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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
It is the purpose of this note to bring down to date an analysis of the selection and tenure of bureau chiefs in the national administration offered by the writer in this Review in 1926. A complete enumeration of the changes that have taken place at this crucial level in the civil service during an interval of nearly three years has suggestive value, at least in indicating the trend of our bureaucracy.
The mode of approach in the original study was primarily biographical. The bureaus were classified with reference to the manner of selection and the nature of the prior experience of the bureau chiefs then in office. The same method and arrangement are used in dealing with shifts since 1926.
First to be considered are the new bureau chiefs whose positions are in the classified competitive service under the supervision of the Civil Service Commission. Replacements in this group since 1926 have involved the amalgamated Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, the Bureau of Dairy Industry, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, the Bureau of Biological Survey, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Entomology, and indirectly the newly constituted Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration and the Plant Quarantine and Control Administration—all in the Department of Agriculture; also the National Park Service in the Department of the Interior. In two instances competitive examinations have been employed; in another, one has been ordered; in the remaining cases the new chiefs have been chosen by promotion from within the competitive classified service.
1 Vol.20, pp.548–582, 770–811, August and November, 1926. The articles dealt especially with conditions in 54 bureaus in the departments of Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor. The present study is confined to these same departments.
2 The bureaus were accordingly arranged in four groups: (1) those having chiefs who had been appointed under the merit system administered by the Civil Service Commission; (2) those which have self–administered closed systems of commissioned personnel, although their chiefs are presidential appointees; (3) those of which the chiefs in office in 1926 were persons who had been employed in the national administration before they became heads of bureaus; and (4) those of which the chiefs in office in 1926 were persons who had no prior experience in the national administration.
3 Under date of March 23, 1929, the secretary of the Commission informed the writer, unofficially: “…. the reclassification of the service by the so–called Welch Act, effective July 1, 1928, has resulted in a number of recent calls on the Commission to fill positions now paying $5,200 and $6,500 a year. The committee form of examination will probably be used to secure eligibles for filling positions paying $5,200 or more, at least in all cases where the responsibilities involved seem to warrant such a course.” In the summer of 1928 the committee method was used in the selection of M. W. Stirling as chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution. The special examining board in the case consisted of Dr. C. G. Abbott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. A. V. Kidder, ethnologist with the Carnegie Institution, and F. W. Brown, of the examining division of the Commission.
4 The Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration has been in charge of W. G. Campbell, director of regulatory work for the Department of Agriculture as a whole. His connection with the department dates to 1907, and previously, after practicing law for a few years, he had gained experience in food and drug enforcement work in the Kentucky State Agricultural College service. He was assistant chief of the former bureau of chemistry from 1916 to 1923, when he was made director of regulatory work—one of five virtual assistant secretaries now provided in the organization of the Department of Agriculture. When conditions have become stabilized, it is expected that a distinct chief for the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration will be appointed.
5 Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1928, p. 47Google Scholar. Another view of the reorganization referred to is presented by the distinguished, now venerable, still active, and always pungent Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, head of what was the Bureau of Chemistry from 1883 to 1912, and in many senses the father of food and drug legislation, in a book entitled The History of a Crime, which probably will be published during the year. Dr. Wiley argues that the provision for the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils in the agricultural appropriation act, was general legislation which might have been stricken out on a point of order. Begging the question (an interesting one for the student of administration) whether an exclusively policing agency like the new Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration is inherently less capable of drastic regulation than a mixed agency such as the Bureau of Chemistry, it is clear to the observer that Dr. Wiley's criticism of general tendencies in food and drug enforcement illustrates the difference of viewpoint and spirit between the pioneering and crusading period of governmental regulation and the later collaborative stage, with its attendant consultation and inevitable compromises.
6 On April 1, 1927, the Federal Personnel Classification Board assigned the P–7 grade in the Professional and Scientific Service (P&S) to the chiefships of the bureaus of Public Roads, Forest Service, Animal Industry, Plant Industry, and Agricultural Economics, which entitled the occupants of these positions to the $7,500 salary.
Since that time, especially after the Welch Act became effective on July 1, 1928, numerous changes of classification and a general scaling up of compensation have affected bureau chiefs in all departments. A summary of the present classification of bureau chiefs and their rates of compensation (as of March 15, 1929) is given by departments: (1) Agriculture. Of 14 bureau chiefs, 11 are classified as P&S–8, and of these one receives $9,000 per annum; 2, $8,500; and the remainder $8,000. The other three are classified P&S–7; one receives $7,000 and the others $6,500. (2) Commerce. Six are classified P&S–8 and receive $9,000; one, P&S–7, receiving $7,500. The others are classified in the Clerical, Administrative and Fiscal Service (CAF); two in grade 15, receiving $9,000; two in grade 14, receiving $7,500. (3) Labor. Two, classified in P&S–8, draw $8,000; two others, in P&S–7, receive $7,500 and $6,500. One is in CAF–15, drawing $8,000; one in CAF–14, at $7,000; and another in CAF–13, $5,600. (4) Interior. One, drawing $10,000 by special act, is classified as P&S–9; another, in P&S–8, is paid $9,000; and a third, in P&S–7, $7,500. The other bureau chiefs are in CAF grades: two in grade 15, at $8,000; and two in grade 14 at $7,500 and $6,500. (5) Treasury. All the bureau chiefs in the Treasury (leaving out the unclassified heads of the Public Health Service and the Coast Guard) are classified in CAF grades: one in grade 16 at $10,000; two in grade 15 at $9,000; three in grade 15 at $8,000; one in grade 14 at $6,500; and one in grade 13 at $6,000.
7 The Department of Agriculture is adopting what seems a sound policy for the retirement of bureau chiefs. The Secretary of Agriculture thus expresses it: “After years of meritorious service devoted to administrative work, it seems fitting that members of the Department who have attained distinction in science should be relieved of executive responsibilities, so that they may devote all their energies to research. Accordingly, at their own request, I have relieved from further administrative duties the former chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey, E. W. Nelson, an internationally recognized leader in the study and conservation of wild life; the former chief of the Bureau of Entomology, L. O. Howard, long recognized as a distinguished investigator in entomology ….” Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1928, p. 48Google Scholar. Even if it were no more than kindly euphemism, the procedure would be commendable.
8 “It had long been felt that the growing volume of regulatory work was materially interfering with the development and prosecution of research work, which was the primary purpose of the Bureau [of Entomology].” Report of the Entomologist for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1928, p. 1.
9 Hearings before a sub–committee of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, U. S. Senate, 70th Congress, 1st Session, pursuant to S. Res. 142—a resolution to investigate the recent decline in cotton prices (March–May, 1928), p. 1482.
10 Public No. 770, 70th Congress, 2nd Session, approved Feb. 18, 1929.
11 A naturalist of note (known for his zeal as well as for his scientific attainments) remarked in a letter to the writer at the time, in reply to some questions regarding Mr. Redington's appointment: “Is it, then, any wonder that Secretary Jardine, who had been misled by persons under him on whose advice he had a right tò rely, smarting under the sting of a false position, went clear afield for a successor to the man who had got him into a sad mess?”
12 W. O. Woods joined the Treasury Department in 1921, serving (restlessly, it seemed) in a catch–all called the war loan staff. In June, 1927, he was made register of the Treasury in place of Harley V. Speelman. The facts indicated that Mr. Speelman was forced out by a play of personal, rather than party, politics within the Treasury Department. Mr. Speelman talked for a time about refusing to resign, but in the end it seemed that others knew more about his health than he did. The new register, Edward E. Jones, was a member of the Federal Farm Loan Board, from which he resigned in 1927; a farmer, among other vocations, he had been in the Pennsylvania legislature upwards of eighteen years and is known as “Good Roads Jones.”
13 Three recent vacancies in bureau-chiefships have nothing to do with the blanket resignations. In April, David H. Blair, commissioner of internal revenue, announced that he proposed to retire; it has been known for some time that he desired to withdraw on grounds of health. On April 19, Julius Klein, director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, was named Assistant Secretary of Commerce. William Spry, commissioner of the General Land Office, died on April 22. No fundamental change in the type of commissioner of the Land Office is indicated in the nomination, on May 2, of Charles C. Moore, Governor of Idaho from 1923 to 1927.
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