Evening star., 1917-01-14
The Evening Star Newspaperc Company
The Governments Toilers.

AT the present moment the laboring
ehsses are the fashionable object Of
esmpassion; they are being murdered
it is said-by the manufacturing capi-
talist; but the government Is q hundred
times harder than the meanest trades
man; it carries its economy in the arti-
Gle Of salaries to absolute folly. If
You work harder. the merchant will pay
You in proportion; but what does the
state do for its crowd Of obscure and de-
voted toilerssS
These words were not spoken In the
debate in the House recently on the SUBJ
ject of the condition OF the government
clerks Of this country. They have not
been uttered thus far in the Senate, for
the measure which proposes better
R,ent Of the clerks condition has not yet
been reported to that body. They have
not until now been printed in the press,
in urging a general promotion for the
long underpaid government workers.
They were written seventy years ago
by Honore de Balzac, in his masterpiece
Of fiction, cousin Betty" in the course
of dissertation on the condition of the
government clerks of France. They ap-
ply today to the condition Of the gov
ernment clerks of this country, with
practical exactitude.
Balzae's description of the state of the
French government worker should be
taken to heart by those who are about
to pass upon the provision in the 1egis
lxtive appropriation bill giving the de-
partment employees a more adequate pay
scale. The government does in truth
treat its servitors with less eonsidera-
tion than is paid to the unskilled work
ers in the trades. Nobody in particular
has ever thought it worth while to deal
with them generously. They have had
NO redress of grievances. They could
take their places or leave them, toiling
under the hard conditions Of the service,
slandered in public places as shirkers
and job holders, dismissed for partisan
reasons, denoted with the advance Of
years and throughout their period Of
employment paid at rate which was
inadequate half century ago and which
has in recent years been hmentably in
sufficient to enable them to meet their
necessities.
1t Is now being urged by some MEM
bers of the Senate that this is no time
to raise the pay of the clerks, because
- ~f IN. kha
ernment revenues. Let the clerks suffer
along as they have suffered in the past.
Keep on appropriating for works that
make for political advantage, but hold
the clerks firmly to the long outgrown
salary scale. Economize ON them while
scores of projects are approved. They
are used to it and can endure little
longer, which means indefinitely.
This view should not prevail, even
though the Senate subcommittee has
reported against an increase. A spirit
of Justice is manifest in Congress and
the sole issue in the Senate should be
whether the, proposed increase shall
be at a higher rate than that written by
the House, and shall be permanent in
stead of, as now planned, merely tenn
perary. The general expectation has
been that the Senate would be more lib
eral than the House and write larger
percentage of increase, and recognize
the injustice of merely temporary ad
vance and give the clerks the benefit
of a horizontal raise that will stand as
the new salary basis for future adjust
mcnts. Balzae's rcproaeh of seventy
years ago should not be permitted to
apply to the American government of
today.