214 



National Resources Committee 



tion chart, and, if indulged in too frequent l.y, might 

 engender a loss of morale to the whole organization 

 not compensated for by the specific gain in a particular 

 division. 



Wlien a vacancy in a high position occurs, it is not 

 easy to find the best man to fill it. There are two main 

 reasons : 



(a) The combination of administrative ability and 

 professional eminence is rare. The academic person, 

 viewing a Goverimient agency from the outside, is like- 

 \y to forget that a principal function of the organization 

 may be, in some respects, that of a factory. Many a 

 man who is recognized among his colleagues as an out- 

 standing economist or sociologist would be a complete 

 misfit as an executive in a manufacturing plant. As 

 has been pointed out, the Bureau in the past has placed 

 in most of its key positions the type of man who might 

 run a factory, irrespective of his professional qualifi- 

 cations. Under the present director the Bureau has 

 been looking for the combination. Great caution in 

 selection has been exercised, since under the civil service 

 system an error of judgment in the selection can not be 

 easily corrected. 



(6) Even if a man can be found, possessing the ideal 

 combuiation of administrative abilitj' and professional 

 eminence, it may be difficult to induce him to accept, 

 because of the low salary scale. While the salary scale 

 for division chiefs, $5,600 to $6,400, compares favorably 

 with that of the average university, it is probably low 

 compared with what a man possessing the requisite com- 

 bination of administrative ability and professional 

 knowledge could get outside the Government. Con- 

 sider the responsibilities, for example, of the chief of 

 one of the divisions in the Bureau, namely. Vital Sta- 

 tistics. He must be a combination of promoter, scien- 

 tific man, and administrator. Since he must obtain the 

 cooperation of medical men and State health officers 

 to promote more complete and accurate reporting, he 

 not only must have an engaging personality, but also 

 must be able to command respect and confidence. This 

 makes it almost essential that he have the M. D. degi-ee. 

 But to provide tabulations of the maximum utility, 

 he must also imderstand the technical problems of the 

 students of public health and population, who are 

 analyzing vital statistics, in and out of the Govern- 

 ment, for administering health programs or for mak- 

 ing additions to knowledge in several scientific fields. 

 This requires the kind of understanding on the part of 

 a chief which only actual research experience of his 

 own, at least the equivalent of that of a student re- 

 ceiving the Ph. D. degree, can give. Finally, he must 

 be able to superintend a factory receiving and process- 

 ing four million schedules a year. Since he must dele- 

 gate much of his work, he must know how to select 



the right subordinates and how to appraise their work 

 and their judgment. For all this responsibility, the 

 Bureau of the Census pays $6,000 a year. It happens 

 that the man selected by the present Director of the 

 Census for this task, has the required combination as 

 probably nobody else in the United States. But he 

 came to the Bureau at a large financial sacrifice to 

 himself, actuated by the desire to perform a public 

 service in a field which was central to his interests. 

 The field of vital statistics is not an isolated example. 

 If one considers the responsibilities in other fields cov- 

 ered by the Bureau of the Census — that related to manu- 

 factures, to mention only one other — the difficulty of 

 finding men with t\i& requisite combination of abilities 

 who will make the financial sacrifice to serve the Gov- 

 ernment is evident. "Wlien one thinks of salary scales 

 in industry, it is not hard to realize what a problem 

 it is to induce a man to assume, at $5,600 entering salary, 

 a position which calls for a leader who can conmiand 

 the respect of university and governmental economists, 

 of business executives, and of chambers of commerce 

 and trade associations, and at the same time superin- 

 tend the operations of a statistical factory. With re- 

 spect to manufactures, under the immediate leadership 

 of the assistant director. Dr. Vergil D. Reed, and the 

 new chief and assistant chief of the Division of Manu- 

 factures, remarkable progress has been made in the past 

 2 years. 



The fear is sometimes expressed that the unavailabil- 

 ity of men with the requisite combination of adminis- 

 trative ability and professional training may necessitate 

 a modification of the effort to seek this combination of 

 qualifications for division cliiefs. Two suggestions 

 have been offered : 



Proposed Remedies 



Appointing Dividon Chiefs Primarily on the Basis 

 of Administrative Ability and Subordinathig the Pro- 

 fessionally Trained Man, Who Would Then Be Free 

 From Administrative Responsibilities.— There are dis- 

 advantages in such an arrangement which would 

 make its success doubtful in most cases. For example : 

 If the professionally trained man is kept subordinate 

 to a nonprofessionally trained chief, his low salary 

 limit and lack of opportunity for advancement will not 

 provide an attractive future. Even if the Bureau 

 could induce able economists to enter on this basis, it 

 could not i-etain them. Moreover, opportunities for 

 conflict and mutual misunderstanding between two 

 types of mind would be ever present. The chief might 

 resist suggestions for change on the ground that the 

 suggestions were "academic"' or "highbrow" or "con- 

 trary to census policy" and in many cases he might 

 be quite justified. The assistant chief, unless he had a 



