SURVEYS ON PROPERTY

-CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES.

109 claimant was in consequence of his having given his attention to the saving of the property belonging to the United States which was in danger at the same time and under similar circumstances.

Compensation will not be made for losses sustained in time of war or hostilities with Indians, and claim for compensation must be presented within two years from the occurrence of the loss or destruction. Each claim for compensation will be forwarded through military channels to the Auditor for the War Department and will, if possible, be accompanied by the proceedings of a board of officers, showing fully the circumstances of the loss. All personal property for the loss or destruction of which payment is claimed must be enumerated and described in the proceedings of the board of officers, but the board will recommend payment for only such articles as in the opinion of the board were reasonable, useful, necessary, and proper for the claimant to have in the public service in the line of duty.

ARTICLE LVII.

CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES.

GENERAL PROVISIONS.

730. In the staff corps and departments the employment of civilians will be regulated by the respective chiefs of bureaus under the direction of the Secretary of War. Those whose services are engaged with the intention or probability of retaining them for more than three months are classified as permanent employees. Their appointment, dismissal, promotion, or reduction will be made, under the supervision of the respective chiefs of bureaus, by the officers employing them, except as controlled by statute or the civil-service rules; but in selections for such employment preference will be given, as far as practicable, to applicants who have served meritoriously as enlisted men in the Army, and the appointments and promotions of all permanent employees, except mechanics, laborers, teamsters, and others of similar or kindred occupations, will be submitted for the approval or confirmation of the Secretary of War.

731. The clerks and messengers authorized by the act of Congress of August 6, 1894, will be employed and apportioned to the several headquarters and stations by the Secretary of War, and will not be transferred without his authority. All messenger service at the several division and department headquarters, except for staff officers not assigned to the headquarters' staff, and, as far as practicable, all clerical services thereat, will be performed by this class of employees.

732. Department commanders will confine expenditures for civilian employees within the allotments for the purpose made under the direction of the Secretary of War.

733. Civil engineers, clerks, inspectors, storekeepers, packers, watchmen, messengers, teamsters, mechanics, and laborers will, as a rule, be engaged by the month, day, or piece, and paid at the end of each calendar month. They will be designated upon the rolls in the capacity in which employed and at the rates established. When discharged and not paid, certified statements will be given them.

734. Eight hours constitute a day's work for all mechanics and laborers employed by or on behalf of the United States, except in cases of emergency. This rule does not extend to engineers, firemen, seamen, watchmen, messengers, teamsters, and others, the nature of whose employment is peculiar and whose services may be necessary at any or occasionally at all hours of the day.

TRAVELING EXPENSES.

735. For authorized journeys of civilian employees of any branch of the military service transportation requests will be obtained when practicable, but will be obtained in every case for travel over bond-aided railroads.

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CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES.

736. Reimbursement of actual expenses when traveling under competent orders will be allowed, under the following heads, to civilians in the employ of any branch of the military service, excepting the expert accountant of the Inspector-General's Department, paymasters' clerks, and those mentioned in the next succeeding paragraph, viz:

1. Cost of transportation (excluding parlor-car fare) over the shortest usually traveled route, when it was impracticable to furnish transportation in kind on transportation requests.

2. Cost of transfers to and from railroad stations, not exceeding 50 cents for each transfer.

3. Cost of one double berth in a sleeping car, or customary stateroom accommodation on boats and steamers when extra charge is made therefor.

4. Cost of meals not exceeding $3 per day while en route when meals are not included in the transportation fare paid; and not exceeding $3 per day for meals and lodgings during necessary delay en route.

5. Cost of meals and lodgings not exceeding $3 per day while on duty at places designated in the orders for the performance of temporary duty.

737. Laborers, teamsters, and employees of similar character, traveling under competent orders, will be entitled to such actual and necessary expenses of travel and subsistence as may be authorized by the chief of bureau which pays the accounts. Those in receipt of a ration under paragraph 1219 will not be allowed commutation therefor. If it be impracticable for them to carry rations in kind, rations will not be drawn for the period during which they are traveling.

738. None but the authorized items of traveling expenses of civilians will be allowed. They will in all cases be set forth in detail in each voucher for reimbursement, supported by oath and, when practicable, by receipts.

739. The allowances herein before provided for the subsistence of civilian employees cease upon the arrival of the employees at the destination mentioned in their orders for travel; they must then subsist on their rations, if entitled to them, or provide for their subsistence out of their regular pay.

740. Paymasters' clerks and the expert accountant of the Inspector-General's Department when traveling on duty will, when transportation in kind can not be furnished by the Quartermaster's Department, be reimbursed for cost of transportation paid by them exclusive of parlor or sleeping car fares or transfers, and will receive in addition thereto, for all travel whether or not on transportation requests, 4 cents per mile for each mile necessarily traveled by them in the performance of duty; distance to be computed over the shortest usually traveled route. But in traveling on duty to and from or between our island possessions only actual expenses shall be paid for sea travel.

741. Actual traveling expenses, as contemplated in the preceding paragraphs, are paid by the following departments, viz:

Pay Department.-To paymasters' clerks, the expert accountant of the InspectorGeneral's Department, civilians summoned as witnesses before, and authorized reporters of, military courts.

Ordnance Department.—To employees at arsenals and armories (cost of transportation included) from appropriations for the service of the Ordnance Department. Engineer Department.-To employees on public works and fortifications (cost of transportation included) from appropriations made specifically for the work. Quartermaster's Department.-To employees of the Quartermaster's and Subsistence Departments, and other employees of the Army not above provided for.

742. When officers of the staff departments change station the transfer of clerks or other employees to the new stations at the expense of the United States is prohibited, except in cases of urgent necessity, for which the sanction of the Secretary of War will be first obtained. The Pay Department is excepted from this regulation.

STAFF ADMINISTRATION.

ARTICLE LVIII.

STAFF ADMINISTRATION.

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743. The supply, payment, and recruitment of the Army, and the direction of the expenditures of the appropriations for its support, are by law intrusted to the Secretary of War. He exercises control through the Chief of Staff and the bureaus of the War Department. He determines where and how particular supplies shall be purchased, delivered, inspected, stored, and distributed.

744. The exercise by the President of his power to call the organized militia into the service of the United States, or to raise volunteers, authorizes the chiefs of the supply departments of the Army to equip and supply said forces in the manner authorized by the Army and Field Service Regulations, limited only by available appropriations.

745. When a chief of bureau of the War Department desires to change the station of an officer or enlisted man of his department, or to send him on duty peculiar thereto (except in cases of officers employed under the appropriations for the improvement of rivers and harbors and for construction of fortifications), he will apply to The Military Secretary of the Army for the necessary orders, setting forth the reasons for the change or the purpose of the journeys.

746. The assignment to stations of officers or enlisted men of the staff departments, or of post noncommissioned staff officers, except as provided in the Field Service Regulations, will be made by the War Department or by commanders of territorial divisions and departments, under the special authority of the War Department. The commander of a division or department who, in consequence of the movement of troops or other necessity of service, removes an officer from the station to which he has been assigned by the War Department, will promptly report the case to The Military Secretary of the Army.

747. When business upon which a board of officers is to be assembled is solely within the sphere of duty of a particular staff department, and the members thereof are to be selected from the same, the chief of such department will call the board if it is to meet at a post or station under his immediate control and is to be composed only of officers serving thereat; otherwise the order appointing it will be issued by direction of the Secretary of War.

748. Copies of all important communications from a bureau of the War Department to a disbursing officer on the staff of a department commander, which concern service in such department, will be sent direct to the department commander.

749. Staff officers assigned to the command of an officer are under his supervision and control in all matters pertaining to or affecting the command and in all other matters which are not specially excepted from such control by the regulations or orders of the War Department.

750. Commanders of divisions and departments, in order to avoid unnecessary clerical labor and accumulation of papers, will call upon officers under their orders for only such abstracts or reports, in addition to those required by regulations, as may be needed for proper administration, but will not require regular reports and returns at stated times without the authority of the War Department.

751. Commanding officers will cause returns, requisitions, and estimates pertaining to their respective commands to be promptly made and forwarded.

752. Officers doing duty as staff officers of military posts and commands will submit their estimates and requisitions for supplies, property, and money to their immediate commanding officers for revision and approval, who will carefully examine estimates and requisitions and satisfy themselves that money or articles asked for are in amount, quantity, and kind actually required for the public service during the period covered.

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GENERAL STAFF CORPS.

753. The chief of each branch of the staff of any command will carefully revise the estimates and requisitions for money and supplies for the command in so far as his particular branch is concerned. He will ascertain and recommend the cheapest markets and most economical routes of transportation. Such officers will receive from their commanders timely instructions as to all contemplated movements of troops and as to any probable increase or diminution of the garrison at any particular post, that a proper and economical distribution of supplies may be made.

754. It is the duty of commanding officers to enforce rigid economy in public expenditures and to correct all irregularity and extravagance which they may discover; to see that disbursements are economically made and that public property is protected; to scrutinize carefully all contracts and vouchers for disbursements, and to guard the public interests in every particular.

ARTICLE LIX.

GENERAL STAFF CORPS.

755. The General Staff Corps, created in conformity to the act of Congress approved February 14, 1903, is composed of officers of the grades and number specified in said act, detailed for service in said corps for a period of four years unless sooner relieved, under rules of selection prescribed by the President. Upon being relieved from duty in the General Staff Corps officers return to the branch of the Army in which they hold permanent commissions, and except in case of emergency or in time of war are not eligible to further detail therein until they have served for two years with the branch of the Army in which commissioned. This ineligibility does not apply to any officer who has been relieved prior to the expiration of four years' duty with the corps; but such officer will become ineligible as soon as he shall have completed a total of four years of said duty. While serving in the General Staff Corps officers may be temporarily assigned to duty with any branch of the Army. 756. The law establishes the General Staff Corps as a separate and distinct staff organization, the chief of which has supervision, under superior authority, over all branches of the military service, line and staff, except such as are exempted therefrom by law or regulations, with a view to their coordination and harmonious cooperation in the execution of authorized military policies.

757. The General Staff Corps, under the direction of the Chief of Staff, is charged with the duty of investigating and reporting upon all questions affecting the efficiency of the Army and its state of preparation for military operations, and to this end considers and reports upon all questions relating to organization, distribution, equipment, armament, and training of the military forces (Regulars, Volunteers, and Militia), proposed legislative enactments and general and special regulations affecting the Army, transportation, communications, quarters, and supplies; prepares projects for maneuvers; revises estimates for appropriations for the support of the Army and advises as to disbursement of such appropriations; exercises supervision over inspections, military education and instruction, examinations for the appointment and promotion of officers, efficiency records, details and assignments, and all orders and instructions originating in the course of administration in any branch of the service which have relation to the efficiency of the military forces; prepares important orders and correspondence embodying the orders and instructions of the President and Secretary of War to the Army; reviews the reports of examining and retiring boards, and acts upon such other matters as the Secretary of War may determine.

758. The General Staff Corps, under like direction, is further charged with the duty of preparing plans for the national defense and for the mobilization of the military forces (including the assignment to armies, corps, divisions, and other headquarters of the necessary quota of general staff and other staff officers), and incident thereto with the study of possible theaters of war and of strategic questions

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in general; with the collection of military information of foreign countries and of our own; the preparation of plans of campaign, of reports of campaigns, battles, engagements and expeditions, and of technical histories of military operations of the United States.

759. To officers of the General Staff Corps are committed the further duties of rendering professional aid and assistance to the Secretary of War and to general officers and other superior commanders and of acting as their agents in informing, and coordinating the action of, all the different officers who are subject under the provisions of law to the supervision of the Chief of Staff.

They perform such other military duties not otherwise assigned by law as may from time to time be prescribed by the President. Under the authority here conferred officers of the General Staff Corps are intrusted with the executive duties hereinafter indicated.

760. Officers of the General Staff Corps assigned to duty with commanders of armies, corps, divisions, separate brigades, territorial divisions, and departments are collectively denominated the General Staff serving with troops. They serve under the immediate orders of such commanders; those not so assigned perform duty under the immediate direction of the Chief of Staff and constitute the War Department General Staff.

761. The assignment of duties to the General Staff Corps does not involve in any degree the impairment of the initiative and responsibility which special staff corps and departments have in the transaction of current business.

WAR DEPARTMENT GENERAL STAFF.

762. To facilitate the performance of its duties, the War Department General Staff will be arranged in divisions, each under the direction of an officer of the General Staff Corps to be designated by the Chief of Staff. Each division will be subdivided into sections as may be directed by the Chief of Staff.

763. The War Department General Staff in its several divisions and sections stands in an advisory relation to the Chief of Staff in the performance of the duties herein devolved upon him. The distribution of duties to the several divisions and sections is regulated by the Chief of Staff.

CHIEF OF STAFF.

764. Under the act of February 14, 1903, the command of the Army of the United States rests with the constitutional commander-in-chief, the President. The President will place parts of the Army, and separate armies whenever constituted, under commanders subordinate to his general command; and, in case of exigency seeming to him to require it, he may place the whole Army under a single commander subordinate to him; but in time of peace and under ordinary conditions the administration and control of the Army are effected without any second in command.

The President's command is exercised through the Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff. The Secretary of War is charged with carrying out the policies of the President in military affairs. He directly represents the President and is bound always to act in conformity to the President's instructions. Under the law and the decisions of the Supreme Court his acts are the President's acts and his directions and orders are the President's directions and orders.

The Chief of Staff reports to the Secretary of War, acts as his military adviser, receives from him the directions and orders given in behalf of the President, and gives effect thereto in the manner hereinafter provided.

Exceptions to this ordinary course of administration may, however, be made at any time if the President sees fit to call upon the Chief of Staff to give information or advice, or receive instructions, directly.

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