The Washington herald., 1916-05-04
Substitutes for Salary.

That there is something very attractive about
the civil service of the government besides the
salary, that Washington is regarded as an
extremely desirable place of residence or both,
is to be inferred from recent comments by
Senator Smoot, of Utah. In the debate on the
rural credits bill he deplored the tendency Of
young men to settle down for life in the execu-
tive departments, intmating that many OF the
government clerks capable of much greater
things, but seem to prefer the easy certainty of
government jobs to undertaking the task Of
carving out independent careers for themselves.
Said Senator Smoot:
l find in the service of the United States
bright young men. coming directly from college
and going into the service to get a little money
ahead before they undertake to launch them
selves out into LIES vocation, and when they
get there every year they stay they become less
inclined to rely their own resources and
upon the resources that God gave them to earn
a living for themselves.
There are many young men in thes depart
ments who have been working for ten or hf-
teen years for an annual salary just big enough
to keep body and soul together and to attend
the social functions of their, class Of life If
they had gone into the world to make a living
they would have been thousand times better
Here would seem to be plain admission
that the government because of the superior
attractions of the civil service or life in WASH
ington, is able to command the services Of
young men capable of earning larger salaries
than Uncle Sam pays them. 1t may be argued
that their value deteriorates with the loss of
ambition that mpels them to accept the gov
ernment service a career; but such argu-
ment is hardly sound, since there is very little
need, inspiration or reward in the civil service
for soaring ambition. The great bulk of the
work is Of routine nature, requiring for its
execution principally intelligence and applica-
tion. If, Senator Smoot intmates. many
young people Of talent and exceptional qualf-
cations are impelled by the attractions of the
civil service and the social life of the Capital
to devote themselves to routine clerical work
for meager pay, it would appear that the gov
crnment is getting more than it pays for in
money. In other words the government bene-
fits from the voluntary sacrifice of their interests
and future prospects by the young people &C
ceptlng positions in the civil service which Sem
ator Smoot so earnestly deplores
On the whole it would seem, in view, of the
present inadequate salary scale, that it is rather
fortunate for the government that the civil
service is so attractive in other ways. Were
1t otherwise it would be natural to expect that
the business of the executive departments would
suffer. The solution should suggest to Con-
gress that so long as it declines to increase
the pay Of the clerks to a fair standard it
would be unwise to enact legislation calculated
to remove any of the attractions of the civil
service. This would have been the immediate
effect Of the change in the law proposed by
Representative Borland, which happily was de-
feated. 1t is of course rather an unbusnesslike
basis for the civil service and ultimately it will
be changed and the clerks will, receive a fair
return in money for the work they do; but until
then it will not be safe to ignore the situation
disclosed by Senator Smoot.