The Washington times., 1911-01-14
Secretary Meyer Comes Out for the Cause
of Government Clerks.

quiet gentleman who looks before he leaps is George
Won Lengerke Meyer Secretary of the Navy.
Likewise, of the greatest business administrators
the Government has had the fortune to press into its
vice in many long year.
He knows big busness-has been in it all his life He
is of the biggest factors in business New England
director in manufacturing, industrial and financial corpor
aons whose business is measured by hundreds of millions
per year.
He has been all his life managing force in concerns
that employ tens of thousands Besides that he has bee
Postmaster General, boss of people than perhaps
any other executive in the country And everybody knows
he made huge hit in that job.
Now he's Secretary of the Maryland undermining
that establishments ancient organization
This by way of introduction Now to the point:
Secretary Meyer has been looking into this question of
raising salaries of the Government clerks retiring the aged
and giving opportunity to the younger employees In
statement given The Times today and printed in full in
another place, he says:
II appreciate the position in which civil service
employees placed with respect to their salaries from the
Government and the demands made upon them by
of the high cost of living
1.-The applies to the officers of the army and navy
do not think any of them properly paid. have had
occasion to inquire into the question involves the off
of the navy and convinced their present incomes
and those of the civil employees relatively inadequate
-4are not large enough to meet their needs
1.-The movement for the relief of the clerks of Wash
ingon has attracted my attention. and the questions in
volved in the discussions in The Times have been
than taken up and discussed at meetings of the Cab
met.
cat the same time we consider higher salaries for the
civil employees should consider pension system that
will retire the aged This will result in better pay for the
active and will in the natural of events give
higher degree of efficiency"
And good deal more of the sort of common
Turn and read Mr. Meyers statement in full.
In in mi that Mr. is Of The
strong advocates of economy the administration of the
Government He believes in saving the peoples money AT
THE PLACES WHERE 1T OUGHT TO BE SAVED.
Likewise he is the sort of business that believes
it is sometimes good economy to spend.
That's one difference between Secretary Meyer and
other people, There lot of folks in this world so
busy SAVING that they never manage to MAKE anything
Economy is one of the things you can't have without
paying for it, You may pay for it in extra work. in self
denial in wearing your old clothes when you would like
new ones
Or you may pay for it in terms of dollars and cents
Instead of squeezing the occasional dollar that drifts your
way until the eagle side is sticking his quilts through
the Goddess of Liberty the other and the thirteen stars
around the rim are having headon collisions, you can
sometimes spend your dollar like gentleman and make
more out of it than could possibly be produced by mis-
guided economy.
That's the way Secretary Meyer would do it. He would
spend it like gentleman He would buy the best brains
and and enthusiasm and loyalty and initiative in the
market with the dollar and would make it pay.
That was what Secretary Meyer had in mind when he
went to the Postoce Department Did he start to
mze by cutting down the functions of the department and
restricting it's useuness9 Not he He saw that the
pay off the deficit not by making the department less
usefuA but bymaking it do things for the people
He had that postal savings banks good
thing in Europe He had observed that the parcels post
giving the public service there that they not