Mr. BARTLETT. To fill the vacancies that occur? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes, sir. And approximately $2,300 for the fall examination trips; the balance, $3,490.89, has been expended in holding examinations at newly classified post offices, miscellaneous examinations, making investigations, and inspections of local boards of examiners. The available balance for the present fiscal year is $1,509.23. This amount will be still further reduced, probably to $1,000, when outstanding bills are received. There will be required for the balance of the fiscal year the following: For spring examination trips by district secretaries, $2,500. For holding fourth-class postmaster examinations at places of vacancies, $6,000. Miscellaneous expenditures; $3,000; a total of $11,500. That is $500 less than I asked for before, and that is due to the fact that in arriving at the estimate of the cost for holding the fourth-class post-office examinations I was basing my estimate on the cost of the number up to that time, which was about $4. As the number has increased we find that the cost per individual examination has fallen from about $4 to $3.75, and that enables us to cut off $500 of the estimate of $12,000 that we had asked for. The CHAIRMAN. Your appropriation for this year is $12,000, and you asked for $17,000? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. You are asking now instead of $5,000 over and above the $12,000 appropriation, $12,000 more? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. In the deficiency bill in the last session we gave you the money necessary to pay for travel in connection with the fourthclass postmasterships. Mr. McILHENNY. That was the job of holding fourth-class postoffice examinations under the Executive order by which the President said that all post offices of the fourth class should be filled by an open, competitive examination. Mr. BARTLETT. Where they paid over $180? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes. That was a job we were taking up by States. The CHAIRMAN. And we gave you all the money required for travel? Mr. McILHENNY. All that was required for about three-fourths of it. The CHAIRMAN. No; we gave you all that was required. Mr. McILHENNY. No; I told you at the time it was only about three-fourths of the amount. These estimates here do not take into consideration any of that job of holding fourth-class post-office examinations. This is separate and apart. The CHAIRMAN. How do you account for the fact that you want an increase of 100 per cent for this year in this appropriation? Mr. McILHENNY. By the very unusual amount of work that the commission has been called upon to do. The cost of holding the fourth-class post-office examinations The CHAIRMAN (interposing). That is not included in this item We gave you a separate appropriation for that. Mr. McILHENNY. They are included in this in this way: There are vacancies occurring each month, about 500 vacancies, in fourth-class post offices irrespective of the job of classifying all of the offices by States. Those vacancies occur as current work. A vacancy in a clerical position here in a department occurs and in the regular, routine work of the commission that has to be filled. The examinations for those are held twice a year. Now in the fourth-class postmasterships, where a man dies or resigns or is dismissed, vacancies occur at the rate of 500 a month, and those have to be filled out of the current expenses of the commission. The CHAIRMAN. If they occur at the rate of 500 a month some of them must be included in this other work? Mr. McILHENNY. No; not one of them. Mr. SISSON. Unless it should happen that an examinations should be held just at the time the vacancy occurred? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes. The job work is separate and apart from the other work. The CHAIRMAN. Suppose you are working in New York State, does the fact that vacancies are occurring there make any difference? Mr. McILHENNY. The Postmaster General orders that the examinations in New York be held, say, in April for all the fourth-class postmasters there. Now, if vacancies have occurred in July, August, and all the months up to April, those vacancies have to be filled in accordance with the regular practice of the commission; an examination has been held at the fourth-class post office and the vacancy filled by certification of the commission resulting from that examination. Now, in April there will be, say, 3,500 post offices left that have not been filled by that form of procedure. In April those examinations are held under this job work and the whole thing cleaned up, but there will continue to be vacancies occurring, apparently in a perfectly legitimate way, at the rate of about 500 a month. They have so occurred up to this time and I think they will continue to occur at that rate. The CHAIRMAN. For how long? Mr. McILHENNY. I do not know. I imagine forever. Mr. SISSON. Suppose a man has been examined and put in ofice and stays in office a week and dies, you then have to fill that vacancy again? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes. We have fifty-odd thousand fourth-class postmasters. Mr. BARTLETT. I think there are 36,000 of them who are required to take examinations. Mr. McILHENNY. And in that 50,000 there are constant resignations, deaths, and dismissals. The CHAIRMAN. At the rate of 16 or 17 per cent? Mr. McILHENNY. So far that has been the record of this commission, an average of about 500 a month. The CHAIRMAN. I read every once in a while of an attempt to change a fourth-class postmaster who has been in office for 40 years, and of other places where the statement is made that if the man is changed there is not anybody in the whole community who will take the job. Mr. McILHENNY. Very often we find difficulty in getting people in a community to apply for the position because they want the old fellow who is there and who has become absolutely unfitted for the place to remain and have the job in spite of the determination of the Post Office Department to supplant him. But when they find that the Post Office Department is going to appoint some one who is better qualified to do the work, then the people do come in and apply. The CHAIRMAN. You say that some of this cost of filling vacancies requiring examinations where none was required before is due to the fact you have changed your system to some extent? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes, sir; I will tell you about that. When we first took over the work of holding examinations for fourth-class postmasters we did what we had always done prior to that time in holding examinations of a similar character. We would send the announcements of the examinations to the little post office where the examination was to be held and ask the postmaster who was to go out, to post the announcements, and then we would send on the date the examination was scheduled the papers to the postmaster who was to go out, and ask him to hold the examination. But we got violent protests from everybody, from Members of Congress, from the applicants themselves, and from the Post Office Department. It was deemed extremely unwise that the outgoing postmaster should be given so much control over the holding of the examination. However, we were supposed to do the work and we had no tools with which to do it. The CHAIRMAN. We gave you all the money you asked for. Mr. McILHENNY. My dear sir, I can not ask you for enough, because I do not know what my needs are going to be the next year. But at any rate, when we got all of these protests we stopped the system of holding the examinations by the fourth-class postmasters and we inaugurated a new system which is more expensive but apparently entirely satisfactory. After we have reorganized our local boards throughout the service we send a member of the local board from the nearest point to the fourth-class post office, and through him we announce the examination, and he goes to the post office and holds the examination. In that way we get absolutely fair treatment for the people in the community, but it has increased the cost of holding these examinations very materially, and we are now trying to put in another system which will be less expensive. We are trying to make the applicants come to the nearest point available, which will not be an unreasonable distance from their homes, to be examined. The difficulty about that is that we have to seek the applicants for the fourth-class post offices; the applicants do not seek the positions, and I am afraid the result is going to be that, while it is cheaper, it does not provide the competition that the department and the law require. Mr. Sisson. Here is going to be the trouble about your new system. Here is a man willing to take the post office because he has a little store doing a small business, and if the examination were held in his little village he would say "All right; I will stand the examination because I have nothing else to do;" but if he is a pretty good business fellow he will say, "I am not going to take a day or two from my business to go over to another town to stand the examination and pay my expenses. The result will be that you will have a lot of ne'erdo-wells who will perhaps borrow the necessary cash to go to the next town to stand the examination. Mr. McILHENNY. I am afraid it is going to work out very largely in that way. However, we have been forced to stop the other system of sending our local representative into each locality because we have not the money. Mr. SISSON. If the office pays $900 you would have competitors, but for a $200 or $300 office you will not have any competition. Mr. McILHENNY. Very little, sir. Mr. BARTLETT. The $180 post offices are not subject to civil-service examinations. They are made on the recommendation of a postoffice inspector. Mr. McILHENNY. Yes. He is supposed to go into the territory and to receive the applications of those who desire to be postmaster, look into their qualifications, see the character of the men, and report back to the Post Office Department as to the character and qualifications of the different men. Mr. BARTLETT. And the accessibility of the location, etc.? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes, sir; every single thing relative to the position. Mr. BARTLETT. And to try to find out whom the people want? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes; and if nobody applies it is his business to try to find somebody in the community who will apply. If he can not find anybody, he recommends that the office be closed and served by a rural route. The CHAIRMAN. Could you use the post-office inspectors in your part of the work? Mr. McILHENNY. Mr. Chairman, we have gotten the Postmaster General to transfer to us six post-office inspectors for this job of work. You gave us the money to enable us to pay each of them $1,500 a year, and we are using them on this work. They are absolutely necessary, and we could not do the work otherwise. There are certain localities that can not be reached by the members of the local board. In the mountain country of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and the far Western States there are required men who are accustomed to traveling under severe weather conditions and over bad roads. We lay out a regular route, which is somewhat like a corkscrew, and they go around and have certain dates on which they are going to hold examinations, and as soon as one route is finished we shift him to another place, and he does the same thing. That is in a section of the country where the people can not be expected to go 35 or 40 miles across almost impassable trails in winter weather to submit to an examination. They will not do it, and we have to send these people to them. Mr. BARTLETT. Have you stated what is the average cost per examination to the commission? Mr. McILHENNY. I have not that in this statement, but Dr. Griffin, who has charge of that work, tells me it is about $3.75. Mr. SISSON. Is that for each person examined or for each examination? Mr. McILHENNY. For each examination, and the more examinations we hold the cheaper it is. Sometimes in the far West where it is necessary for us to send a man a long distance, it may mean a three-day stage trip which will make the examination at that one point cost $35 or $40, but that is brought down by the vast number of examinations that only cost $1, and some of them only 75 cents, and some as low as 8 cents-just the trolley fare for the man who holds the examination. That brings down the average cost of the examinations; but it seems to me, frankly, very necessary, if the commission is to engage in this work, that we should send our local representative to the post office and not intrust it to the outgoing postmaster, whose only interest is to get somebody he is in favor of as his successor. Very often they post the notices of tue examination behind the post-office door, where nobody can see them, and then they tell only their friends when the examination is to be held. Mr. SISSON. Under the former administration they held a good many of those examinations in my State and they were very unsatisfactory when held by the outgoing postmasters, because when he gets ready to resign he usually wants to sell his little stock of goods and he generally makes a deal of some kind with the man he wants appointed, and I should think it would be very unsatisfactory to let the outgoing postmaster hold the examination.' Mr. BARTLETT. This amount you are asking for is purely for the examinations to fill vacancies that occur, or is it to carry out the order of the President for the general examinations? Mr. McILHENNY. This amount of traveling expenses I am asking for, $12,000, is the amount that I actually need to do the work of the commission to the end of this fiscal year. Mr. BARTLETT. All traveling expenses? Mr. McILHENNY. All traveling expenses. I have not taken into consideration the possibility of any inspection by the Civil Service Commissioners themselves, any trips away from the commission. It is for the actual needs of the commission. Without it, I must virtually close down the commission as far as travel is concerned and as far as holding examinations in the field is concerned. Mr. BARTLETT. Have you estimated the cost per year for carrying out this order of the president upon the Civil Service Commission? Mr. McILHENNY. I can not do that until it has run for some time. I can let you know next year exactly what it is going to cost. Mr. BARTLETT. What has it cost up to this time? Mr. McILHENNY. I can not say that. Of the amount expended, $4,698.88 has been for holding examinations for fourth-class postmasters at places of vacancies; that is, you understand, not this job of work, but just the vacancies. Mr. BARTLETT. I understand. Mr. McILHENNY. That is what it has cost up to this time. Mr. McILHENNY. Yes. Mr. BARTLETT. Does that include traveling expenses? Mr. McILHENNY. Yes, sir; that is purely traveling expenses. Mr. BARTLETT. You do not know what the other expense has been? Mr. McILHENNY. The cost in examination papers and things of that kind? Mr. BARTLETT. Yes. Mr. McILHENNY. No, sir; I do not know that, because it is hard to separate that from the regular routine work of the commission. Mr. BARTLETT. You say that you want "for necessary traveling expenses, including those of examiners acting under the direction of the commission, and for expenses of examinations and investigations |