as the department is finding it practically impossible to secure efficient trained men for this service in the various markets.

Mr. Otto W. Schleussner is in immediate charge of the market news service on fruits and vegetables operated jointly with the Food Products Inspection Service on the Pacific coast. He exercises supervisory control over the permanent branch offices on the Pacific coast, including a number of the most important producing points. Mr. Schleussner also serves in an advisory capacity in considering general policies relating to the fruit and vegetable marketing activities of the bureau.

He has been in intimate association with this work since its inception. There is absolutely no other man in the bureau who combines so wide a knowledge of the production of fruits and vegetables with an intricate knowledge of the processes and agencies through which they are handled and distributed to the final consumer. Combined with this he has an extensive personal acquaintance in the fruit and produce trade, and enjoys the unlimited confidence of the trade.

The loss of Mr. Schleussner's services would seriously retard the progress of the work with which he is associated. At any time his separation would be keenly felt, but at the present time, when men of the necessary technical training and a knowledge of trade conditions to carry on even the elementary phases of the market news service are practically unavailable, it would be almost impossible to replace Mr. Schleussner.

FEDERAL HORTICULTURAL BOARD.

Mr. O. D. Deputy is in charge of the quarantine service of this department in relation to the pink bollworm at the port of Laredo, Tex. This service controls the entry of all cars, freight, and personal baggage from Mexico into the United States, and supervises the disinfection of such cars, freight, and baggage. The work requires a special technical training in entomology and technical training also in the methods and practices of fumigation and general disinfection. Under existing conditions the port of Laredo is the principal port of entry of cars and merchandise from Mexico, and Mr. Deputy has demonstrated a peculiar aptness for this work and is a man of unusual energy, ability, and tact. His accumulated experience and his demonstrated ability make him undoubtedly of much greater value in this service than he would be in work more directly connected with the war. The prevention of the entry of the pink bollworm of cotton through the agency of such traffic means the ⚫ prevention of enormous future losses to the cotton crop of America, the production of which, furthermore, is a very vital war matter. Deferred classification would seem to be fully justified in this instance. Attention should be drawn to the fact in relation to Mr. Deputy that quarantine service is a service which, to be efficient, must be continuous and under the direction of experienced men and that its interruption or breaking in of new men involves a risk of the entry of the pest being guarded against, and nullifying of all previous work.

Mr. H. F. Dietz is one of the best trained and most competent inspectors in the service of the Federal Horticultural Board. In addition to specializing in his college work in applied entomology before coming into the service, he was assistant State entomologist of Indiana for two years, 1914–1916. He has been in charge of an important series of experiments to determine the best means of disinfection of plants and plant products imported either for commercial or introduction purposes. This work forms the basis for the quarantine and disinfection requirements enforced by the Federal Horticultural Board. Mr. Dietz has impressed all of the persons with whom he has come in contact in connection with this work as being a man of exceptional ability, thoroughness, and reliability, and his deferred classification is fully warranted.

Mr. U. C. Loftin is a graduate of an agricultural college where he received special technical training and has taken post-graduate work at a university leading to an advanced degree. Before coming into the service of this department he had several years experience as an assistant in experiment station work in Florida and North Carolina. He has been connected with the department since 1903, engaged in a study of sugar-cane insects. He demonstrated such abilities and resourcefulness as to lead to his selection to take charge of the station established in the Laguna district in Mexico for a study of the pink bollworm. These studies are to be the basis of control operations and are of the greatest 66287-18- 4

importance in relation to the future handling of the very serious pink bollworm problem. His loss at this time would interrupt this very valuable piece of work.

Senator KENYON. What percentage of these deferred men, Mr. Secretary, are clerks?

Secretary OUSLEY. None of them are clerks?

Senator KENYON. None of them at all?

Secretary OUSLEY. No, sir. In the District of Columbia, out of 1991 deferred, only 8 are administrative assistants performing responsible executive work. For example, the chief clerk of the Biological Survey is one, and the administrative assistant in charge of the business operations in connection with grain-standards work is another. No men performing merely clerical service have been deferred at the department's request.

Senator SMITH of South Carolina. Would it be possible for you to furnish the committee a list of the men that have been put in the deferred classes, stating the work they are engaged in and why they have been deferred?

Secretary OUSLEY. I do not think it would be possible in any reasonable time, Senator.

Mr. HARRISON. That was requested by a House resolution adopted a few days ago, but it will hardly be available in time for consideration by the committee.

Senator SMITH of South Carolina. Could you give a general idea of the number by States and the class of work they are in?

Secretary OUSLEY. Yes, sir.

Senator SMITH of South Carolina. That would be very helpful, and I think you might do that in a reasonable length of time.

Secretary OUSLEY. We can do that. It may not be precisely accurate, but we can get that to you within 48 hours.

(The statement referred to is here printed in full, as follows:) Statement regarding deferred classification of employees of the Department of Agriculture, by States.

Statement regarding deferred classification of employees of the Department of
Agriculture, by States-Continued.

NOTE. One hundred and eight men in the Forest Service who were deferred
on the department's recommendation, and also because of reasons personal to
the men, are not included in the fourth column of the statement, as the
information by States was not available.

One hundred and three men in the Forest Service who were not recommended
for deferred classification by the department, but who were deferred by the
draft boards for reasons personal to the employees, are not included in the last
column, as this information by States was not available.

Senator KENYON. We can say on the floor, if the spirit moves us,
that none of the men in those deferred classifications are clerks sit-
ting around in these offices?

Secretary OUSLEY. Yes, sir. There are only eight administrative
assistants performing responsible executive work; the others are
scientific and technical employees and field workers.

Out of 17,641 men, of whom 5,855 are within the draft age, only
eight administrative assistants in the District of Columbia, and no
employees performing merely clerical service have been deferred.
In conclusion, by way of summary, let me remind you of some of
the points I have just covered. This is a selective-service act, and, if
it means what we proclaim it to mean, it means that every man in

this Republic-every woman, so far as that is concerned-should be assigned to whatever thing he is best qualified to do. In view of the recital I have made, I submit that it would be poor statesmanship. almost calamitous, to drive such men as I have described from these vital things that they are doing, particularly when in every hotel in every town and village in the United States there are able-bodied men who can fight with a gun, who can dig trenches, and who are now waiting on tables, driving pleasure cars, running elevators, bothering you to death when you get to the hotel or around the station to carry your bag when you want to carry it yourself, brushing your clothes until they almost wear them out when you do not want them brushed.

I say it would be mistaken statesmanship, calamitous statesmanship, to destroy or seriously impair this great service, when there are so many men available in that way, particularly since we have announced the policy of selective service.

Furthermore, these deferred classifications are not made by the Secretary of Agriculture; they are made merely on his recommendation, and the final authority and the whole responsibility rests upon the district boards. They have full authority to decline to accept his recommendation, and the effect of this amendment is to take that authority out of their hands.

Senator KENYON. No man is deferred unless the Secretary certifies him to the board?

Mr. HARRISON. The Secretary passed on every case personally, although under the regulations he could have designated persons in the field to make recommendations to the draft boards, as other departments have done.

Secretary OUSLEY. I do not mind saying-and I think I ought to say that Secretary Houston has maintained as watchful and as firm a policy as it is possible for a man to maintain, and he has declined to recommend the deferment of some men that I myself recommended, and I now see the wisdom of his course.

Senator NORRIS. I think the Congress wants to know, and the country has a right to know, if it is a fact that there is never a case of deferred classification or recommendation for deferred classification for the purpose of keeping anybody out of actual fighting on account of personal relationship or other relationship or any reason why they want to confer a particular favor and keep somebody out of the trenches who ought to be in the trenches.

Secretary OUSLEY. Such an insinuation

Senator NORRIS. I do not know that such charges have been made in regard to the Department of Agriculture, but the thing I want clear in my mind is that in the Department of Agriculture the deferred classification has without exception been asked on the merit of every individual case and not because of somebody having a pull. When that is demonstrated, if it can be demonstrated, I do not think there will be any dissatisfaction with the course you have taken. The course you have taken, as you have outlined it, is very fine, but that must be made plain.

Secretary OUSLEY. Senator, I would not undertake to say that out of 2,503 cases that have been considered no mistake has been made, because that would be to attribute infallibility. I would not under

take to say that there is not a single case of a man who might not be spared without serious. detriment, because that would imply infallibility.

Senator NORRIS. Do you know of any case or has any case been brought to your attention in which deferred classification came about because of pull?

Secretary OUSLEY. I never have seen one. I never have heard of I will say, furthermore, that, if a single case can be found that is in the least degree dubious as to the actual necessity for the deferred classification of the man, the Department of Agriculture will not only withdraw its request for deferment but the Secretary of Agriculture will reproach, if he does not disgrace, the man who attempted to put over such a thing. Not only that, Senator, but Secretary Houston has withdrawn requests for deferred classification in several cases where men have been transferred from one bureau to another, or from one service to another, where in the new service he was not necessary.

This act especially authorizes the President to exclude or discharge from the draft certain persons. There has been no attempt to invoke that authority at all. The selective-service regulations authorize the heads of departments to recommend or to designate people to recommend. The Secretary has been so careful that he has exercised this function himself and has personally examined every case.

It is necessary for the department, under the food production act, to greatly increase its forces. That is the same act you are now considering. It has been extremely difficult to get the necessary number of trained men because so many of these young men prefer to go into the Army and get commissions, and we have actually begged them not to go into the Army.

Of

The department has lost 6,048 regular employees since the United States entered the war, as follows: Men, 5,090; women, 958. these, 4,511 employees, including the 958 women, have left the department to engage in other occupations, and 1,537 have entered the military service.

Senator SMITH of South Carolina. Secretary Ousley, the Secretary of Agriculture in his brief setting forth his side of this question has divided it into heads. You have given us a general summary. You have men here doubtless who are intimately acquainted with the details?

Secretary OUSLEY. Yes; these gentlemen can testify as to the several bureaus.

Senator SMITH of South Carolina. As Assistant Secretary, you can help the committee by designating which one should be heard first.

Secretary OUSLEY. As the man most intimately related to the obvious war activities of the department, I should like for Mr. Brand to tell you what his experts are doing.

Senator SMITH of South Carolina. Very good; we will hear Mr. Brand now.

Dr. Brand, will you please state your official connection with the Department of Agriculture and give such facts in reference to this matter as you desire?