The Washington times., 1911-09-12
THE PATHETIC END OF A
LONG SERVICE.

ASA otAey gOolo'
They were discharged because the,
were too old.
Andrew Hyde was a postoffice elerl
SO long ago that he tells of the "goot
old days" when he used to take a row
boat and pull out to the side of al
incoming ship, receive her mail bag
and return to shore. He remembered
when Madison Square was an ancient
cemetery, and once delivered letters tc
a farmhouse on the approximate site
of the present Metropolitan building
with its forty-two-story tower.
These two old men had together
served the Government for a period
approximately as long as its existence
Yet when they, became incapacitated
for service there was nothing to do but
dismiss them.
No provision had been made whereby
their superior could consider their fu-
ture, their worldly circumstances, their
needs, their chance of keeping body and
soul together during the years yet re-
naming to them.
The reward of their long lives of
faithful service was to be turned out
in the street, dependent on the care of
relatives or the charity of the, COM
muniV.
Whether they would, in fact, be safe
from want; whether they had homes
and sufficient means to maintain them
in decency, the Government had no Of
fetal means of knowing, and was unf-
der no obligation to inquire. For
Uncle Sans policy in dealing with his
civil service employees contemplates no
concern for them, once they are in
capacitated. The farmer who turns out
to pasture a superannuated horse, re-
fusing to kill the brute or let him
starve, is more humane than this great
Government.
All because, in blindness and ignor-
ance, the people responsible for laws
governing the. civil service have per-
sisted in the medieval attitude of re-
fusing to permit a pension system to
be created. What matters it that en-
lightened governments and intelligently
selfish corporations have long ago ac-
cepted the pension system as absolutely
the best business poIicyH Our Govern
ment is big and powerful and rich
enough to defy all the laws of either
good business or common humanity.
Multiply the case of these two dis
missed clerks by the hundreds of
thousands of people in the Federal
civil service, and you have a suggestion
of the immensity and gravity of the
suPerannuation problem in connection
with Government.
1t is not merely question of super
and old-age pensions. I'm
DERIVING that, and far more serious, is
the question of getting the Government
to pay decent, living wages to its civil
service people.
Not long ago President Taft sug-
gested that there is need for yet fur
ther increase of the salaries of Judges.
That these have been generously ad-
Vanced in very recent time is not to
The point with our President; they are
not getting pay enough to suit him,
and he wants them to be given more.
Replying to this proposal of the
President; an economist of national
note observed that 'the real question
or this nation to consider was not in
'reasing the salaries of judges, but of
'fecting such an economic distribution
# wealth as would remove the. basis
or the charge that five million workers
N this country are trying to maintain
antilles on incomes so small that it
5 not possible for, them to buy food
md clothes sufficient to maintain them
It the point of full economic effici-
ncy."
That is the charge which has lately
'een brought against this nation, as
esult of careful investigation: that five
million wage-earners, representing ap-
'roximately 100000 people, do not
arm enough to give them, sufficient of
he right kind of food and clothes.
And among the people who are SO |
Inderpaid that they cannot live de-
emily and provide anything for old
ge, is an army of the employees of
he Government itself! :
The President, Federal judges, men,
ers of Congress, and Cabinet min
sters, have all been given increases of
o per cent in their salaries. And what
o We observe as the next move to-
Yard justice to the underpaid legions
f Government workersH The Presi
ent asking still further increases for
'ederal judgesl
An ECONOMY commission" is diligent.
= at work spending 100000 in the
fort to devise means for getting more
york out of the 5000, $72O, 5000. and