2 MESSRS. MILTON W. SHREVE (CHAIRMAN) DEPARTMENT OF STATE APPROPRIATION BILL, 1927 HEARINGS CONDUCTED BY THE SUBCOMMITTEE, MESSRS. MILTON W. SHREVE (CHAIRMAN), GEORGE HOLDEN TINKHAM, ERNEST R. ACKERMAN, WILLIAM B. OLIVER, AND ANTHONY J. GRIFFIN, OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IN CHARGE OF THE DEPARTMENTS OF STATE, JUSTICE, COMMERCE, AND LABOR APPROPRIATION BILL FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1927, ON THE DAYS FOLLOWING, NAMELY: TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1926. DEPARTMENT OF STATE STATEMENTS OF J. BUTLER WRIGHT, ASSISTANT SECRETARY; WILBUR J. CARR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY; E. J. AYERS, CHIEF CLERK; TYLER DENNETT, CHIEF, DIVISION OF PUBLICATIONS; AND HERBERT C. HENGSTLER, CHIEF, DIVISION OF FOREIGN SERVICE ADMINISTRATION Mr. SHREVE. We are ready to proceed with the consideration of the appropriation bill making appropriations for the Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, and Labor. It has been customary to honor these hearings by having statements from the heads of the departments, the secretaries, and if the Secretary is with us this morning, we shall be pleased to have a statement from him. Mr. CARR. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I should like to state that the Secretary hoped to be with you this morning, but he had to go to a Cabinet meeting and besides is suffering from a heavy cold and he requested me to ask that he be excused this morning. He would like to come over, if it is entirely agreeable to you, to-morrow. Mr. SHREVE. We should be pleased to have him come to-morrow afternoon. We have a meeting of the full committee in the morning and this particular subcommittee will not meet until 2 o'clock. Mr. CARR. All right, sir; thank you very much. GENERAL STATEMENT Mr. CARR. I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Wright make a statement to the Committee with respect to the departmental appropriations generally and the Budget. Mr. WRIGHT. Mr. Chairman, I have not prepared any statement, but I should be very glad to make a general statement along those lines now. Mr. SHREVE. That will be satisfactory. You may proceed, Mr. Wright, with your statement. 1 Mr. WRIGHT. Mr. Chairman, the method by which we are endeavoring to handle the appropriations in the Department gives us still more encouragement as to the indorsement of the lump sum appropriation which we are endeavoring to apply. You were good enough, several hearings ago, to ask me whether the general principles of the Budget Act have had any repercussion upon the Department of State, for good or for ill, and I think I said at that time that it had had an effect for good. We find it increasingly so, because it has enabled us to apply it more or less as a yardstick for measuring efficiency in the Department. With respect to how the State Department is running, I have been able to say that we are endeavoring to put the department's forces more on a qualitative than on a quantitative basis. We have endeavored to discourage, in the administration of the department, the practice of filling up the vacuum merely by appointing stenographers and clerks of the lower grade in order to absorb our funds. I do not mean by that that we have no regard for those who occupy the important clerical positions. In the administration of the department, in conjunction with Mr. Carr, I have been very much interested in the problems presented by the department's personnel, particularly as affected by the conservation of funds. It has appeared to me that the employment of a person as a drafting officer, for example, at a fairly respectable salary, has its instant effect upon the bureaus for which those persons work. For example, I have two general ideas in mind. One would be, in the handling of the solicitor's office, whether the best way would be to treat the enormous quantity of material which comes in there merely by getting law clerks to go through the more or less onerous duty of getting answers prepared that would not be of the assistance to the persons to whom those answers were addressed than would otherwise be the case versus what would be accomplished by getting two-thirds that number of assistant solicitors who would be able to give a definitive opinion that would be of interest and value to the persons who come in contact with the department. I think Mr. Dennett's office, in the Division of Publications, is another instance that might be cited. Instead of a number of hack typists, if we could have a smaller number of persons who were so interested and educated as to undertake the publication of the territorial papers of the United States in which Congress is now interested, and also the publication of "Foreign Relations" and matters of that kind, it would be greatly beneficial. With reference to the field service, and subject to any observation that Mr. Carr may make, I shall not touch at all on the question of our fiscal needs, except in connection with such points as may be brought up in connection with our appropriations for contingent expenses, leaving it to your discretion as to whether or not it should be on the record that sooner or later we shall have to appear before you gentlemen in order to advocate the advisability of adopting some method of administration whereby we shall be able to maintain our properties in the field. We have certain properties now which we must maintain and which will deteriorate if we do not do so. That, of course, is something which can be determined by itself. Then, there is this problem, and I feel that Mr. Carr will speak on it more intelligently and convincingly than I, upon which I have spoken in the last two hearings that I have had the honor to appear before this committee; that is the question of our clerks in both branches of the Foreign Service. Our service officers know exactly what they are going into, because their salaries are fixed. The question of living expenses will be taken care of either by the acquisition of properties, or by post allowances, or by the allowances granted in principle under the Rogers Act. But, unfortunately, the clerk in the average mission does not benefit by that. When we have funds, we may promote them. I sometimes hope that we may, when we get our house a little better in order, adopt some principle that will either enable us to pay a higher wage or else to have an adaptation of the Rogers Act by bringing some of our deserving clerks home so that the department may have the advantage of their services and of sending some of the deserving departmental clerks to the field in order that the field may have the advantage of their experience. I have read these documents prepared by Mr. Carr, the budget officer of the department, very carefully, and I think that what is therein set forth will fill in the interstices of the general problem I have just been touching on. My only reason for not going further into that is in order not to take up the time of the committee unduly. We shall endeavor to show you gentlemen, as we have, I hope, to the satisfaction of the Director of the Budget, that we have pared almost down to the quick, and we have done it willingly and gladly. Again repeating the perennial observation that we always have one or two unforeseen emergencies, such as in China and Mexico and a few other places, that keep us fairly busy days and sometimes nights, we feel that we can demonstrate the fact that our appropriation has been cut down as far as it can be consistently cut, having in mind good administration on the qualitative basis. SALARIES OF CLERKS IN DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR SERVICE Mr. OLIVER. What is the average pay of the clerical assistant? Mr. WRIGHT. We have no clerk in the field receiving over $3,000. There are very few at that figure, I think not more than perhaps half a dozen, who are the disbursing officers at the large embassies. The average pay, I think runs, for interpreters, from $1,000 to $1,500. The average clerk gets $2,200 in the diplomatic mission, does he not, Mr. Carr? Mr. CARR. I should say that the average American clerk, and they are American clerks in the diplomatic missions, would receive somewhere about $2,200, perhaps. Clerks in the diplomatic branch of the American foreign service |