Excerpts of the President's News Conference

Not much change is being made in the personnel of the Government. In the Post Office, where the service is necessarily growing all the time, I suppose we have to employ more and more people. I think outside of that the last reports I had from General Lord showed that since June, 1923, there has been a reduction in personnel of 15,000 or 20,000 people. There isn't much that can be done in the matter of reducing the personnel, but I have to stress that question some all the time, otherwise there is a tendency to load up the service with un-necessary personnel. I was recently talking with a businessman that I came in contact with when I was Governor, who went into the management of a certain concern, and found at their headquarters between 250 and 260 people, as I recall it, which with their final methods of operation they were able to reduce to between 40 and 50. You can't do anything of that kind in the personnel of the Government. There are very few reductions that can be made. There may be some departments that can make slight reductions, but I am not looking for much of anything in the reduction of personnel. I am hoping to hold it about where it is. Perhaps we can make a little reduction here and there. I don't see much prospect of that.