find that there are many instances of clerks doing exactly the same grade of work at $1,600 or $1,800 that they were doing when they entered the service at the lowest salary. Hence, before there can be a uniform system of promotion upon merit there must be a reclassification based upon the character of the work done. Promotion would then be made from one grade to another, and the work of persons employed within a special grade could be fairly and justly compared. There should be subdivisions within the grades, these subdivisions to be based upon a difference in salary, so that there would be opportunity for rewarding an efficient clerk within his special grade by gradual increase up to the highest salary within the grade.30

Such a recommendation was again urged by the Commission in 1906,31 and in 1907, the Commission applauded the work of the Keep Committee which had been appointed two years earlier.32

Committee on Department Methods, 1905-1909. On June 2, 1905, President Roosevelt, upon his own initiative and without congressional direction, appointed a committee of government officers "to investigate the business methods and practice of the Executive Departments and to report plans for their improvement." The membership of this committee varied somewhat but it included at different times, C. H. Keep, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; Frank H. Hitchcock, First Assistant Postmaster General; Lawrence O. Murray, Assistant Secretary of Commerce; James R. Garfield, Commissioner of Corporations; and Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the Forest Service. Officially the Committee was known as the "Committee on Department Methods"; popularly, it was known as "The Keep Committee." 33

Soon after its appointment the Committee brought about the organization of assistant or subcommittees to take up

33 A detailed description of the Keep Committee's work is found in Weber, G. A., Organized Efforts for the Improvement of Methods of Administration, pp. 74-83 (1919). Institute for Government Research, Studies in Administration.

certain lines of work for special investigation. Through the activities of these various subcommittees and the coöperation of the department, bureau, and division heads in the government service, much valuable information was gathered and some important recommendations were made. One of the eighteen general projects carried out was an investigation dealing with "Classification of Positions and Gradation of Salaries." Although the Committee had no special staff it made a thorough investigation into the personnel situation and made a serious effort to standardize salaries on the basis of duties performed in the departments and independent establishments at Washington. Its report on personnel classification and salary standardization, submitted to the President on January 4, 1907, was in many respects excellent, and it paved the way for later consideration of the problem.34

Report on Classification of Positions and Gradation of Salaries. That the Keep Committee was well aware of the necessity for "reclassification of positions with a readjustment of salaries graded so that the differences in salary shall represent actual differences in character of work," is evidenced from an examination of certain sections of its report.

A reclassification of positions, with a readjustment of salaries graded so that the differences in salary shall represent actual differences in character of work and responsibility, has long been needed in the interest of efficient and economical administration. The salaries now paid in the departmental service in Washington are based upon a classification of the clerks made in acts of Congress of 1853 and 1854, both being effective from July 1, 1853. These acts graded the entire clerical force (except the Departments of State and Justice) into four classes, designated as first, second, third, and fourth class clerks, and fixed the compensation of these classes at $1,200, $1,400, $1,600, and $1,800, respectively. The average salary of the 700 clerks provided for in these acts was $1,446. The Departments and bureaus of 1853 were small. The organization was thus

34 Classification of Positions and Gradation of Salaries for Employees of the Executive Departments and Independent Establishments in Washington, January 4, 1907. 16 p.

compact and comparatively simple, and the work of direction and supervision not especially exacting. The four grades, it may be assumed, established distinctions fairly sufficient to mark the grades of work and responsibility among the classes of clerks as the departmental service was then organized.

Since 1853, as the country has grown and the needs of the Government have called for a larger force for the transaction of its business, from time to time additional positions have been created, divisions have been added, and new bureaus have been established, until at the present time the departmental service in Washington employs in clerical and professional, scientific, and technical positions approximately 13,000 persons, and the service administered by these employees numbers in Washington and elsewhere over 150,000 persons. There are now individual bureaus that have more employees than the entire departmental service in 1853. There are to-day division chiefs who are required to pass upon questions of greater complexity and involving greater responsibility than were the bureau chiefs of fifty years ago.

Despite this enormous growth in the departmental service no consistent plan has ever been followed in making the additions, nor has any effort ever been made to reclassify the positions or to adjust the salaries with any reference to the class of duties performed or the responsibilities borne. The four classes of salaries established in 1853 have been accepted as still furnishing a proper basis of compensation, and other classes have been added from time to time by appropriation acts and by administrative officers in handling lump funds. As a result there is now general confusion in the salary grades of employees. Not only is there great diversity of compensation for the same kinds of work, but persons receiving the higher salaries may be found performing the simplest routine work, while others in the lowest grades are performing work of the most exacting character. Professional, technical, and scientific work especially are notoriously underpaid as compared with clerical work, and a comparison of salaries for such work shows the greatest inequalities. Throughout the entire service the relation of the easier position, the more difficult position, and the responsible supervisory position has not for many years been adequately distinguished by the salary grades.

* * * *

It is a well-known fact that through all the Departments people are sitting side by side doing the same class of work and receiving very different compensation. Some clerks

doing the simplest kind of work are, by reason of length of service, receiving high salaries, while young men only recently certified by the Civil Service Commission, whose general intelligence and ability soon cause them to be assigned to the most difficult work in the office, have to wait many years before they receive the recognition in salary that the character of their work justifies. A large proportion of the injustice and favoritism in the Government service springs from this cause.

35

The Committee outlined four general principles upon which it based a compensation schedule. These were: (1) Salaries sufficiently high to attract competent persons to the service; (2) salaries sufficiently graded to assure frequent promotion, as a stimulus to the best efforts; (3) salaries sufficiently high for the higher positions to develop and retain the best executive and expert service; and (4) gradation and equalization of salaries in all departments according to the character and responsibility of work performed. Depending practically entirely upon the knowledge of the service possessed by the members and the members of the various subordinate committees, the following schedule was devised:

Subclerical Grades.

Employees whose work occupies only part of the time each day, as charwomen, janitors, etc., $240, $300, $360. Employees who enter the service at an early age (14 to 18 years), and are engaged in light work, as messenger boys, $300, $360, $420, $480.

Employees engaged in rough and unskilled work, as laborers generally, $600, $660.

Employees whose duties are not clerical or mechanical, but require some special skill or involve personal responsibility, as as messengers, watchmen, classified laborers, sorters, counters, etc., $660, $720, $780, $840.

No person whose principal duties are as above shall be paid over $840.

Clerical Grades.36

Under clerks.-Employees who are assigned to clerical work of a simple or routine character requiring care, accuracy, and skill, $900, $960, $1,020, $1,080.

35 Ibid., pp. 6, 7.

36 Typical examples of work were listed by the Committee under each general heading: "Under clerks," "Junior clerks," etc.

Junior clerks.-Employees who are assigned to clerical work of a routine character requiring but little original thought or consideration, but requiring judgment, responsibility, and special skill, $1,200, $1,260, $1,320, $1,380.

Clerks.-Employees who are assigned to work more or less routine, involving responsibility, special ability, and original thought, consideration, and investigation, $1,500, $1,620, $1,740.

Senior clerks.-Employees who are assigned to work largely supervisory, or requiring the highest order of clerical ability, involving much original thought, consideration, and investigation, $1,860, $1,980, $2,100.

Supervisory Grade.

Chiefs of divisions and chief clerks.-Employees who perform supervisory, executive, and administrative duties, $2,100 to $4,200.

Professional, Scientific, and Technical, and Miscellaneous

Employees.

The salaries of these shall be assimilated, as far as practicable, to the scale established for clerical and higher grades. The number and variety of designations shall be as small as practicable; and the duties assigned to such employees shall be confined as far as possible within the lines indicated by their titles and for which they may have passed examinations.

Any line of work not herein mentioned should be assigned to the grade to which, on careful comparison, it seems most nearly related.

Skilled Trades Employees.

No fixed scale of compensation is recommended, but whatever salaries are determined upon should conform to the grades fixed in the schedule.37

This schedule was submitted to department heads to serve as the guide for allocating positions and thus determining the salary to be paid. Members of the subordinate committees in the several departments and agencies served as coördinating committees to bring about uniformity of

"Classification of Positions, pp. 1-3. The schedule has been partially reproduced by reason of the fact that only a few complete copies of the Keep Commission's report are available. One complete set is on file at the United States Civil Service Commission and one at the Institute for Government Research.