I would like Mr. Brown to explain what he means by "abuses."

Mr. BROWN. I mean by transfer of special agents to stenographic work and carrying them at that job. That is an abuse.

Mr. TRUESDELL. The Civil Service Commission admitted the census was right in appointing those agents, in using them for any kind of work. You took it up with Senator Couzens.

Mr. BROWN. We never agreed.

Mr. GOSNELL. You just protested the thing and we did have the right.

Mr. BROWN. Our files show we protested, and you never had the right to employ them except for the collection of statistics in the field.

Mr. GOSNELL. We have not done anything of that kind for the last year and a half. We wanted to obey what we thought the Civil Service Commission thought were the rules.

Mr. CHAIRMAN. Each gentleman will be given full opportunity to present his case before the committee. It is not the desire of the committee to cut anybody off. If we can proceed in an orderly manner as possible, we will do so.

Mr. BROWN. I do not know that there is much more I should say. I think this is a condition that should be remedied. There is no reason in our judgment why these people should not be employed under civil service. If it is for a brief period of time, we will give them blanket authority to employ them. They do not need to do anything except employ the men and report it to us.

The CHAIRMAN. How much of a delay do you think there would be if this should become an act?

Mr. BROWN. Not a minute. We have ample time and will have examinations right away and have lists waiting when it is a law. Mr. RANKIN. Do you contend civil service is free from politics? Mr. BROWN. It is as far as I know.

Mr. RANKIN. Do you know all that is going on in the civil service down there?

Mr. BROWN. No, sir.

Mr. RANKIN. As a matter of fact, don't you know that men get on the list in these examinations through political pressure?

Mr. BROWN. I think not.

Mr. RANKIN. You think not?

Mr. BROWN. No, sir; I am quite certain, in fact.

Mr. RANKIN. Your criticism is leveled at the Bureau of the Census, and I must say that my experience also convinces me it applies to the civil service, and I am going to take the records and go back and show you. Not only that, but I want to say to you that the civil service now, in my humble opinion, as far as the section of the country that I represent is concerned, is receiving more criticism and more just criticism than any other department in the Government, except the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. BROWN. I suppose you refer to the postmaster position.