Los Angeles herald., 1910-03-18
State Department Index
By Frederic j. Haskin

or court of arbitration Ii is very de-
sirable for the United States to know
the antecedents of that person. And
when q country sends a minister to
Washington it is important to know in
advance whether he is persona grata
Reference to the card index will give
the desired information in each case.
These and n multitude of varying de-
fails cover the work of the department
and only the most scientific indexing
will make any given item readily ac-
Cessible.
Under the state department method
all files on related matters are now
grouped together in a logical manner
When any bureau wants to refer to a
matter that has been filed away and
indexed a card is sent to the index
bureau asking for that particular file
1t is hurried along and returned to its
appropriate place as soon as possible
In this way all lost motion is elm
mated and the best results obtainable
under modern indexing methods are
realized.
There are about thirty employees en-
gagged in the work of classification,
filing and indexing. Recent economies
of administration will enable the de-
partment to utilize the energies of
about one-third of these in the task of
applying to the matters in the archives
prior to 1906 the same methods of in
dexing as are employed in current
work. There are some 2000 letters re-
ceived each week.
Under the old rules of the depart
ment the bulk of its correspondence
was carried on by the diplomatic and
consular bureaus. Under later rules
geographical divisions have been made.
A far eastern bureau was established,
and all political matters relating to
the far east were handled by II,
whether of diplomatic or of consular
origin So successful was the expert
ment that a bureau dealing with
Latin-American subjects, another con-
cerning western European subjects,
and still another dealing with near
eastern matters have been established.
These give opportunity for highly spe-
cialized work. The same method Is
employed in the classification of the
files and in the index work. one set
of employees has charge of the files OF
Latin American matters, another set
of workers handle far eastern subjects,
and so on.
There are two principal divisions of
the fling system. one part Is known
as the major file and the other as the
minor file To the major file are re-
ferred all matters of first Importance
the things which come up frequently
in the course of the transaction or
public business. Each transaction is
given a serial number and following
number-for example. 1928. The 1872
is the number of identification, while
the signifies that it is the third COM
munication in the correspondence
under that serial number. One of the
rules of the department says that
every paper received or sent by the
department shall be indexed, except
ing acknowledgement crank letters,
fnpc on clIph GID-
jects as Niagara Falls, the Congo.
etc, etc" As there are hundreds of
crank letters received every week. 1t
is we'll for the public treasury that no
arrangement has been made Tor INDEX
ing them
Some people complain about the lack
Of application of modern business
methods to the various departments OF
the government. IL is true that Uncle
Sam is slow i'm adopting new ideas, but
there is a good reason for not belhs
hasty in such matters. The records OF
the governmental offices are so Volum-
inous that to rush forward and adopt
every new and improved innovation
would be suicidal. The government
printing office tried it with the audit
system, thereby sinking hundreds or
tn ousands of dollars and precipitating
a scandal. Any system of record keep
lnlt Ilal can De dupHtth oeAAiiy iiANeN ~
falf beyond the experimental stage.
When it is adopted, however nowhere
else is it made more thorough than by
the government.
The excellent results that have been
secured from the state department card
index system are well known to the
members os the cabinet. 1t Is expect
ed to serve as a model for the various
departments in the introduction of bus
mess methods in the government SER
vice. Many of the branches of the gov
ernment have card index systems of
greater or less extent. but 1t is plain
that with letters and other matters
which must be indeXed coming in by
the tens of thousands, changes must be
made gradually and carefully. 1t is
probable that with the next few years
the card index system will be in vogue
in every department of the govern
ment and that the older systems or
record keeping will be banished As
labor saver and efficiency promoter the
business world has no device superior
to the card index, and in the state de-
partment ii has reached its highest
note of usefulness.