Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-08-10
P|NCHOT SPEAKS OUT|PUzzlE OVER QUERIES
For Roosevelt Policies as Thinking Apparatus of Treas
Against New Regime ury Employees Given Shock.
DIFFERS WITH BAL lNGGER BLANK CARDS Distributed
Fifteen Be Answered
Der at Odds. With Great Care
BALLINGER STANDS BY LAW WORK OF REORGANIZATION
Re-
of Fornler known
Spokane Today the History
Fifteen Questions to Be Answered
With Great Care.
WORK OF REORGANIZATION
Frequent Confidential Visits to APP
pointment Division, Known as
the History Cabinet.

| Eight thousand two hundred Treasury
| Department employees In Washington, IN
Guiding 1000 in the bureau of engraving
/ and printing. are scratching their heads
| and thinking hard today In four or five
days twelve thousand more employees OF
the same department. scattered all over
the country, will be doing the same thing.
! It's all because of the blank cards sent
around by Secretary MacVeagh's commit
tee of reorganization. Each employee is
| cautioned to answer with the greatest
care the fifteen questions that are put in
the employees card. Some of these ques-
tions are puzzling and there were hun
dreds of small conferences throughout
the Treasury today as to how they
should be answered as to avoid bad
ratings for improperly filled cards.
| But the man who writhed under it all
more than any other one today was
James F. FitZpatrick-"FitZ' as every
| body knows him He is in the appoint
ment division, walking card index Sys-
| lem to the record of every clerk in the
department. In fact, he has charge of
the fles containing the history of the
appointment of every clerk in the de-
partment. "FitZ' was visited hundreds
of times today by disturbed clerks. who
had forgotten the dates of their appoint
ments. changes in their positions, sal
aries. etc. He was compelled to dig into
his history cabinet and fish out the pa
pers bearing upon the cases of employees
who wanted to be sure about themselves.
The worst of it, too, is that "Fitzs Ia
bors are just beginning.
Makers of Ratings.
Chiefs of divisions and heads of bu-
reaus who are called upon to pronounce
sentence upon the employees under them
by furnishing the rating of each to the
reorganization committee, probably mean
ing dismissals to many. were the most
serious people in the big department to-
day. The responsibility upon them is
great. The chiefs must have their re-
ports in by the 18th of this month. Di-
rector Ralph of the bureau of engraving
and printing. with 1900 employees under
him and only few clerks. has the job
of his life In filling in the records of
each employe- as directed.
Heads of bureaus and chiefs who are
called upon to report in percentage the
quality and quantity of work of each en-
ploye are worried over this feature The
directions of the Secretary are that the
quantity of work shall be stated in per-
centase ION the basis that 100 per cent
equals the amount of the particular class
of work which can be performed by
thoroughly efficieut employee
No Way to Harmonic Views.
There is no way of harmonizing the
views of the many chiefs as to these
ratings. Where a chief might consider
an employe worth quantity rating of
30, another would have a different basis,
making his 90 or possibly So In that
way the clerks under one man will be
extolled i'll percentage figures and those
under another rated SO low as to be
brought under suspicion.
Many chiefs today expressed them
selves as satisfied with the force of clerks
under them and as intending to give
their men and women the best sort of
ratings and records to the department.
Other chiefs were ready and willing TO
mark with strictness. The difference in
the methods thus employed will, it was
pointed out today. render the value of
the reports to be received not as valuable
as If there could be some uniform system
of marking all around