concerned. If, on examination in the proper bureau, they exhibit serious errors, or defects either of investigation or of finding, they will not be accepted as sufficient vouchers, and the officer submitting them will be duly notified, that he may have opportunity to make explanations or appeal to the Secretary of War. 726. At posts or stations not under the control of department commanders commanding officers will be governed by these regulations in appointing surveying officers and acting upon their reports, but in cases referred to in paragraph 722 will forward the papers to the chiefs of bureaus to which the property pertains. 727. Whenever a report of a survey recommends a stoppage against an enlisted man and the recommendation is approved, the appointing authority will cause a copy of the report to be furnished to the company commander, who will charge the amount on the next pay rolls of the company. 728. If an inspection of property follows the report of a survey thereon, one copy of the proceedings will accompany the inventory and inspection report which is transmitted for approval, and will afterwards be returned to be used as a voucher to the officer's returns, and another, with the inventory and inspection report, will be filed by the officer with his retained papers. 729. Compensation may be made under the provisions of the act of Congress approved March 3, 1885, for private property of officers or enlisted men lost or destroyed in the military service under any of the following circumstances: 1. Without fault or negligence on the part of the claimant, and on account of some exigency or necessity of the military service. 2. Where the private property so lost or destroyed was shipped on board an unseaworthy vessel by order of an officer authorized to give such crder or direct such shipment. 3. Where it appears that the loss or destruction of the private property of the 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 offi 28327-08-9 cers 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 shall constitute a day's work for all mechanics, laborers, and workmen employed by the several staff departments. The service of mechanics and laborers employed by contractors in the execution of public works, including the construction of barracks, quarters, or other buildings on military reservations, is also limited and restricted to eight hours in each calendar day, and no officer or contractor shall require or permit any such laborer or mechanic to work more than eight hours in any calendar day except in cases of extraordinary emergency. There are excepted from the operation of this rule: (1) The officers and crews of vessels; (2) teamsters, packers, and other employees belonging to wagon and pack trains when engaged in field service or in the prosecution of military operations; (3) persons employed as cooks and cooks' helpers, overseers of labor of prisoners, and others who, owing to the nature of their employment being peculiar, may be decided by the Secretary of War, upon the facts being reported to him, to be neither laborers nor mechanics within the meaning of the eight-hour law. All exceptions on the ground of extraordinary emergency will be promptly reported to the Secretary of War. All contracts for the execution of public works, including the erection of buildings for the use of the military establishment, will contain a stipulation restricting the service of mechanics and laborers to eight hours per day, and officers charged with the supervision and execution of such contracts will report all violations of such stipulation to the head of the bureau charged with the prosecution of the work. 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. 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 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, seat in a parlor car, or customary stateroom accommodations 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 1218 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 hereinbefore 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 InspectorGeneral'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 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 Inspector-General'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. ARTICLE LVIII. STAFF ADMINISTRATION. 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 Adjutant-General 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 Adjutant-General 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 divisons 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. 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.1 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 1 This article is subject to the provisions of the order of the Secretary of War of April 14, 1906. |