Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-04-20
An Arbitrary Age Limit.

1t is difficult to believe that Congress will
% IS the measure yesterday adopted by the
House committee on reform in the civil
service. turning out of office all govern
ment employees on the classified lists who
are over seventy years of age on the 3Oth OF
June 1907. Such horizontal reduction
of the departmental force would not only
work great hardship upon hundreds of de-
serving and still competent clerks, but 1t
would reflect seriously upon the govern
ment of the United States.
Especially would the enactment be sur
prising and distressing If unaccompanied
by any form of service pension proposition
such as the clerks themselves have for
years been asking for legislation to enable
them to put into execution. Long ago the
government employees gave up hope of per-
suading Congress to place on a pension
roll. maintained exclusively or even In part
by the government all civil workers of
certain age with a record of continuous
service sufficient to warrant that degree of
consideration. To replace this original
proposition was evolved the present civil
service retirement plan, whereby each gov
eminent worker Is to contribute by force OF
law out of his salary a percentage sufficient
to provide the funds for such retirementS,
on a specified scale of compensation. But
this project, too, has been ignored by the
committees of House and Senate, and thus
the clerks are left in their present plight,
willing to support a retirement fund wholly
at their own expense provided the govern
ment lends its sanction and cOmpulsive
force. and yet exposed in the absence of
such a measure of assurance to arbitrary
retirement without pay for age, regardless
of their personal fitness or financial circum-
stances.
1t is not to be questioned that there are
many government clerks now over seventy
who could retire without suffering keenly
from the loss of stipend. There are others.
and by far greater number, however, who
would be left penniless and dependent upon
relatives or even upon the charity of
friends or the community, in such event
There are some clerks over seventy who
are in truth superannuated. useless to the
government at present retained through
the sheer sympathy of their superiors. But
there are many more beyond that age who
are more valuable to the government than
they were twenty years ago. more valuable
than any of their juniors today.
Any arbitrary age-retirement provision
must inevitably work hardship and injus-
tice and loss. The spectacle of compulsory
military retirements has long since i'm
pressed the country disagreeably In very
many cases The retired lists of the army
and the navy contain scores, perhaps hum
dreds, of men who are sound in mind and
body and capable of rendering better serv-
ice to the government than ever before in
their lives. But the displacement of these
men Is not an absolute loss, either to them
or to the government. They remain under
pay and subject to call. Civil employees, if
dismissed because of their years, lose every
thing and the government, in turn, loses
Them a double sacrifice which in a large
proportion OF cases. it may be safely as
sumed. will be unwarranted by the condi-
tons.
Surely, if an arbitrary seventy-year dis
missal law is passed it should be coupled
with some form of retirement pay provi-
sion, such as the clerks themselves propose
wholly at their own expense, or else so con-
ditloned as to grant the executive officers
of the government a margin of discretion
to prevent the sacrifice of able-bodied
clerks of active mentality and unimpaired
capacitv