tion Act, he may by Executive order prescribe such additional classification services as he deems necessary, and describe and fix the compensation of the grades of such services within the limits of the Classification Act and as nearly as may be in accord with the existing grades which involve comparable offices or positions.

Subsection (c) of this section authorizes the President to prescribe compensation in excess of the rates prescribed in the Classification Act for offices or positions under that act, as amended and extended, by establishing schedules of differentials not exceeding 25 percent of the minimum rate of compensation of the grade applicable to the offices or positions involved, whenever he finds, upon report and recommendation by the Civil Service Administrator, that the compensation schedules of the Classification Act are inadequate for such offices or positions. The authority under this section is expressly confined to offices and positions located at remote stations, or those which involve unusual physical hardship, or hazards, or have similar characteristics. Also the Civil Service Administrator is authorized to take these special characteristics into consideration in allocating a class of offices or positions to a service and grade under the Classification Act, in which event no differential may be set-up.

Subsection (d) excepts from the powers granted to the President by this section certain classes of offices and positions. These exceptions consist largely of offices and positions, the compensation of which is now expressly fixed by laws other than the Classification Act. Section 402 authorizes the President, after investigation by the Civil Service Administrator, to except certain offices and positions from the provisions of the Classification Act. This authority is limited to offices and positions having certain characteristics designated by the bill which tend to prevent a practicable application to them of the provisions of the Classification Act.

Section 403 provides that offices and positions to which the provisions of the Classification Act are extended under this title of the bill shall be allocated to a service and grade under the classification Act in accordance with section 4 of that act and with a uniform procedure to be prescribed by the Civil Service Administrator. It is further provided that the initial compensation of the incumbents of such offices and positions shall be fixed in accordance with section 6 of the Classification Act, unless the incumbent is receiving compensation in excess of the maximum rate prescribed for the grade of his office or position, in which event no change will be made in his existing compensation as long as he occupies that office or position, but when it becomes vacant the compensation applicable thereto will be adjusted to accord with the Classification Act.

Section 404 declares that nothing in the act shall be deemed to prevent the promotion of an officer or employee.

TITLE V. MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS

Section 501 authorizes the President, the Civil Service Administrator, and the Civil Service Board to prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary to enable them to exercise their respective functions.

Section 502 provides for the transfer of the personnel and property of the Civil Service Commission to the Civil Service Administrator,

and prescribes the conditions under which personnel so transferred may acquire a classified civil-service status.

Section 503 provides for the transfer to the Civil Service Administration of such portions of the unexpended balances of appropriations available for the Civil Service Commission, as the President shall deem necessary. Unexpended balances of such appropriations, not so transferred, are required to be impounded and returned to the Treasury.

Section 504 is a saving provision with respect to existing laws, rules, regulations, and similar matters pertaining to the Civil Service Commission.

Section 505 is a saving provision with respect to proceedings, investigations, and similar matters pending in the Civil Service Commission. Section 506 is a saving provision with respect to suits or actions pending by or against officers or employees of the Civil Service Commission.

Section 507 authorizes the President and the heads of the executive departments, the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, the Civil Service Administrator, and the Civil Service Board to employ experts and consultants for the purpose of consultation, investigation, and research in connection with the exercise of the functions of their respective offices.

Section 508 contains the definitions of certain terms as used in the bill, namely, "agency", "independent agency", "temporary agency", "managerial agency", "federally owned and controlled corporation", and "functions." These definitions, particularly that of the term "agency", govern the scope of the operation of many important provisions of the bill.

Section 509 authorizes such appropriations as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of the bill.

Section 510 contains a separability clause.

Section 511 provides that the provisions of the act shall become effective 90 days after its enactment.

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1st Session

Part 2

ESTABLISHMENT OF CIVIL SERVICE ADMINISTRATION AND EXTENSION OF MERIT SYSTEM AND CLASSIFICATION ACT

AUGUST 19, 1937.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. TABER, from the Select Committee on Government Organization, submitted the following

MINORITY VIEWS

[To accompany H. R. 8277]

The undersigned dissent from the views expressed in the majority report. They believe that the abolition of the present nonpartisan Civil Service Board and the substitution of a Civil Service Administrator will destroy the last hope of any nonpartisan protection for the civil-service employee and for nonpartisan selection of Government employees. We believe that the advisory board set-up would absolutely be unable to function satisfactorily. We are inclined to the opinion that the bill is designed to accomplish political control over the selection and retention of our Government employees. For these reasons we cannot lend our support to this bill.

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JOHN TABER.

CHARLES L. GIFFORD.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES STANDARDIZATION

AUGUST 18, 1937.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed

Mr. SOMERS of New York, from the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 7869]

The Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 7869) to define certain units and to fix the standards of weights and measures of the United States, having held a hearing thereon, report favorably and recommend that the bill do pass with certain clarifying amendments as herein below set forth.

In

The customary system of weights and measures now so widely used in the United States occupies the anomalous position of never having been formally adopted and legalized by Congress. Congress has, however, legalized the metric system of weights and measures. the act of 1866, Congress declared "it shall be lawful throughout the United States of America to employ the weights and measures of the metric system." In the act of 1866, Congress included a table of conversion factors which "may lawfully be used" in converting quantities from one system to the other. That Congress intended this table only as an approximation to the true ratio of the units in the two systems is evident from the fact that the meter is given as equivalent to 39.37 inches while the millimeter, a thousandth part of the meter, is rounded off to 0.0394 inch.

At the time the metric system was adopted the United States did not possess accurate material standards representing the units of weight and measure in either system. Accurate material standards were obtained for the first time in 1890 when the United States Government secured a platinum-iridium meter bar and a platinumiridium kilogram which had been compared carefully with the prototype meter and kilogram deposited in Paris. In the absence of any similar standard representing the yard, the Superintendent of the of the Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1893 issued an order stating that the meter bar would be regarded as the fundamental standard and that the inch would be derived from it by means of the relation.