delphis for second place in importance to the Government as a source of customs revenue. No statement of the collections of the several major ports would be complete without reference to the outlay which such collections entail, for this cost of collection may be considered as indicating, within certain limits, the degree of efficiency with which the revenue collecting agency of a port operates. The cost of collecting each dollar of the duties on merchandise passing through New Orleans speaks well for the efficiency of the customs organization at this port. The collection cost at New Orleans was, for the fiscal year, 1925, $0.0181. Philadelphia, because of a higher average rate of duty imposed on the classes of merchandise entering the country there, was able to show a cost of $0.01815. New York's cost was $0.0239; Boston's $0.0296 and Chicago's $0.0298. While such a low cost of collection at this port is a matter of which the local customs force may well feel proud, on closer examination it is found to contain an element of danger to the importing and exporting interests constituting the port of New Orleans, for it is brought about in the main by a policy of economy which is contrary to the best business practice. When economy is persisted in at the expense of the despatch which is so essential to the proper functioning of a port it ceases to be economy. A comparison of New Orleans' personnel with those of other ports of like importance will disclose that this policy is not practiced to the extent that it is in New Orleans. In the port of Philadelphia, the import tonnage of which is slightly more than half of that of New Orleans, there are 87 inspectors engaged in the work of supervision; Boston has 122 of such officers handling less than one-quarter of the volume of this port. In New Orleans there are fewer than 64 men available for this most important phase of customs activities. The importing and exporting interests of the port are aware that the function of a customs-revenue collecting agency consists chiefly in supervision, with which the class of officers just mentioned are charged. They are also aware that the local supervisors of customs activities can not legally avoid or curtail such supervision. It naturally follows that with the added volume of imports necessary to produce the increase of 12 per cent estimated for this fiscal year, it will be impossible for the insufficient personnel of the customs organization to effect with the proper despatch the required supervision. This supervision, nevertheless, must and will be performed, not, however, without a probable retardation of commerce which will prove most expensive to the business interests of New Orleans. Extract from report of the Secretary of the Treasury for the fiscal year 1926 Mr. LUFKIN. There is one point I omitted. In great ports like Boston, with an organization of six hundred and odd people, we must, of course, have a considerable number of key men, that is, deputy collectors, chief clerks, chiefs of division, and all that sort of thing. Most of those men have been with us now ranging all the way from twenty-five to forty odd years. We had a number this last year who celebrated their fortieth anniversary in the service and most of those key men are getting old and before many years they are going to retire or to be forced to retire, either to private life, or to the great beyond, and one of our problems, not only at the headquarters port at Boston, but at the subports, is to train men and to find men competent for those jobs when these older men-the key men-do 36200-27-5 retire or die. So that this question of getting the right sort of material now, these young men, educated men with an ambition to stay, affects to a great extent, in my opinion, the problem of getting these technically trained men in the years to come. I have just one example in mind. Boston, as you know, is the great wool port of the United States and one year, three years ago, we collected at Boston $41,000,000, approximately, on wool alone. Under the existing tariff law, as you know, the duty on raw wool is based on an estimate of what the yield of clean content will be; in other words, we must collect our duty on the report of the wool examiner as to how much the shrinkage will be and how many pounds it will finally yield. And the man in Boston, the wool examiner, who assesses every year, as I say, on wool yielding millions and millions of dollars in revenue to the Government ($41,000,000 in one year alone), receives to-day $3,300 in salary. He has been there all of his life and some day something is going to happen to him; he will either retire or some private wool concern will avail themselves of his services, bid higher for his services. In other words they will bid higher than the Government. And we are not getting, under the present entrance rate, the type of men to train for important positions of this sort. In reply to Judge Crisp, I want to say that we shall be very glad to make suggestions. There are, I think, changes that ought to be made in the administrative features of the law, and we shall be glad to prepare something at Boston giving some of our ideas. Also, I understand you may visit New York or some other ports, and I want to express the hope to the committee that you will try and find an opportunity to come up to Boston. I think if you could come up there for a day or two and possibly spend a day at Portland, you would see problems that are entirely different from those presented at New York. We are smaller ports, perhaps; but I think we have more intimate problems which we could bring to your attention than possibly you could get from the great organizations such as exist at New York. And, personally, I want to assure you, if you will come to Boston, we will try to make your visit most enjoyable as well as instructive. Mr. HOLTZMAN. There is one thought that just occurred to me. Collector Lufkin spoke of his vacations. The average vacation that the men in Baltimore received last year was from 10 to 12 days. Some of them only got 6 days. We collected about $2,000,000 more last year than we did the previous year, with one additional man, making it impossible for vacations. Mr. BACHARACH. What do you think of the statement that an inspector was granted his full leave and could not take it because he could not afford to take it, and that he was only one of many who did not take their vacations for that reason, simply because they could not afford it? Mr. HOLTZMAN. Well, he may have had a very large family. Mr. HOLTZMAN. I have a lot of inspectors who did not get any vacation. Mr. BACHARACH. But not for that reason, however? Mr. HOLTZMAN. None that I know of. Mr. CAMP. Mr. Chairman, Judge Crisp has asked several of the witnesses to prepare administrative suggestions. The department, upon the committee's invitation a few days ago, has written the various principal officers in the field to submit suggestions to the department. These the department will use in the preparation of its recommendations to be submitted to the committee with the field officers and try to submit one group of suggestions that represent the views of the field and of the department and, perhaps will cause less confusion than having various suggestions coming to the committee from various sources. Mr. CRISP. Of course, when I asked that question, I had no idea whatever of embarrassing any of these collectors and it is perfectly agreeable to me for the suggestions to come through the department. But I was just thinking here we have these gentlemen from the different ports in different parts of the country who have charge of the administration of the custom laws, who might have some suggestions. However, from what you say, it is perfectly agreeable to me to have them submit their suggestions to you and let the department make such changes in the suggestions as it sees fit. Mr. CAMP. There is no friction, of course, between the department and the field service and there is no objection to this committee getting the information direct from the field officers. My suggestion was for the sole purpose of being helpful to the committee and I desired to assure you the department would work with the field officers in making any suggestions to be submitted. Mr. CRISP. My sole desire is to get the view of the department and those in charge of it as to wherein the present administrative laws are wrong and what could be done to correct those evils. STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. MAGEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA Mr. MAGEE of Pennsylvania. I would like to ask the committee if they care to have various of the Congressmen appear here and make statements to the committee in support of a salary adjustment. It would lengthen your record, as pretty much everyone you speak to would like to come, because they think there is merit in this matter. Congressman MacGregor is here to-day, in whose district is an important port of entry. Mr. BACHARACH. What we are after is to try to get the information, as far as we can, from the customs employees. We know, of course, how a Congressman would feel who has a large port in his district. Mr. MAGEE of Pennsylvania. Yet I presume the committee would know how the various Congressmen feel. Mr. BACHARACH. I think they prove that on the floor. Mr. CRISP. We have trouble enough without going out into the highways and byways. [Laughter.] Mr. KEARNS. I think all of the Congressmen who want the vote of the customs employees in their districts, would want to see the salaries increased. STATEMENT OF HON. CLARENCE MACGREGOR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK Mr. MACGREGOR. I am not interested in the matter from a political standpoint, their vote is very minor in number; but I have been interested in this proposition for several years. I think two or three years ago, I took an active interest in an increase of the compensation of customs employees, because I felt it was a proper thing for the Government to do-not only from the standpoint of giving these men a living salary, but also upon the ground that it would be more economical for the Government. It seemed to me rather ridiculous to pay these appraisers the amount of money they were paying them and expect them to get proper returns for the Government, particularly in the matter of the appraisers, who were determining the value of the goods which were imported as the basis of the imposition of the customs duties and that you ought to have men who were capable of actually appraising, from the standpoint of knowledge and experience, and that you could not get that sort of a man in the service by paying the amount of money that was being paid. Now there is no use of my going into details. I think you gentlemen thoroughly appreciate that the customs division of the Government is established for the purpose of securing funds for the running of the Government and, in order to do that in an efficient way, you have to have efficient men on the job. That is all I think I can say about it. You gentlemen know just as much about it as I do. Mr. BACHARACH. Are there any questions to be asked of Mr. MacGregor? If not, we thank you, Mr. MacGregor. STATEMENT OF LUTHER C. STEWARD, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL FEDERATION OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, LABOR BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. STEWARD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, from the employees' standpoint (and I am speaking to that portion of the committee's work that involves the question of the customs personnel and its compensation), the situation in the customs service is indeed a serious one-not only as to the present compensation, but what may be considered even of greater importance, that is, the future of this important service. The present rates of compensation are not sufficient to attract and retain the high type of employee from whom must be recruited the supervisory and administrative officers of the customs service 10 and 15 years from now. I think that that statement will be approved of by every administrative officer in the customs service throughout the country-that the present compensation does not attract the kind of employees from whom supervisors may be trained; because the customs service is a highly specialized service and requires not only the initial qualifications, but the experience and training that fits one for the peculiarly important duties devolving upon the various positions in that service. We feel that the committee, in going into this matter, has undertaken a very important work and a difficult work to mete out full justice to the employees who are entitled to greater compensation and, at the same time, to see that funds appropriated are properly distributed in accordance with the importance of the various positions, responsibilities, and all of the other factors that should be given consideration in fixing the rates of compensation. I should like to suggest, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, that, in order to do this, it requires what is termed by those who follow the profession of personnel administration, an analysis of the different positions in the service a specification of the different positions in the customs service, just as one would draw his specifications for the purchase of commodities. Mr. BACHARACH. The committee is going into that matter very thoroughly and I do not believe it would be worth your while to make a further statement at this time. If you have a brief, you may file that. Mr. STEWARD. I have a brief. Mr. BACHARACH. It would be perfectly all right, but our difficulty is we would like to get over to the House at 12 o'clock, as these are the closing days of Congress. Mr. STEWARD. That is perfectly all right with me, Mr. Chairman. I would merely like to leave, as a suggestive matter, a tentative compensation schedule prepared by three officials of the customs service who were detailed from the Treasury Department to assist the Personnel Classification Board in establishing salary schedules. Mr. BACHARACH. I hope the rates in there are not so high that it will fall down of its own weight. Mr. STEWARD. I was going to suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the rates in there are so low they would not commend themselves to any member of the committee, much less to the employees affected. [Laughter.] Mr. BACHARACH. Then that is all right. Mr. STEWARD. The valuable feature in that respect is that it does a very necessary thing in that it attempts to set up the relative ranks in terms of value of the different positions in the customs service, which is a point I think you gentlemen will meet very early in connection with your investigation-in other words, determining what positions are worth more than others and, if so, the relation in point of compensation that should exist between the various positions in the service. So, if I may, I will offer that for your record and I should also like to offer a general statement. Mr. BACHARACH. Thay may be done, and you may revise your remarks if you care to do so. Mr. STEWARD. Thank you. (The papers filed for the record by Mr. Steward are as follows:) TENTATIVE COMPENSATION SCHEDULES FOR ESTIMATE PURPOSES COVERING CLASSES OF POSITIONS IN THE CUSTOMS SERVICE, ACCOMPANIED BY TENTATIVE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE DUTIES, RESPONSIBILITIES, AND TYPICAL TASKS FOR SUCH CLASSES, AND SHOWING CLASS ALLOCATIONS TO GRADES WITHIN THE SERVICE CUSTOMS SERVICE Compensation schedules. The customs service shall include all classes of positions the duties of which are to perform work involved in and peculiar to the administration of customs laws, the enforcement of customs regulations, and the collection of customs duties. GRADE 1. Standard annual rates: $1,140, $1,200, $1,260, $1,320, $1,380, $1,440, $1,500. |