Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-10-12
FROM A GOVT CLERK
<<THE demotion of government en-
ployes, through the demolition
of their salaries ca,,So6 nv fha


merrily on" said one of them. ''These
boosts in the prices of meats and provi-
sions and things are becoming so frequent,
the intervals between the h 'sts are getting
to be SO short, that even the newspap ers,
1 perceive, find some difficulty in keeping
track of them. The boosting proc
ess has been the busy little operation this
autumn I'm not much Of a hand at fig
uring out percentages. and l haven't got
the exact data, anyhow; but l know that
the bare problem of getting sufficient de-
cent food for my family and myself is
getting to be one of those living and ever
present issues with me. Ordinarily, at
this season of the year, I'm doing the pad
and-pencil stunt to see IL there's going to
be a chance to get the wife a winter hat
or new wrap, or to buy the daughter
some little fixings for herself appropriate
to the season, or to stake the boy to some
togs BETTING the period of the year and
the proprieties of life. But I'm not doing
the pad-and-pencil thing with respect to
those propositions at all this year.
can't 1t isn't in the cards. I'm too busy
figuring out how I'm going to have enough
proper food, food of the kind we're used
to, brought into. the house without being
compelled to lay out all of my salary
every silver of it that doesn't 60 toward
paying the rent and the gas bill-for the
benefit Of the grocer and the butcher.
Now, there was time when / never
figured I'd ever be backed up into a cor
ner and made to scratch my head over the
problem of getting just enough to eat for
my family and myself. But ii be hanged
il that isn't what I am right smack up
against now. It's got to the point where
the salary the government pays me just
about pays for my family's shelter and
food. There aren't any extries. There
can't be. It's not in the cards that there
shall be any extries. New clothes are
simply an impossibility the way the price
makers as to the food thing have got the
thing stacked now. The wife will have to
go on wearing the old hat and the old
wrap, the daughter will have to go shy
the little inexpensive chilly weather fix
ings that she had mapped out for herself
modest enough fixings, too, which Is the
mean part of it-and the boy'll have to
swing along with whatever imitation of a
front he's got now. AS for the old man,
the same being me, I'll have to trudge
along in the faded old overcoat that
I've been more or less sneaky and furtfve
about for the past five years. and / can't
figure 1t out even how I'm going to get
a new collar put on it. the present collar
being very much fraZzled, Cow-licked and
emery looking
with the same number Of people In
my family. 1t now costs me at least twice
as much to pay for the food that reaches
my table as 1t used to cost ten or fifteen
years ago. We don't eat so we'll now as
we did then. either. We never were ex-
travagant eaters, mind. but we always
liked the best plain food agoing. But now
the wife has to ponder things over when
she thinks of lamb chops. for example
You know what lamb chops cost these
days, don't you? Well. there are five of us
in the family. all pretty hearty folks.
1
chops Is something for the wife to ponder,
and she has to ponder 1t all right enough.
In the gone years we all used to like to
have bit of calves liver for breakfast
on Sunday mornings. We don't get that
any more. You know what calves liver
it's gone. up way past US anyhow.
and we long ago had to give it up.
The wife finds. too. that she can't
afford the nice steaks that used to
make up a fairly frequent feature of
our home menu. A steak for a party Of
five such as we used to get for a fairly
decent figure is now away beyond what
can be laid out If we're to pay our bills
and maintain our self-re spect. So. when
we have steak at all these days. she has
to get the cheaper cuts. We eat those
cheaper cuts, but I guess there's more
than one of us sitting around the table
that has lonesome sort of feeling for
the kind of steaks that used to come our
way In the other time. before the price
boosters boosted most of the good things
to eat away beyond our means.
I've have to get whatever amusement
we can at home There isn't a chance
in the world for any of US to make the
regular theaters. Once in a while. as a
sort Of event. we take in the vaudeville,
but we have devilishly dissipated feel
ing when we do that. and we feel as
reckless and improvident as the dickens
when we blow all of that money for a
show.
80 here I am. after a quarter OF a
century in the government employ, pretty
grizzled. too. sort o stranded over the
family and myself and no more. That's
some gloominess. too. It hurts. 1t
makes me feel like a sort of failure in
life. can't arrive at the conclusion,
somehow or another. that 1t is my own
fault-except for the fact that ever got
into the government employ at all. 1t
certainly isn't my fault that the purchas-
ing power of the little money the govern
ment hands me has been cut in two since
got into the government service. 1t
isn't my fault that I know of, that
don't get better salary: work pretty
those peculiarly constituted folks who
laugh over the very idea of anybody in
the government service working hard; but
I work hard. all the same. IT I worked
nail as nara LOT any private concern i
surely get three or four times the amount
of money I'm getting from Uncle Sam,
the way the salary scale in business life
is now adjusted. But the government
set its own arbitrary appraisal on the
value of my services a good many years
ago. and can take that figure or leave
1t: that's the attitude of the government
with respect to Its employees, as I under
stand 1t. I've worked hard all during
the entire time Of my service; and here
am. as I say. hopping along toward sixty.
with women folks In my family for whom
would like to provide at least the COM
forts of life-were all willing to do with
out any of the minor luxuries-and I am
meditating upon how I am going to get
enough to eat for them. I've been de-
NOTED. that's all. Not actually set back
In clerical rating. But the state of the
times has pushed me back Just so many
numbers in the scale. My money only
gets me half Of what 1t used TO get me,
and to that literal extent, speaking from
the financial point Of view, have I been
thrust back in the struggle for the de-
cencies Of life.
Every once in a while some sort OF a
little stir is made around here about rails
ing the pay Of government people g
wages. But the stirs die out. There ism t
anybody to push the thing along. No
body, except the government paupers
themselves, Of whom am one. takes any
very keen interest in 1t. It's a sort of
acaa mic QUESTION with people who aren't
in the government employ themselves.
S, ,ncy say, as a sure thing that the
government people can't get as much for
their money as they used to. And when
they've INDUCED in that reflection. that
h3n0 fo