reports and several recommendations. The most important recommendation that was adopted was the creation of the new department of administration and finance, which took the place of the supervisor of administration, and now we have included in that department the supervisor of the budget, the purchasing department, and the personnel division. I think it is working out very effectively, and that feature which allows, when a vacancy occurs, an examination of the duties and the determination of whether the position shall be filled or not has been made use of. In one case there was a vacancy for an engineer in the state house. When they came to look into the matter they found there was no need for filling the vacancy; on the contrary, there were two or three engineers who were not needed and they were dropped. When they were dropped they brought suit against the state because as veterans they could not be dropped from the service. What I really want to bring out is that we are going ahead and that this careful investigation of the needs of the departments ought to be a great help in keeping down expenses.

MR. LUTHER C. STEWARD:

I fully intended to come here this morning to listen and enjoy the discussion on the part of others. I am aware that I am inclined to do too much talking on the subject of some of the phases of classification and have done a good deal lately and am afraid I will have to talk a good deal more on that subject before the winter is over. It would be an imposition on the time of others to listen to me discuss my hobby again this morning, so that while I appreciate being called on, I would rather sit down and listen this morning and take a thinking part.

MR. RICHARD H. DANA:

It is perfectly evident why this Committee should be continued and as to the question of increasing the membership of the Committee, why would it not be just as well to leave that to the Committee or perhaps to the President of the League? If it is decided to increase it to five, I should vote in favor of it.

MR. ROBERT W. BELCHER:

I can see some advantages in increasing the membership if the Committee is to be continued. I suspect there will be a good deal of work to be done and I think it would be desirable if that work could be distributed among more than three members of the Committee. I hope that Mr. Faught will be continued as chairman of the Committee. I have no desire to continue on the Committee myself. There is a great deal of work on the Committee and I think it would be an imposition on the chairman of the Committee to have to do the amount of work that the Committee will be called upon to do. I think myself it would be decidedly advantageous if the Committee could be increased to a membership of five. A committee of five is not at all unwieldy. From the experiences of the Committee so far, I think with the additional two we could do things that would be worth while. I am in favor of Mr. Stowell's motion.

MR. SHERMAN:

I would like to make a couple of suggestions to this Committee before it is finally discharged. It is to be hoped that it will still be in existence after the reclassification act finally goes into effect and we are having some experience under it. Now as one who has the administration of a relatively small division of the government but nevertheless having personnel all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, I see very great

difficulties arising from the application of two or three specific points in the law. In the first place, I anticipate a difficulty, which may not appear to most of you, in the fact that the law is going to require us to make all appointments at the minimum salary in the grade in which the person is to serve. We have never followed that plan. We have always had a range of entrance salaries and we find such difference in the value of the new appointees even wider than any range of entrance salaries that we have ever used. We are going to be in a very difficult position, I am afraid, if that particular point of the law is not modified in a service where we employ technical people who have to deal with the public, to come in immediate contact with the general public.

Another detail in which I anticipate great difficulty is in the proper compensation of employees who are supposed to be in the same grade and doing the same class of work. Let me illustrate the difficulty which we have right now in trying to work out this grading on the basis of quantity and quality of work. I think when this matter was looked into a couple of years ago it was generally considered that the Department of Agriculture had worked out perhaps the best scheme of efficiency rating that was found in Washington. In our city offices we have certain work to be done every day by a clerk. She has to send telegrams. She has certain contracts to make with people in the railroad yards. She has a certain routine. It is heavier at certain times of the year than it is at other times, but she has her regular routine all the year around. the girls have the same routine. The girls can never be compared on the basis of quantity and quality of work because each one has to do every day all the work that is to be done. If we appoint them all when they come into the service at the maximum salary they will

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ever receive, we will not get good people coming in. If there is no reward for service, you won't get the right kind of people. If there is promotion, how are you going to determine whether the girl in Boston is to be promoted over the girl in Los Angeles or Kansas City? They each have a routine which is comparable to the other and each does all there is to do. The comparison has to be on some other basis. The administrative officer will never tell you that his clerk makes more mistakes than the girl in Boston. The only comparison I can make is my own comparison as I travel around once or twice a year. In one office you will have a girl who always gets her information promptly and accurately from the people she calls up on the telephone because her attitude towards the public is such that she secures cooperation. In some other place where the girl is short and curt the people hang up on her at the other end and she does not get the information. The question of personality comes into the equation in so many, many of the positions in the government service that you simply never can handle the service properly and efficiently unless you can be allowed to take personality into consideration. So I recommend that the working out of a proper scheme of efficiency rating and a uniform method of arriving at the rate of promotion and the basis of promotion within a given grade is one of the very difficult details from a solution of which we are at present a long way off.

After further discussion the motion made by Mr. Stowell to increase the number of members of the Committee on Reclassification to five was adopted.

PRICE, WATERHOUSE & CO.

56 PINE STREET

NEW YORK

NATIONAL CIVIL SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE,

8 West 40th Street,

New York City.

DEAR SIRS:

We have examined the books of the League for the six months ending November 30, 1923, in continuation of our examination covering the preceding six months and submit herewith a statement of the receipts and disbursements for the year ending November 30, 1923, which is prepared therefrom.

The receipts as shown by the cash book were checked to the bank statements and found to have been promptly deposited. Properly approved vouchers were examined by us in support of all disbursements.

Cash in bank at November 30, 1923, as stated by the books, was confirmed with certificates forwarded to us by the depositary and cash on hand was verified by actual count.

The Fifth Avenue Bank of New York certified that at November 30, 1923, there were lodged with them for the League's account $5,000 par value United States Certificates of Indebtedness, due March 15, 1924. Owing to the absence of Mr. H. W. Marsh during our audit we did not inspect the $200 par value, United States Third Liberty Loan Bonds held for safe keeping at the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York.

Very truly yours,

PRICE, WATERHOUSE & CO.