The Washington times., 1911-02-16

for adequate compensation for Gov
ernment employees.
1t is rather generally conceived
that the Government clerk, especial
ly in Washington, has an ''uphoIster-
ed Job'-draWS large salary and
does little work. This is By no means
the case. / have been here Qength
OF serVice) now and have learned a
lot about conditions, not only in my
own department, but also In others.
l find that the average salary is
about $1,000, including highly profess
sional and technical work; $1,000 is
really not living salary in this city,
at least for married man who as
sumes to have standards of living
above those of the hand-labor class.
l know personally that $500 win 20
further in the average city, and I
am sure that $500 per annum will go
much further in the average town.
The working hours are nominally
seven, but as a matter of fact the
average clerk works about eight
hours every day, and more work is
done in the regular day here dn
most departments) than is done in a
nine or ten hour day in many COM
mercial establishments.
From reading only the marked nor
tions of the inclosed printed matter
you will observe that the schedule
of salaries has not been revised since
1S53-before the civil war; that the
salaries of all those outside of the
classified civil service-those who
need II least-have all been raised,
from the President down; that accord
ing to statistics gathered by the
Government itself Department of
Commerce and Labor the salaries Of
most occupations outside of the Gov
ernment service have been raised, in
one case as high as Sc per cent since
m
ment's own figures again the cost of
food is 26.3 per cent higher than in
1S96-going back only fourteen years;
that in view of the conditions named
above, taking the figures of the Civil
Service Commission, over one-half of
all the civil service employees have
resigned during the past eight years;
that all this must greatly reduce the
efficiency of the Government service,
as 1t is keeping only those who can
not resign for the reasons stated in
the folder.
Are you not willing to help a great
class of public servants by writing
a very short letter to your Congress-
man, telling him that you commend
the proposed agitation for general
increase in the salaries Of Govern
ment civil service employees, and that
YOU hope that he will support such
action? The undersigned will GER
tainly appreciate ii, as will the more
than 200, 900 civil service employees.
With best regards to you and
yours, etc.
Thousand Letters Written.
"Our principal effort was directed tc
getting the friends at home to write to
their Congressman, asking him to sup
port the effort for reorganization of the
civil service for fair compensation to
the Government workers.
I'VE have records in the replies from
people who received these letters show
Ing that between 500 and 1000 letters
have been written by these friends back
1t home to members of Congress in be-
half of our campaign. A considerable
number have forwarded to US copies of
he letters which they haze written to
or Senators, and we have
been much gratified at the evidence Of a
zindly and responsive sentiment on the
part of the public.
Another feature of our work has