As you are aware, the Keep Commission sent out questions to those responsible for the actual work in all branches of the Government service. Answers were received, or are now being received, to those questions, and they furnish a useful aid to the study by the commission of Governmental conditions. But inevitably in the great majority of cases these answers are inadequate to form a basis for definite recommendations, and of course that is what I want from this commission. I do not want a diagnosis of the case; I want a recommendation how to reach the case. I do not want merely to know that things are bad; I want to know what is bad and what is to be done to make it better, so that if legislation is necessary I can recommend it, or if, as I hope will be true in the enormous majority of cases, the matter can be reached by executive regulation, I can see that that regulation is issued. I want to say right here, gentlemen, that I shall value the reports that I receive largely in proportion as they do not call for legislation. There is nothing easier, as all of you know, than to draw up an elaborate minute to show how well things would go on if some one else did something different. I want you, so far as is possible, to recommend something that I can do, something that the heads of the departments can do, so that we can ourselves put a stop to much at least of the evil that exists, remedy much at least of the shortcomings that exist. With this in view, a number of assistant committees were appointed, consisting of you gentlemen here, carefully chosen men from the Government service, who are already largely responsible for the efficiency of the work done in your several departments and bureaus. It was a compliment to choose you, gentlemen; though it is one of those compliments that take the form of imposition of additional labor. If you were not of the type that I know you to be it would not be a compliment that would be appreciated. These committees, you gentlemen, have been at work for about a month, and you are taking up your work within your specific fields through study of the data already collected by the Committee on Department Methods, through bringing before you men whose knowledge is of expert value, and above all by a thorough study on the ground by experts (for that is what you are) of the conditions and needs within the departments themselves. I shall not enumerate the different committees. They are now at work. You compose them, gentlemen, and all told they have a membership of about seventy individuals.