nance and ordnance stores; ""Provisions, navy;" and "Increase of the navy" will pay every clerk in the navy, instead of having them all scattered, as they are now, in many appropriations. A man in one office is paid from equipment, who does not belong there, and another man is paid from some other appropriation, who does not belong there. In other words, it is in the direction of what I have. been trying to do ever since I have been here, to get them under one appropriation for each bureau, so that there can be one report and when Congress sees the list of the clerks they will know right away that they are paid from a single appropriation, instead of many, as heretofore.

The CHAIRMAN. Is not this same policy pursued in some other departments of the Government?

ment.

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Well, it is done in the War DepartThe CHAIRMAN. They pay under lump appropriations and limit the amount?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. They limit the salaries to $1,800. They do not limit the total to be paid, as the navy now proposes. The CHAIRMAN. Is that the highest compensation paid to a clerk? Paymaster-General ROGERS. Yes, sir; except for Philippine service. Mr. ROBERTS. In other words, if this becomes law, the Navy Department will be taking care of its civil establishment in the open instead of doing it under cover; is that not the net result?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Yes, sir.

Mr. PADGETT. I understood you to say that in the army there was a limitation of $1,800 as the maximum salary to be paid?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Yes, sir; though when clerks are sent to the Philippines an extra allowance, not exceeding $200 a year, is allowed them.

Mr. PADGETT. Is there any provision here as to a maximum salary? Paymaster-General ROGERS. No, sir; it may be that there ought

to be.

Mr. PADGETT. Could you state where it should go in and what the maximum salary should be?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Why not put it at $1,800 for clerks? I think that is a fair maximum salary, except for the chemists, draftsmen, and special experts, of course. May I let that go over to-day and send a memorandum to the chairman of the committee?

Mr. PADGETT. Yes. I would like the benefit of your suggestion as to that point.

Mr. CHAIRMAN. How does the pay for clerical, inspection, and messenger services in the navy-yards, compare with the pay in the army? Paymaster-General ROGERS. It is much less, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Under this new arrangement, how will it compare?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. It will still be less.

The CHAIRMAN. You will furnish a table showing the pay?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. That I can not do; rates of pay are fixed by the Secretary of the Navy, except, of course, in those cases where the pay is fixed by law. It was published last year and will be published this year. You will get it under the requirements of the provision that was incorporated in the general deficiency bill during the last days of the last session, requiring the Secretary of the Navy

to report to Congress the clerks that are employed, with such additions as he requires during the fiscal year 1910. This plan, as now proposed, is put before Congress to meet that provision, which it is impossible to carry out without great injury to the department. Mr. ROBERTS. That statement does not give the salaries?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Yes, sir. At least, I am almost sure it did last year, and salaries have not changed materially, except that in about October there was a 10 per cent increase in the general storekeepers' offices-in fact, in every office-with the provision that no single salary should be increased more than $200.

Mr. PADGETT. That is in the Book of Estimates?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. No, sir; I do not think it is.

The CHAIRMAN. There is authority of law allowing the Secretary to fix these salaries, is there not?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. No, sir; I think not. No specific law. The CHAIRMAN. Per diem salaries?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Those would not be in the Book of Es

timates.

The CHAIRMAN. Outside the civil list?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. I know of no law specifically permitting the Secretary of the Navy to fix per diem salaries, but there is a law, the statute which Mr. Roberts read, which forbids him from paying other than per diem compensation unless the salary is specifically appropriated by law.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that the only provision of law relating to clerks?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Yes, sir; so far as I know; that is, covering this particular matter.

The CHAIRMAN. Take the amount of $172,020, on page 13 of the bill, is that an increase over what was allowed under the old arrangement?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. It is an increase of this much. It provides for an increase of 8.52 per cent in the pay of the clerical force at the navy pay offices in the various cities, which amounts to $6,930. That was in my own report, and the Secretary authorized me to adopt it. It also estimates for 3 new clerks and 2 messenger boys. It provides for the amount of the increase of pay of clerks in commandants' offices. The present pay is $40,432.29, and the increase is $6,067.71, which is 15 per cent. Their increase is the highest because they are paid very low salaries, and their pay is fixed by law. That law, by the way, will have to be repealed or this provision can not become operative. My attention was not called to it at the time this estimate was made up. The law of 1870 fixes the pay of first and second clerks to commandants.

Mr. ROBERTS. We will have to repeal that law?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Yes, sir; that will be part of the general scheme, which, as I stated, was overlooked in its inception. Section 1556, Revised Statutes, provides the following pay for clerks to commandants: First clerks, $1,500; second clerks, $1,200; clerks to commandant, Mare Island, $1.800; and clerks to commandants at naval stations, $1,500. The recommendation of the department is to increase the pay of these clerks not in excess of 15 per cent, and possibly it may, except the clerk to the commandant, Mare Island, who is already paid $1,800.

Then, on account of clerks on boards, etc., who are now paid from various appropriations, there is an increase of 8.85 per cent, which amounts to $2,600.64. It also provides for two new positions at $900 each. That altogether, including the $4,000 for traveling expenses of female nurses, and $4,000 on account of advertising, makes a total increase of $98,750. Since I have been here I have had a telephone message from the secretary's office that the sum of $172,020 should be $186,575.57, the difference being accounted for by eleven schoolteachers at Guam, paid $2.56 per diem each and now paid from Contingent, Navy," under special provision contained in the act. Then for the secretary of the interior at Samoa, $2,000, and $1,500 for his clerk. That makes the total of this amount with the exception of a thousand dollars which they have not been able to locate yet, but I fancy will very soon, making the difference between $172,020 and $186,575.57. Samoa has a naval government very much like Guam. Mr. PADGETT. Do we run that, too?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you take up each bureau and show just the situation under what we have allowed heretofore?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Each chief of bureau will have to do

that.

The CHAIRMAN. There is the same provision as to each bureau? Paymaster-General ROGERS. By order of the Secretary of the Navy the provision is identical in all bureaus, only that " Pay, miscellaneous" and "Provisions, navy " have taken in all the straggling clerks that have been prorated among a dozen different appropriations. Every one of them has been covered in and each chief of bureau will have to account for the clerks now paid out of his own lump appropriation.

The CHAIRMAN. Under this arrangement will they all get fifteen days' leave of absence?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Those under the civil establishment get thirty days and those getting a per diem pay are allowed fifteen days. There is a constant growl and trouble between them, and it would be wise for Congress to make it one or the other.

Mr. PADGETT. Your amendment gives them all 30 days?
Paymaster-General ROGERS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the rule in the army?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Thirty days. I do not think the army has a per diem pay at all. I do not state that as a fact, because I have no certain knowledge; but I know they almost always pay per annum compensation.

Mr. ROBERTS. Have you any knowledge as to what course the Secretary will follow under this provision, whether he will put them all on a per annum basis?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. He will divide them, paying some of them per diem and some per annum. The temporary clerks will be per diem.

Mr. Butler last year asked me a question as to the value of the $58,000,000 of stores that we had in the navy, and I could not tell him. I made what was practically a guess at it, but that was the best I could then do. I can not tell him yet, but I want to tell you what a valuable question that was. When I started to go over it I found there was no way of telling to a dollar exactly what those stores

were. The deeper I went into it, the more I saw how bad such a condition of affairs was. The result of his question has been this, that we have gotten up a classification of 65 different classes, dividing all of the stores of the navy into those classes, and they have been published in a book, and we have made an inventory and the stores in one class have all been brought together. I mean by that the stores of the same character that were scattered in different storehouses. They will then be brought into one square area of supplies in a big storehouse and called a class. On the 1st day of January we expect that all these stores will have been inventoried and classified. We have been working on this steadily ever since last June, and we propose to get annually the valuation of each of those 65 classesthat is, by dividing the whole number of stores in the navy into classes as shown by this list [exhibiting], you can see how they would be divided-and to report to Congress annually the value of each class. For our own information, it will give us the exact knowledge of just what yards are overstocked and what are understocked, and when we receive these reports, as we will every three months, if we find a million dollars' worth of a class of stores at one yard and, say, only $80,000 worth of the same articles at another yard, we will know where to increase and where to decrease. That is the value of Mr. Butler's question, and has all grown out of the question he asked me last year. Here is the list:

Class.

Classification of naval stores and material.

1. Guns (main and secondary batteries, field and boat), drill guns, mounts, permanent fittings, slides, caissons, carriages, sights and range finders, and special bolts and nuts pertaining to ordnance.

2. Arms, accouterments, ordnance equipments, and supplies.

3. Torpedoes, torpedo tubes, and all fixtures and accessories; mines and their outfits.

4. Ammunition and ammunition details.

5. Flags and bunting.

6. Anchors, anchor chains, and other ground tackle, boat and ship.

7. Coal, steaming, for ship's use.

8. Fuel, liquid (gasoline, fuel oil, etc.), and fuel for shore purposes.

9. Boats (not to include outfits).

10. Boat engines, boat motors, and boat boilers.

11. Pumps of every character, except air pumps and pumps pertaining to main engines.

12. Ship and boat fittings and accessories not otherwise classified (not to include articles for engine and fire rooms).

13. Engine and fire room fittings and supplies not otherwise classified, fireroom tools, grate bars, waste, etc.

14. Oils (lubricating and illuminating), greases, and all lubricants.

15. Insulated electrical wire and cable.

16. Wireless-communication apparatus, supplies, and appurtenances.

17. Electrical material other than insulated wire and wireless apparatus.

18. Instruments of precision, such as nautical, astronomical, surveying, laboratory, drafting-room instruments, supplies, etc.

19. Blocks and sheaves.

20. Rigging, ship and boat, standing and running.

21. Cordage and twine.

22. Wire rope and all bare wire except sounding wire.

23. Hemp, raw.

24. Canvas and duck.

25. Canvas and duck articles.

26. Furniture, ship and house.

27. Textiles, except canvas, duck, and bunting.

Class.

28. Textiles, made up (except canvas, duck, and bunting), such as curtains, rugs, etc.

29. Mattresses, pillows, cushions, hair, feathers, tufting, findings, etc., linoleum and linoleum cement, oilcloth.

30. Bathroom and toilet fixtures.

31. Lighting apparatus, running and signal lights (nonelectric).

32. Pipe and boiler coverings, asbestos and manganese, slab, sheet, and asbes tos cement.

33. Packing and rubber.

34. Leather and belting, hose, flexible tubing, rubber or metal, and hose fittings. 25. Books (ship and crew), charts, professional publications, drawings, blueprints, etc., music, periodicals, and newspapers.

36. Musical instruments.

37. Sporting goods, baseball and football suits and outfits, dumb-bells, etc., trophies.

38. Brooms and brushes.

39. Lumber and timber.

40. Machines and power-driven tools.

41. Hand tools.

42. Hardware.

43. Bolts, nuts, rivets, lag screws, and washers, except special bolts, nuts, rivets, and washers pertaining to ordnance and machinery.

44. Pipe and tubing.

45. Pipe fittings, valves, gauges, flanges, unions, elbows, T's, etc.

46. Metals in bars, bolts, rods, billets, pigs, and ingots.

47. Metals in sheets, borings, filings, and scrap (to include rare and special metals).

48. Plates and shapes.

49. Rough castings, forgings, blooms.

50. Foundry supplies (crucibles, fire brick, molding sand, and facing) and special foundry tools.

51. Acids, chemicals, soaps, toilet paper, disinfectants, cleaning paste, powder and liquid, etc.

52. Paints, paint oils, turpentine, varnishes, pitch, tar, rosin.

53. Stationery (paper, envelopes, pencils, ink, pens).

54. Office equipment (other than furniture and stationery), typewriters, computing machines, safes, letter scales, letter press, etc.

55. Clothing and small stores.

56. Provisions and groceries.

57. Drugs and surgeons' necessaries.

58. Vehicles, live stock, harness, stable furnishings, provender, and farm, garden, lawn, and road appliances not otherwise classified.

59. Building material, such as cement, crushed stone, brick, paving material, etc.

60. Boilers and engines (main and auxiliary) and their spare parts.

61. All other ship power-driven appliances and spare parts, including nonelectric motors.

62. Officers' mess gear, to include china, glass, silverware, and all necessary pantry and wardroom gear, except made-up textiles.

63. Crew mess gear, to include all crockery, metal ware, condiment trays necessary for table use, and enameled mess cloths-i. e., table covers.

64. Ranges, stoves, bake ovens, cookers, boilers, kettles, dish-washing machines, dough mixers, steam tables, pots, pans, skillets, knives, etc., laundry machinery, such as washing and drying implements, wringers, etc.

65. Miscellaneous.

NOTE. The articles are arranged for general information under the bureaus which ordinarily utilize them, and when utilized by a bureau not shown in this schedule their class and title shall be as herein set forth.

Mr. BUTLER. What is the value, in your judgment, of all these stores?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. Sixty-two million dollars.

Mr. BUTLER. How long have they been accumulating?

Paymaster-General ROGERS. For a great many years. There is not much left now that is obsolete.