Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1874-02-26
Compensation Of House Employes
and Department Employees.


Editor Stdr:-It seems an unaccountable over
sight on the part of the House Committee on
Appropriations that in their earnest and un-
ceasiDg efforts to reduce the expenditures of the
government, after catechisng with that end in
view, all the heads of bureaus in the depart
meLts, 1t should never have occurred to them
to ascertain whether in the House OF
Representatives itself there might not be
some retrenchment made without any Sc
rious detriment TO the public service. .:
course, not in the salaries of the mem
bers themselves, for have they not in view of
the diminished revenues OF the government
Just reduced their compensation? But how ua-
fortunate for these economical legislators after
reducing the number of clerks of the hiehe
grades In the departments, and thus indirectly
reducing the salaries of many of them from
81 600 and 81 500 to 81 200 and 81 400 per An
mum, they should have neglected to recommends
some reduction in that OF their own employees
Envious people will say that as long as mem
bers of the House care to retain the privilege OF
appointing clerks and messengers, who work
about half the year, and receive more thai,
double the compensation given similar posi-
tlons In the departments, the Committee OF
Appropriations will make no reduction in that
branch OF the government service. But those
who have watched the course of that commit
tee since Its inauguration of the present reform,
which is to accomplish 30 much in the way o.
retrenchment, will acknowledge that If the
chairman had for a moment imagined that the
b biii reported by him provided for 80 clerks to
-,
two Of whom are to receive 50 900 year, thir-
teen or them over az 800, and only five of them
less than $1,000 year, with an additional ap-
preparation Of SIS, 900 for clerks to committees
he would Immediately have amended it. Or n
ne had been Informed that to transact the bust
ness Of the House for the next fiscal wear IL
would require 43 messengers, exclusive of rs
pages one of whom should receive over ~ .OaO
seven OF them 81 500, seven SLIPS, and only
eight less tran 81, 40 year, he probably would
not have believed IL until he had seen it in his
nxnn hi 4 H.
bill pays thirteen clerks in the House OF
Representatives nearly as much as is re-
ceived by the heads of the largest bureaus
IN the departments. And again, no one viii
accuse him of thinking that it requires higher
order OF intellect to fill the position OF assistant
superintendent of room in which public docu-
ments are stored than to be chief clerk of a
bureau like the Pension Office or the Second or
Third Auditors Office, bureaus in which &C
counts involving tens of millions of dollars are
settled annually. and in which it requires more
take care of twenty document rooms. SO il
must be inadvertently that he recommends A
salary of 81 leo for the half years labor of the
assistant superintendent, and but 81, 600 for the
annual salary of the chief clerk. In fact all
the appropriations for the House seem TO have
escaped the vigilant scrutiny OF the committee
They surely cannot think it necessary that a
messenger in the House OF Representatives
should receive Sl,s00 u year, while the sama
duty is performed in the depar ments for S720
OF SelO. Is member OF Congress so vastly
superior to any one else that his messenger
should receive more than double the pay of one
employed by a cabinet officer, as much salary
in fact, as received by any clerk of any bureau
except three) in the Treasury department?
Or, have the mass OF the people such a poor
opinion or member of Congress that they
require extra inducements to wait on him +?
Ard Why should an assistant doorkeeper be paid
=, $50 year for holding door open? Truly 1t is
said, lit Is better to be a doorkeeper (or even
an assistant doOrkeeper) in the House of Repre-
sentatives than chief of a bureau ia the Treas
ury department" L close with the firm conyic-
ton that the attention of the committee having
been called to it, they will amend the bill in
this respecr. o.