The Washington times., 1914-01-18
THE CHILDREN OF FORTUNE.

There is one class of Uncle Sans employees VIII
truly might be rated as the favored children of pei
petual good fortune. Their jobs are under civ
service, their work is healthy and wholesome. the
are the wage-earning arstocrats of their commun
ties. No Congress passes without giving them a
advance in their pay; at least we don't recoect whe
one has failed to do that much for them.
Reference is had-it is almost unnecessary to say
for everybody familiar at all with the Government
treatment of its employees will recognize at ganc
the luckiest class of all the publics workersto tn
rural mail carriers. When the rural delivery service
was started they were paid something rather bette
than half what they get now. There never was
time, from the initiation of the service when in th
greater part of the country there not clsmorn,
aspirants for places on this force. There was NJ
necessity for persistently, regularly; gratutousy
year after year, hosting the pay of the carriers
rural routes 1t added nothing to efficiency it merely
made the burden of rural free delivery heavier ane
heavier, for the rest of the of the business
to carry.
This years postoffce appropriation bill carries
proposition to increase the rural mail carriers from
ST 100 to $1,l50 year. Now, everybody perfectly
huOHS uidl HlOSl VI ulSSS WUulQ SUu
tinue in their positions at half the proposed wage
Doing so, they would yet be better paid, consdern:
the circumstances in which they work. and the quality
of work they do, than the average civil service EN-
ploye of the Governments departments in Washing
ton.
If the rural carriers pay goes to Sl,50 this yeal
and doubtless it WILL for there is an election com
ing the coming autumn and there is always eager
ness to demonstrate our parys' friendliness towarc
the rural GARRETT can be confidently expected tc
reach ST 200 by 1916 the year of the Presidentia
election; there will be yet more need for the rura
carriers amiable sentiments and-of course, per,
fectly proper-poIiticaI activities.
Let it be said right here, without any unfriendly
feeling for the rural carrier, that of the cheapest
and most discredtable performances of the Govern
ment in recent years has been the persistent, per
petual pampering of the rural carrier 1t is done be-
cause he is supposed to have political power. Nc
other reason. Nobody seriously pretends, in circles
where there is knowledge of these things that there
is any other The country carrier is credited
with tremendous "pulr' with the farmer vote. He
is the basis of the rural machine" So Congress
soemnly points that he is forbidden by regulation
to be pernciously active in politics, winks the other
eye, and boosts his wages every year or two a
bribe for all the political friendness he can be in
duced to display.
1t wouldn't make so much difference, this brb-
ing a great corps of Government workers to be
friendly to our member" if it did not represent such
rank favortism. The rural carriers are not half so
ef6cacious in politics as they are supposed to be-
They have good organization and some smart or
ganizers who know how to capitalize this sort OF
arguments. But for the rest there is vast buncombe
about the great political Importance of the rura.
carriers.
rural carrier at Sl15O year is the real aris-
tocrat of American wage earners. He has to repre-
sent no investment in education, equipment or any
other particular form of preparation He has far
better thing than civil service employe in Wash
ngton at twice the salary. He has Congress on his
side petting jollying him. raising his pay; the un-
fortunate department clerk enjoys the contempt and
seemingly the hostility of Washington The wage
schedule Of the departments in Washington has not
been revised since 1854; would like to get exact
data on the number of increases in the pay Of rural
carriers in the last fifteen or eighteen years.
Why does the rural carrier get a raise regularly,
while the department clerks never get even serious
consideration?
Because the rural carriers have the power, or are
supposed to have the power, to make themselves
politically The department clerks have not that
power, or are commonly supposed not to have it.
There can be no defense of this attitude toward
two classes of Government servants. 1t is simply
pusillanimous. The rural carrier gets just about
anything he wants. When he had his pay raised to
5000 there were many that that would be
the last advance at least for long time. But now
il is in the way of going to ST, $50. Meanwhile the
average pay of civil service workers in Washington
about that figure, and it never gets advanced