Woodrow Wilson to Herbert Hoover
Title
Woodrow Wilson to Herbert Hoover
Creator
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
Identifier
WWP19408
Date
1918 May 8
Description
Woodrow Wilson encourages Herbert Hoover to avoid transferring existing federal employees to other departments and to seek new staff from outside Washington.
Source
Hoover-Wilson Correspondence, Hoover Institution, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California
Publisher
Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum
Subject
United States--Politics and government--1913-1921
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence
Hoover, Herbert, 1874-1964--Correspondence
Language
English
Text
My dear Mr. Hoover
A good deal of embarrassment and dislocation in the administrative business of the Government has been caused by the transfer of clerks and specialists of one sort or another from the older and longer established departments to the new instrumentalities which have necessarily been created or greatly enlarged since this country entered the war, and I take the liberty of calling your attention to the fact, because it has often happened that employees of the older departments have been drawn away by offers of considerable increases of pay, to the very serious embarrassment, and sometimes to the serious weakening, of the departments to which they were induced to leave. All this has been a very natural process. There have in fact not been trained men enough to go around, but I thought I might venture to speak of this to you, because I was sure your judgment would agree with mine that this process ought to be avoided wherever it is avoidable, and the new activities recruited from outside Washington. I write, therefore, to beg for your cooperation in seeing that we all act as a single family in this matter and restrain our subordinates from poaching in each other’s preserves wherever it is possible to restrain them.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson
A good deal of embarrassment and dislocation in the administrative business of the Government has been caused by the transfer of clerks and specialists of one sort or another from the older and longer established departments to the new instrumentalities which have necessarily been created or greatly enlarged since this country entered the war, and I take the liberty of calling your attention to the fact, because it has often happened that employees of the older departments have been drawn away by offers of considerable increases of pay, to the very serious embarrassment, and sometimes to the serious weakening, of the departments to which they were induced to leave. All this has been a very natural process. There have in fact not been trained men enough to go around, but I thought I might venture to speak of this to you, because I was sure your judgment would agree with mine that this process ought to be avoided wherever it is avoidable, and the new activities recruited from outside Washington. I write, therefore, to beg for your cooperation in seeing that we all act as a single family in this matter and restrain our subordinates from poaching in each other’s preserves wherever it is possible to restrain them.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson
Original Format
Letter
To
Hoover, Herbert, 1874-1964
Files
Citation
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924, “Woodrow Wilson to Herbert Hoover,” 1918 May 8, WWP19408, Hoover Institute at Stanford University Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.