PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS MADE SOLELY ON MERIT.

During the incumbency of the present head of the Department (Mar. 4, 1909, to Sept. 1, 1911), 29 appointments have been made to presidential positions in this Department, some by the President alone and others, as required by law, through nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate. No better indorsement can be given to the principle of making appointments to public office solely on merit than to refer to the fact that 15 of the 29 appointments mentioned were made by the transfer, promotion, or reinstatement of persons who by reason of training and experience possessed the qualifications required of them in their new and more important positions. Of the remaining 14 presidential appointments made under this administration, 6 were of former officials who had demonstrated their fitness and were deserving of the consideration shown; 4 were of persons outside the service because competent ones could not be found within it who would accept positions in Alaska; and 4 were of persons having well-known qualifications developed in lines of work not pertaining to Government service.

THIRTEENTH DECENNIAL CENSUS.

The following statement shows the number of appointments to and separations from the Thirteenth Decennial Census roll made by the Director of the Census during the fiscal year:

Satisfactory results have been obtained from the appointment of the clerical force from the special examination provided for by the census act.

LEGISLATION AFFECTING POSITIONS IN THE STEAMBOAT-INSPECTION AND SHIPPING SERVICES.

By the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation act approved March 4, 1911, Congress transferred, effective July 1, 1911, the assistant inspectors of hulls and boilers in the SteamboatInspection Service (83 in number), the shipping commissioners under

the Bureau of Navigation (17 in number), and a janitor in the Shipping Service at New York City from the nonstatutory to the statutory rolls.

This par

The maximum pay allowed clerks in the Steamboat-Inspection Service was decreased from $1,600 to $1,500 per annum. ticular change did not necessitate any reductions in pay, as none of the clerks was receiving more than $1,500 per annum when the act was passed. There was, however, a decrease of $2,560 in the total amount of the appropriation for clerk hire for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1912, which was met by the discontinuance of two positions and a general rearrangement of the salaries.

The change in the maximum compensation of clerks in the Shipping Service to $1,600 per annum, and the reduction in the appropriation for clerks for the fiscal year 1912 by $2,440, necessitated, on July 1, 1911, the reduction of 1 clerk from $1,620 to $1,600 per annum, the reduction of 11 clerks in amounts ranging from $20 to $132 per annum, and the discontinuance of 2 positions at $900 per annum.

Seven thousand dollars was appropriated to enable the Department to employ such persons and means as may be necessary to enforce the act relating to the inspection of wireless apparatus on oceangoing passenger vessels. In pursuance of this authority, three wireless ship inspectors, with stations at New York, Baltimore, and San Francisco, have recently been appointed.

FOREIGN-BORN EMPLOYEES IN THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION

SERVICES.

In connection with the complaint made during the early part of the year that aliens coming to this country were not accorded fair treatment on reaching the ports of entry, the Department made an investigation and found that of 1,571 persons employed in the Immigration and Naturalization Services 391, or 24.8 per cent, were of foreign birth, and that 17 of this number were pensioners. Not including 1 born at sea, these employees came from 41 different countries. Practically every class of positions in the services, from commissioner of immigration and chief naturalization examiner to charwoman and laborer, was represented by naturalized citizens, while their aggregate salaries (not including 16 occasionally employed and paid by the day) was $441,252.50.

TEMPORARY APPOINTMENTS.

Believing that temporary appointments are, as a rule, not conducive to the interests of good administration, the Department has adopted as a policy the reduction of such appointments to the lowest possible number. It is obvious that the Government derives more faithful and intelligent service from a continuously employed per26321°. -C & L 1911-3

sonnel than from a shifting, changeable, and temporary one, consisting largely of employees who are unable, on account of inexperience, to cope with even the ordinary run of Government work. Each recommendation for a temporary appointment is examined, and to receive favorable consideration it must show unmistakably that conditions justify the desired action. This procedure, and the surveillance of the Civil Service Commission of all temporary appointments, constitute what might be termed a double-check system.

PROMOTIONS.

The promotion of employees strictly on merit is one of the most important factors in raising and maintaining the efficiency of the service. This Department aims to reward those who perform the most efficient service and who possess the qualifications required in the positions to which promotions are made. The efficiency ratings submitted from time to time by the chiefs of bureaus and offices are used as the basis in determining who is best entitled to such promotions; and whenever an employee not having the highest rating in his class is recommended the officer making the recommendation is required to submit satisfactory reasons before favorable action is taken. In connection with the 1,378 promotions made during the current year, it was necessary in only 35 instances to request this additional information.

The doubtful results obtained through the promotion examinations which were held at one time, and the fact that the Civil Service Commission has not provided regulations on the subject, would seem to justify the statement that in the last analysis the real value of an employee can be best determined by the officer under whom he serves. Seniority should not determine the question; for if it did, the efficiency of the service would undoubtedly deteriorate, as there would be no incentive for employees younger in point of service to put forth their best efforts. Nor could anything be more demoralizing to an office than the promotion of an employee to a position requiring duties which he is unable to perform, for such a course would result only in decreased efficiency on the part of competent employees and, in many instances, their loss to the service.

TRANSFER RESTRICTIONS.

As the advantages which would accompany greater elasticity in the transfer rules were dwelt upon at some length in the last annual report, the Department desires merely to repeat its protest against such unnecessary restrictions to transfers as the three-year limit and apportionment rules have proved to be. The latter, in its practical application, has been found to be particularly objectionable,

due partly to the fact that it applies to every transfer from the nonapportioned to the apportioned service (both interdepartmental transfers and transfers within a department), and partly to the fact that it is practically impossible for a department to know prior to making formal request on the Civil Service Commission whether or not a transfer is permissible under the rules. Of course, the service suffers to just the extent of the time consumed by the Commission to decide the question and, if the decision is unfavorable, the additional time required to fill the position in some other way.

INQUIRY INTO THE EFFICIENCY OF THE PERSONNEL.

The Department has about completed the third inquiry into the efficiency of its subordinate officers and employees. In deciding upon this inquiry considerable weight was given to the fact that inquiries of this nature stimulate employees to increased activity and cause them to realize that they must give to the Government the service to which it is entitled. The primary object of the investigation, however, was the desire of the Department to obtain efficiency ratings to serve as a basis in determining the eligibility of employees for promotion, the records of two years ago having been found to be no longer satisfactory for this purpose. It is gratifying to note that the number of employees reported as inefficient is smaller than in the last investigation. This would seem to indicate that the beneficial results of that searching inquiry had been far-reaching, and that, in the majority of cases, the increased efficiency on the part of employees had been of a permanent rather than a temporary character.

SUPERANNUATION AND RETIREMENT.

Superannuation in the civil service and the proposed retirement of employees who have passed their age of greatest usefulness have attracted much attention. Considerable discussion of the subject has appeared in the public press, and many Government officials in reporting on conditions affecting the personnel of their respective departments or offices have laid more or less stress on the evils of superannuation in the service and the necessity of providing, as has been done by a number of countries and private business concerns, some equitable scheme of retirement of those who are no longer able to render a fair degree of service, but who would be left without adequate means of support if dismissed. Many difficulties, of course, may be expected to attend the passage of any law looking to the retirement on pay of superannuated employees in the civil service, whether such retirement is accompanied by annuities paid outright by the Government or whether it is made possible by contributions in whole or in part by the employees themselves.