The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-06-23
The Laborer and His Hire.

sibility of an American army officer
assigned to military governorship in
Cuba and Porto Rico and the pay re-
ceived by him or the incentive of pos
slble promotion held out. Lieutenant
Parker argued that unless a more elas-
tic system of promotion was devised,
together with more liberal pay for eX-
traordinary service, the problem of
governing new dependencies through
military means would be greatly COM
plicated. The case of General Wood
proves that Lieutenant Parker is right.
AS military governor of Santiago city
and province in Cuba General Wood
gets the pay simply of his temporary
army rank, that of brigadier general
of volunteers, or $500 year. II he
should remain in the service until af-
ter 1901, his commission as brigadier
general would lapse and he would re-
sumo the rank of colonel in the regu-
lar service. his salary falling to about
$4,000 a year. The pay of the other
military governors is in proportion,
none getting by honest means more
than the pay of their military rank
and none, so far as is known, taking
additional income dishonesty, although
the temptation put upon them to do
this must, in the nature of things be
very great. BY way of comparison it
has been pointed out that the COVER
nor of Jamaica receives 100000 a year,
the governors of Cape Of Good Hope,
Trinidad, Malta and Gibraltar, S25.O0C
apiece. the governor of Barbados, $751;
600 and the governor of the Bermudas,
$4,000. These officials of the British
colonial service do not necessarily
have to be men of military training
and experience, nor is their work COM
PAL able in difficulty with that con-
fronting our military governors in
Cuba, for the reason that it has long
since, by means of a civil service, been
reduced to a smoothly-running routine.
Yet the pay is three times as much
as we pay for infinitely harder SER
vice and England pays it willingly,
knowing it to be economy to do so.
According to current reports General
Wood has been offered the presidency
of street railway company in Wash
ington with a salary twice or thrice
that which he is now receiving. The
work in this civil position does not so
strongly appeal to the imagination as
does his present work in Cuba, al
though it is honorable and reasonably
difficult On the other hand. the in
ducement from a financial and social
standpoint, taking into account that
General Wood is a young man with
wife and children to provide for, is
considerable, assuring, as it does, prob
ably permanent atfluence with the
privilege of residence in the handsom-
est and. to an American, most inter-
esting city in the world.
At the war department it is regarded
as probable that General Wood will
decide to accept the street railway
company's offer and resign from the
better than elsewhere the scantiness
of the prospect that if Wood should
decide to remain in the army he would
ever receive, in promotion or pay, a
just recompense for his sacrifice in de-
clining his present civil opportunity.
They even affirm at the war depart
ment that under no probable juncture
of circumstances would General Wood
be likely to be made governor general
OF Cuba, not because he is unfit for
this office; not, indeed, because he Is
not, in the general estimation, by far
the best fitted man for the position
now in the military service, but be-
cause-and note that the reason is ad-
vanced in all seriousness-because
every other general now on the island
in charge of a military department is
Woods senior. The war department
reckons promotion wholly in respect Of
the antiquity of the competitive COM
missions.
If General Woods services as an
executive officer are worth so much
to a street railway company that it
can afford to offer twice or thrice as
much for them as the valuation placed
upon them by the congress of the
United states then II Is evident, with
out further argument, that congress
has undervalued them, If to secure
an economical and efficient manage
ment of the rapid transit affairs of a
peaceful and intelligent community of
100000 souls is worth $4,000 to $l5 900
year, then to secure the proper gov
ernment OF an island-ful of jealous,
suspicious and more or less discordant
peoples just emerging from a condition
bordering on anarchy ought certainly
to be worth more than the paltry
| $4,000 to $4,000 a year that we now pay
our over-worked military governors
of ultra marine possessions. If by the
promotion Of General Wood to the gov
ernor- -generalship of Cuba this govern
ment could speedily lift conditions
throughout the island up to the level
to which he has brought them in Santi-
ago province, it would be a splendid
bargain even though he were to de-
mand for his services 81, 900 900 a year.
| To let ability like his be overbid by
private enterprise when the nation is
in the direst need OF its employment
on vital colonial problems would be
an exhibition of stupendous folly i'm
possible of exhibition save in a govern
ment without a head.
During the first five months of the
present year 10000 more immigrants
| have entered the United States thar