in Ireland, or somewhere out on the Pacific coast, then I might increase it to 30 days. But 22 days is the standard custom and has been for four years and I should say perhaps 50 per cent take less than 22 days. It has been impossible to let them off at times. Mr. WATSON. Then 50 per cent take the full time?

Mr. LUFKIN. I should say so.

Mr. BACHARACH. And the reason the rest of them do not take it is because you do not give it to them; is that the idea?

Mr. LUFKIN. That is it. Well, there are in the customs service, as in other places, exceptions to the rule. I had a messenger, an old veteran, and for four years he never had one day off. But those Mr. BACHARACH. Are there any further questions to be asked of the collector? If not, we thank you very much. We will now hear from Mr. Lehlbach.

are exceptions, you might say.

STATEMENT OF HON. FREDERICK R. LEHLBACH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

Mr. LEHLBACH. Mr. Chairman, I am not at all opposed to a revision of the salary schedules in the customs service; but it occurs to me that the general situation with respect to salary revision ought to be known to the members of this committee and ought to be in their minds in a consideration of this question, because this is part of a general plan of salary revision and classification for all of the· various services in the field. You will recall that, on March 4, 1923, there was approved an ect known as the classification act of 1923. This act provided for the classification of the services in the District of Columbia; it provided that the Federal service, including everyone below the heads of the departments, members of the Cabinet, right straight down the line to the lowest employee, should be classified and the classification that was set up by Congress was in various broad services--the professional and scientific service; the subprofessional service; the clerical, administrative, and fiscal service; the custodial service; the clerical and mechanical services, etc.

These broad services were then divided, in each instance, into a series of from five to eight grades, with a general description of the difficulties and responsibilities of the work in each grade and the salary range for that grade.

The term "grade" was defined to be a subdivision of a service, including one or more positions for which approximately the same basic qualifications and compensation are prescribed, the distinction between grades being based upon differences in the importance, difficulty, responsibility, and value of the work. Then the act goes on and defines the classes; you see these grades are broad grades within the service.

The term "class" means a group of positions * * * sufficiently similar in respect to the duties and responsibilities thereof

'And so on. Now these grades, of course, take in all positions that are of the same importance, difficulty and responsibility. Then, within those grades, were to be created classes, the test of a class being similarity of work.

A Personnel Classification Board was then created and it was ordered to make all necessary rules and regulations and provide

subdivisions of the grades contained in section 13 hereof-that means the classes, of course, and the act reads:

* * * Its regulations shall provide for ascertaining and recording the duties of positions and the qualifications required of incumbents, and it shall prepare and publish an adequate statement giving (1) the duties and responsibilities involved in the classes to be established within the several grades, illustrated where necessary by examples of typical tasks; (2) the minimum qualifications required for the satisfactory performance of such duties and tasks; and (3) the titles given to said classes.

This applies only to the District of Columbia where it was possible to make the outline of the classification, the services and grades, and direct the Personnel Classification Board to establish the classes and then to allocate employees to the respective classes and fix the salary within the range of the grade in which the class fell in accordance with rules prescribed by the law. Then the board was ordered:

The board shall make a survey of the field services and shall report to Congress at its first regular session following the passage of this act schedules of positions, grades, and salaries for such services which shall follow the principles and rules of the compensation schedules herein contained in so far as these are applicable to the field services.

In accordance with that direction, the Personnel Classification Board proceeded to make this survey of all the field services; to take the board services, such as the professional work in the field, the clerical and mechanical work in the field, etc., and divide them into grades and draw compensation schedules ready to be submitted to Congress at its first regular session, which would be in December of 1923. The work progressed to such an extent that the Director of the Budget tentatively ordered the various heads of departments, in making their estimates, to allocate their employess to the ranges of salary set up in the compensation schedules which were being prepared and had been sufficiently prepared so that this could be done in the various field services; that is, not only in the customs service, but in the meat-inspection service, in the Immigration Service, and in the various agricultural field services, etc.

On November 12, the Classification Board reversed itself; scrapped

Mr. BACHARACH. November 12 of what year?

Mr. LEHLBACH. 1923. Scrapped the classification for the field. services that they had made and, in order to have a color of compliance with the law, they filed a directory containing the names of all the employees in the field and their present salaries, and suggesting certain salary adjustments, which left Congress in the position where it could not approve and enact a classification carrying schedules for compensation in the field comparable with what had been created in the District of Columbia.

In the meantime, in view of the need in the field for a readjustment of salaries, the Bureau of Efficiency, assisting the heads of the various departments, have in each department-at least, in the Treasury in the customs service-divided the customs service into a number of grades and have fixed a salary range for that grade and have allocated various employees in the different customs services throughout the country to what they deemed their appropriate grade, and, in so far as the appropriations would permit, have attempted to bring up the

salaries to the salary range for the grade to which the employee had thus been, unofficially and without any legislation at all, allocated. The purpose of Congress in providing for a classification of the field services was that a cross-sectional uniformity should obtain; that in the field service under the Treasury Department, under the Agricultural Department, under the Department of Labor, etc., similar work or work of similar responsibility, etc., should be equally compensated; otherwise, the same inequalities between the services as now exist will be perpetuated and in certain instances may be accentuated, depending entirely upon the energy and aggressiveness of the legislative committee for the particular service under its legislative jurisdiction, and the force of the head of the department in taking care adequately of those in his particular department.

Now, what should be done is that the plain intent of the act of 1923. be carried out-that the classifications with compensation schedules. in the field be made and the work submitted to Congress and enacted into law, and the classification act, in accordance with which we appropriate in every appropriation bill, extended to the field.

The only reason that the Personnel Classification Board gives fornot making this classification of the field and reporting it to Congress is this, that the language of the act, as I read it, "which shall follow the principles and rules of the compensation schedules herein con-tained, in so far as these are applicable to the field services," they say allows them to exercise their discretion, and if, in their discretion, they find these rules and principles are not at all applicable to the field services, why they are freed from any legislative compulsion to make such classification. And they take that position notwith-standing the fact that, by the application of such principles and practices, a classification had been made under which, tentatively,. an order had gone out from the Director of the Budget to allocate the various field employees.

Mr. MARTIN. Why is it not applicable to the field services?

Mr. LEHLBACH. There is no reason why it is not; they do not say why it is not, but just say that is their excuse for refusing to carry out the provisions of the act. I could give the reasons which I believe actuated them in disregarding this law.

Mr. MARTIN. I would like to hear them.

Mr. LEHLBACH. I do not know that to discuss them would serve any useful purpose, but it is the desire of certain individuals to arrogate to themselves power, whether the law had vested in others that power or not. As an example, I have read you the descriptions of the general grades and the classes to be grouped under them; I have read you the language, where it says the Classification Board is to determine the duties and responsibilities involved in the classes to be established in the various grades and the titles that should be given the various classes. That is section (3). Then, after that is done, section 4 provides:

That after consultation with the board, and in accordance with a uniform pro- cedure prescribed by it, the head of each department shall allocate all positions. in his department in the District of Columbia to their appropriate grades in the compensation schedules

* * *

Now, as a matter of fact, the Personnel Classification Board has: absolutely refused to set up classes in each grade and has allocated employees to the broad grades; so that it is impossible, not knowing:

the class in which an employee falls, to ascertain whether his classification, his allocation to a certain salary range, is just or unjust, and it was in order that this should not be apparent and easily ascertained, I think, that the classes were omitted. It still gives room for all kinds of chicanery and favoritism, which the very purpose of the classification act is to obviate.

Now I do not know whether it is in the contemplation of this committee to report legislation embodying a classification with salary ranges for the customs service. I know various other legislative committees have under consideration plans for such legislation within their own jurdisdiction. But if the Committee on Ways and Means should report such legislation with respect to employees in the customs service under its jurisdiction, the Committee on Immigration should report such legislation with respect to the Immigration Service, the Committee on Agriculture should report such legislation with respect to the meat-inspection service and Forest Service and various other field services, why you would have independent, uncorrelated systems of salaries which would not dovetail in with one another, would not make a uniform, equitable, general system, and you might as well scrap, incidentally, your Committee on Civil Service, if you are going to break down its jurisdiction into various chunks and parcel it out to other committees. We do not need any further legislation; all we need is the obedience of administrative officers to the plain letter and intent of the classification act of 1923. In 1924, the House of Representatives passed by an overwhelming vote a bill abolishing the Personnel Classification Board and vesting its functions in some agency (in this instance the Civil Service Commission), which would actually function and carry out the law as it is written. As I said in the beginning, I am in sympathy with a revision of the salaries in the customs service, and I know that a similar revision is sorely needed in some other field services, particularly the custodial service; but it does seem to me if those like you, having jurisdiction over the customs service, and the committee having jurisdiction over the other services, would cooperate with the Civil Service Committee to secure a uniform, scientific, just classification for the field services, such as was actually enacted for the District of Columbia, have a report come to Congress and consider it and bring it out and then, by law, establish a classification for the field that would be just to all services and adequate, why you would not only do what you have in contemplation for the customs service, but you would do it in uniformity and cooperation and in coordination with all the other services of the Government in the field.

Mr. MARTIN. Would not that law have to be amended in order to give the civil service this authority?

Mr. LEHLBACH. Pardon?

Mr. MARTIN. I say the classification law would have to be amended. Mr. LEHLBACH. To do what?

Mr. MARTIN. In order to give the Civil Service Commission this authority?

Mr. LEHLBACH. Why, yes; and there is pending a bill, I do not think there is the slightest opportunity at this session of Congress of passing it, but in 1924, in the Sixty-eighth Congress, the House passed a bill abolishing the Personnel Classification Board and vest

ing its functions in the Civil Service Commission. There is opposition to that and the opposition to the field classification has been based on misrepresentation. Let me give you an example, if you will bear with me another moment. One of the criticisms of the proposed classification of the field services was this specific instance: Somebody interested in scrapping that said, "Look what they are going to do; they are going to pay a colored cook down in Alabama so much money"-I think $100 more than the chef out at St. Elizabeths. Of course, that was pointed to as an example of the insane extravagance that was involved in the proposed field classification. Now, as a matter of fact, the salary that was quoted for the employee at St. Elizabeths was the cash salary that employee received. The salary that was tentatively approved for the exactly similar position in a larger institution, a veterans' hospital down South, included, in order that the value of the salary might be known, subsistence, laundry, and all the other incidentals which the employee at St. Elizabeths received. When the value of the subsistence, laundry, and other incidentals was subtracted from the salary fixed for the employee down in Alabama, it was found that the cash salary paid the chef of the larger institution was less than the cash salary paid the chef at St. Elizabeths, and it was found that, throughout the field, the chefs at all of the various Federal hospitals would uniformly be averaging less than the salaries fixed by the Personnel Classification Board for similar positions here in the District of Columbia. So, as a matter of fact, the field classification was, if anything, more conservative than the classification provided here in the District of Columbia; but, by withholding some of the facts, by distorting the facts and by misrepresenting the situation, it was made to appear in this instance and in some other instances that the proposed field classification was extravagant.

Mr. DICKINSON. How would you reach those failing to carry out the provisions of the classification act of 1923, so as to compel a compliance with the clear intent of the law, as I understand you?

Mr. LEHLBACH. I do not know. I have been trying for over three years to do it and, as far as I, as chairman of the committee having jurisdiction, am concerned, I am helpless.

Mr. DICKINSON. Could you reach it by court action?

Mr. LEHLBACH. It is an administrative matter; it is up to the administration to compel compliance with the law by those under it and responsible to it.

Mr. CRISP. I might say to Mr. Lehlbach we appreciate his coming and, of course, we are going to give very careful consideration to his statement when we make our report to the full committee. The full committee appointed this subcommittee and instructed them to have hearings as to any need for a revision of the administrative features of the customs laws and also to consider any recommendations as to an increase of salaries of the personnel and, of course, we are hearing testimony on those two things and will, in due course, at the next Congress, make report to the full committee. And when we are reaching our conclusions as to that, of course, we are going to consider all these matters.

Mr. BACHARACH. Of course, Mr. Lehlbach is here at the invitation of the committee; he did not ask to be heard, but I felt he might have