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The CHAIRMAN. What is their capacity for making armor?

Admiral MASON. The capacity of the three armor-making firms is about 25,000 tons a year, divided as follows:

Carnegie Steel Company..
Bethlehem Steel Company.
Midvale Steel Company..

Tons.

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The CHAIRMAN. Very well. If there are no other questions, that is all, Admiral.

(At 4.30 o'clock p. m. the committee adjourned until to-morrow, Wednesday, December 9, 1908, at 10.30 o'clock a. m.)

No. 5.]

THE COMMITTEE ON NAVAL AFFAIRS.

Wednesday, December 9, 1908.

The committee this day met, Hon. George E. Foss in the chair. STATEMENT OF SURGEON-GENERAL P. M. RIXEY, CHIEF, BUREAU OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY.

The CHAIRMAN. The first item is "Medical Department: For surgeons' necessaries for vessels in commission, navy-yards, naval stations, Marine Corps, and for the civil establishment at the several naval hospitals, navy-yards, naval medical supply depots, naval medical school, and Naval Academy, three hundred thousand dollars." That is an increase of $30,000?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Why do you strike out the words "naval laboratory, museum of hygiene, and department of instruction?"

Surgeon-General RIXEY. We have been authorized to change those names to better designate the work that is being done at these establishments. The naval laboratory when the navy was very small was only one building in New York City. We have found that it is to the advantage and in the interest of economy to have the supply depots at different points, and we have one at New York, one at Mare Island, and one out in the Philippines.

The CHAIRMAN. Why do you use the words "naval medical school?"

Surgeon-General RIXEY. Because that shows what it is.

"Museum

of hygiene" was used and a museum started. The principal feature is the postgraduate school for the doctors and surgeons who enter the navy to prepare themselves for the service requirements before they go to sea.

The CHAIRMAN. How many have you there now?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. There are 39.

The CHAIRMAN. Those are about all the changes, simply changes in language.

Surgeon-General RIXEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You ask for an increase of $30,000. Please explain that.

Surgeon-General RIXEY. That is due to the 6,803 additional men in Navy and Marine Corps, and is a proportionate increase so as not to have a deficiency.

Mr. ROBERTS. What did you pay out of the $270,000 that you had for the current year?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. That was used for surgeons' necessaries for vessels in commission, for all the navy-yards and naval stations,

and also for the surgeons' necessaries for the Marine Corps and the civil establishment.

Mr. ROBERTS. That is just what I want to get at; what do you mean by civil establishment?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. Laborers. That does not include the hospital corps.

Mr. ROBERTS. Not any enlisted men?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. No, sir; only laborers, skilled and unskilled-the cooks, scullions, and scrubbers.

Mr. ROBERTS. That is labor?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBERTS. Do you have any clerks that you employ from civil life?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. No, sir.

Mr. ROBERTS. Do you have anyone regularly employed in any of these places?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. None; except as laborers, skilled and

unskilled.

Mr. ROBERTS. That is just what I am getting at. Why should not your bureau come under the same provision as the other bureaus as regards civil establishment?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. The reason the medical department has always been exempt is on account of the hours which they have to keep, and because we have none of the employees for which the other bureaus are making the provision to which you refer.

Mr. ROBERTS. I am not speaking of the hours. I am speaking of the way you appropriate and pay for your civilian employees. I do not know whether or not you know, but the department has started in this year to do away with direct appropriations for civil establishment and to make a lump appropriation.

The CHAIRMAN. They never had a civil establishment.
Mr. ROBERTS. The Doctor says he has.

Surgeon-General RIXEY. We have some employees as cooks, etc., classed as skilled and unskilled laborers, but no civilian force, either clerical, drafting, or messenger.

Mr. ROBERTS. Under this $300,000 you might employ as many civilian employees as you wanted and Congress would have no knowledge of how many were employed. But under the plan adopted by the department they put a limitation on that appropriation so that you can not spend more than a certain amount for civilian employees. That is what I want to get at. Why should there not be a limitation on the number of civilian employees that you can employ the same as in all the other bureaus?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. I do not know why there should not be, but I would be handicapped, because sometimes we have to have a number, and we can employ them temporarily and discharge them. Mr. ROBERTS. The language would give you that leeway.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you furnish us with a list of your permanent employees and what salary they are receiving?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. We have no civil force, either clerical, drafting, inspection, or messenger.

Mr. ROBERTS. What I mean, Doctor, by the civilian employees are not the cooks and scullions. Those we call laborers. I am now referring to clerks.

Surgeon-General RIXEY. There are no clerks, except that in my bureau there is a large number of clerks employed who come under another bill.

The CHAIRMAN. They come under the legislative bill.

Mr. ROBERTS. Have you any writers, or bookkeepers, or clerks, or anything that comes under the clerical force?

The CHAIRMAN. That applies to our bill, which covers nothing here in Washington.

Mr. ROBERTS. And give us an idea of what limitation you would want to put on the $300,000 that can be spent for that purpose so that the bureaus will be all treated alike in the bill.

Surgeon-General RIXEY. We have no civil force, either clerical, drafting, inspection, or messenger.

The CHAIRMAN. The next item is "Contingent, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery," and you are asking for an increase of $10,000.

Surgeon-General RIXEY Yes, sir; that is the same proportionate

increase.

The CHAIRMAN. The next item is "Transportation of remains," and that is the same as the appropriation for the current year? Surgeon-General RIXEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBERTS. There would be no harm done if the title of your medical school were not changed?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. There would be harm in the increased clerical work. If you say "naval laboratory," there is only one in New York, and that is not a laboratory; it is a supply depot. The term "laboratory" is obsolete, these institutions being no longer laboratories, but simply medical supply depots.

Mr. ROBERTS. But down here in this contingent paragraph you have stricken out "museum of hygiene and department of instruction" and call it all "naval medical school."

Surgeon-General RIXEY. Because the museum of hygiene has been merged into the naval medical school.

Mr. ROBERTS. Suppose it went out on a point of order? Surgeon-General RIXEY. We could go on under the head of "medical school," because it is authorized by the department.

The appro

Mr. ROBERTS. If it is necessary to increase the other items just preceding because of the increase of 6,000 men, ought you not to increase the appropriation for transportation of remains? Surgeon-General RIXEY. No; I think that is ample. priation covered it last year and I think it will this year. The CHAIRMAN. The next item is "Repairs," and the estimate is $45,000, the amount of your present appropriation?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. Yes, sir; that covers everything.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you anything you would like to say to the committee, anything connected with your bureau?

Surgeon-General RIXEY. I want to say in regard to hospital ships that the Relief has demonstrated the necessity of hospital ships in a fleet of over 10,000 men that is sent out for a long cruise. If the fleet only goes for a few days it is easy to care for the sick in the emergency hospital on board and transfer them to hospitals at the first port, but if they are going on a long cruise, as they did last fall, the hospital ship is invaluable to take off the sick and injured and care for them; not only that, but to prevent disease among the well men on the ship. For instance, when the fleet started out from New York

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