Dr. MOHLER. No, sir; they have no veterinary or sanitary inspection. All the inspection the men I presume you refer to would do would be purely from a commercial standpoint as to the amount of salt in their pickle, the proportion of sugar, the period of curing and smoking, and things of that character.

Senator NORRIS. Is that work that your men do also?

Dr. MOHLER. For the Army we are doing that particular line of work.

Senator NORRIS. In your inspection at any place would your inspector work side by side with an employee of the packers doing the same work?

Dr. MOHLER. Not the same work at all. One of our lay inspectors would be examining and supervising the work that perhaps 40 of the packers' employees are doing. One veterinary inspector may be examining carcasses for diseases on a killing floor where 50 butchers. are at work.

Senator NORRIS. You men have no authority as to what was done? They would simply report what was done?

Dr. MOHLER. Our men would have every authority so far as the wholesomeness of the meat was concerned, the sanitary condition of the building, the methods of preparing meat products, the system of labeling, etc.

Senator NORRIS. The packing-house people have various inspectors, have they not?

Dr. MOHLER. Not that I know of; they do not call them inspectors. Senator NORRIS. Whatever they are called, they are doing the same work. For instance, as to how much salt should be used, would they have somebody that would decide that, or would it be decided by your men?

Dr. MOHLER. Entirely by the packing-house men, unless we were seeing that certain Army specifications were carried out.

Senator NORRIS. Suppose in carrying out that specification the question should arise as to whether a certain carcass should be rejected or not?

Dr. MOHLER. Our men handle that entirely.

Senator NORRIS. Do they have any men there to look after the same thing?

Dr. MOHLER. Not at all.

Senator NORRIS. In other words, for that work the packers depend entirely upon your employees?

Dr. MOHLER. Yes, sir; and the judgment as to whether that carcass should be passed or not depends entirely upon the Government employee.

Senator NORRIS. Does not the packing house have somebody there looking after the same kind of work?

Dr. MOHLER. They have their managers, superintendents, floor bosses, and employees of that kind who sometimes object to the decision made by our inspectors.

Senator NORRIS. Exactly. What happens then?

Dr. MOHLER. If it is a case of criticism of the inspector on the floor, it is carried to the inspector in charge, and he makes a decision. Senator NORRIS. And his decision is final?

Dr. MOHLER. No; it can be carried up to Washington by the packer if he still believes the decision of the inspector in charge is not satisfactory.

Senator NORRIS. Have you any men in your bureau who have come to your bureau from the packing houses?

Dr. MOHLER. Yes, sir; some of the lay inspectors in some of the packing houses.

Senator NORRIS. How many of those have you?

Dr. MOHLER. We have probably 600.

Senator NORRIS. Have you any men in your employ receiving salary now from any of the packing people?

a

Dr. MOHLER. No, sir; that is prohibited; it is a violation of the law and regulations.

Senator NORRIS. What proportion of your men that are passing on the meat that is furnished by the packing houses to the Government, or anything else in connection with the relationship between the Government and these packing houses, were formerly employed by the packing houses in the same line of business or something similar?

Dr. MOHLER. We have about 2,600 men engaged in our meat-inspection service, and about 600 of those are lay inspectors that had previ ously been employed by packers in a similar line of work.

Senator NORRIS. When you get more men, do you get them out of that class?

Dr. MOHLER, No, sir.

Senator NORRIS. Where do you get them?

Dr. MOHLER. At the present time we are getting them principally from the farm. We have a regular examination for lay inspectors. They must have had three years of agricultural experience in handling animals or meats, and the majority of these new employees are coming from the farm. The reason for the large proportion of our men being formerly employed in the packing houses is that when the law went into effect in 1906 providing for the inspecting of meat from the "hoof to the can." it was necessary for us to get a large force of men quickly to put the law into effect in October, 1906. Almost 100 per cent of the men that came into the service in 1906 were men that had had packing-house experience, and we have a number of those left.

Senator NORRIS. In what connection did they work for the packing houses before you got them?

Dr. MOHLER. They were, as a rule, men in charge of lard departments, oleo departments, canning departments, salt cellars, or pickling departments-men that had risen to the higher positions in the packing houses.

Senator NORRIS. Did you get them by paying an increased salary? Dr. MOHLER. Probably at that time there was a slight increase of salary. Since that time our salaries are very much lower than the packing houses are paying, and we are losing many men because of that fact.

Senator NORRIS. Are you losing men from your bureau going into the employ of the packing houses?

Dr. MOHLER. Yes, sir; we are losing our lay inspectors very largely on account of their going to the packers.

Senator NORRIS. When you lose one of those men, does he remain there where you have used him and do the same kind of work?

Dr. MOHLER. No, sir; it is a different kind of work, and very frequently the man goes into another place. I would like to say that when we took these men in 1906 who had had packing-house experience, we were careful to see that they were not placed in charge of the product of a firm for whom they had worked.

Senator NORRIS. But you could hardly put them in charge of the product of a firm that was not connected with the firm for which they had worked?

Dr. MOHLER. Oh, yes. In Chicago, for instance, we would not employ a man from the Armour plant, for example, and put him back into the Armour plant in our service.

Senator NORRIS. But if you took him from the Armour plant and put him into the Swift plant, it would not make any particular dif-、 ference, would it? If you took him out of one of those plants, you would necessarily have to put him in one of the other big plants, would you not?

Dr. MOHLER. Not in a place like Chicago.

Senator NORRIS. In any place. Does not the Government get most of its meat from the five big packing establishments?

Dr. MOHLER. The five largest establishments supply the larger proportion of the meat of the Government, of course.

Senator NORRIS. If you should get an employee from one of those plants, you would pretty nearly have to put him in another one of the big five, would you not?

Dr. MOHLER. No; we have 471 different independent firms that have inspection. We could change him around among those.

Senator NORRIS. If you did that, then, in order to get enough to go around, you would have to get a whole lot from these so-called independent packers and put them in the packing houses of the larger establishments, would you not?

Dr. MOHLER. You must understand, Senator, we are not getting all these men from the big packing houses; we probably have 600. But I am stating the conditions that obtained in 1906, when it was necessary to increase our force tremendously at the very beginning, and we could only get men from firms doing the kind of work in which we wanted to have our men trained. So we took these men from the heads of departments of different packing houses. They made application in due form and passed the civil-service examination before they were appointed. They are transferred at regular intervals from one house to another and sometimes to another station to improve the service.

Senator RANSDELL. Continue your statement, Doctor, in your own

way.

Dr. MOHLER. Another activity which we are intensifying on account of the war is the work in tick eradication. Last year we released from quarantine the largest number of square miles of clean territory that has ever been taken out, namely, 70,000 square miles; and we are now short about 10 veterinarians in this particular work despite the fact that we are endeavoring this current year to clean up 100,000 square miles.

The same thing obtains in connection with hog cholera. We are intensifying the regular work in the control of hog cholera, on account of the efforts being made to increase hog production 15 per

cent, but we are handicapped because of the fact that we are 15 veterinarians short in this emergency hog-cholera work.

In the animal-husbandry work, which is responsible for the efforts being conducted to increase the production of beef, sheep, hogs, and poultry, there are at present 20 vacancies. In the Dairy Division, which is endeavoring to increase the dairy products of the country and especially to find various dairy substitutes to take the place of meat, we have 16 vacancies. The tuberculosis eradication division and the virus serum control office have urgent need for 9 additional veterinarians.

In the smaller divisions of the bureau, like the Zoological Division and the Biochemic Division, we are short two zoologists and one chemist, both zoologists having of their own volition entered the Sanitary Corps of the Army. Altogether, there are at present 124 vacancies among the veterinarians and 137 vacancies among our expert, technical employees.

În fact, we are in such dire straits in our meat-inspection service that we have started to employ women. We are now employing over 50 women in the big packing-house centers, like Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City, to take the places of some of these lay inspectors. They are doing very satisfactory work thus far. They are in charge of the dried beef departments, oleo departments, and canning departments, where sanitation is the essential feature of the work.

Secretary OUSLEY. They could not perform the service of the expert veterinarians.

Dr. MOHLER. Not at all.

Senator RANSDELL. Doctor, can you attach to your statement a memorandum of the occupations which these persons were engaged in for whom you have asked deferred classification and for whom it has been granted?

Dr. MOHLER. Yes, sir. Two hundred and thirty-seven, or about 50 per cent of them, are veterinarians in the service, 180 are skilled lay inspectors, 55 are animal husbandmen, 57 are dairy experts, and 10 are laboratory specialists. like bacteriologists, pathologists, chemists, etc. Deferment was not asked for any clerks.

Right in this connection I wish to state that at the present time there is no eligible list of veterinarians or lay inspectors. We have exhausted the eligible list for both of those classes of employees, and we have suggested to the Civil Service Commission that on the next examination they increase the age limit so that we will have an opportunity of getting men that are from 31 to 45. At the present time the age limit is 41 years.

Practically all the veterinary graduates of this spring have been taken by the Army; they are in the Medical Reserve Corps. Heretofore we have been able to replenish our forces by taking the graduates of the veterinary colleges in the spring, but this year they have been claimed by the War Department.

Senator NORRIS. Do you know whether the War Department is short of veterinarians?

Dr. MOHLER. They are not short of veterinary officers at present; but they are short of the enlisted personnel. These graduates are going into the enlisted personnel.

Senator NORRIS. Do they follow their profession in the Army? Dr. MOHLER. Yes, sir; they are in the veterinary corps of the Surgeon General's Department.

Senator NORRIS. I had an idea that the cavalry branch was so small they would not need very many.

Dr. MOHLER. But there are more horses in the other branches, Senator, than in the cavalry branch, under present conditions.

Senator NORRIS. What work do they do in the Army for which their veterinary education has peculiarly fitted them?

Dr. MOHLER. They are engaged in the treatment of animals which are connected not only with the Cavalry service but also with the Infantry service under present conditions, the Artillery service, the wagon trains, etc., and they are also assisting in the reinspecting of this meat after it gets into the camps and cantonments. That is another one of their functions which we are encouraging and on which we are having conferences almost weekly, to see that the meat after it gets into the camps does not deterioate and become unfit for food purposes.

The point I wished to make was that, instead of getting men enough for the veterinary college graduates of 1918, we will not be able to get any, because practically all have been taken into the veterinary service of the Army.

Senator RANSDELL. Then, that source does not supply the Army's demands, does it?

Dr. MOHLER. No, sir. They want 18,000 enlisted men to act as farriers and nurses and in similar capacities, which work will be taken up by these young men having practical experience. They have a sufficient number of veterinary officers for the number of positions they have. I believe they have one officer for every 400 horses, and they now have approximately 350,000 horses and mules. But it is in the enlisted personnel, the men who have to make up the prescriptions and do the bandaging and things of that kind, where they are short. The boys from the graduating classes this spring are entering that service, which keeps them from coming into our bureau. The prospects look very bad. There are only 21 veterinary colleges in this country. In the last six weeks three of them have closed their doors, and there are prospects of three more closing on account of the scarcity of students. So this time next year conditions will be worse than they are to-day.

Senator NORRIS. About how old are these veterinarians, as a rule, when they graduate?

Dr. MOHLER. They have usually reached from 22 to 24 years.

In asking for deferred classification in our bureau we have followed the general policy of not requesting any deferment for men under 25 years of age or for those who have entered the service since the war was declared, April 6, 1917. With few exceptions we have followed that policy as to these 539 men; as a rule, they have been in the service since before the war was declared and are more than 24 years of age.

In concluding I wish to state that our bureau already has been seriously handicapped by the loss of 1,312 men and 55 women since the war was declared. They have either entered the military service or have engaged in the more remunerative industrial occupations.