Evening star., 1918-12-17
No Need of War-Scrimping Now.

District appropriations for the next
fiscal year-the first after the return
of peace-should be wisely liberal.
The Senate and the conference com.
mittee should meet fully every one OF
the many well-substantiated District
needs that have accumulated in the
wartime.
The last year has been devoted by
all of us to war-making. to patriotic
and self sacrificing service to bring US
victory and a just and enduring peace
For four years We have borne, at first
indirectly and then directly, the bur-
den of world-war conditions and con-
sequences. War has monopolized US,
our labors and our treasure.
Now that victory is won and a right
eous peace is assured our thoughts and
activities and outlays of service and
money spread out and diversity, no
longer confined to single channel. A
multitude of important, almost vital
labors and obligations of peace, un-
performed and unmet in the stress of
war, have accumulated and demand at
tention.
We are told that we must economize
now that the war is over. That means,
when rightly understood, that we must
economize in those matters which re-
late to war making and war-prepared-
ness. We have been wisely extrava-
CANT in war expenditures and this ex-
travagance is now to cease.
We have not been extravagant, but
scrimping and neglectful, in outlays
for municipal maintenance and de-
velopment, and especially in outlays
for permanent public improvements,
which have had no direct relation to
war-making.
These wise projects of permanent
municipal upbuilding, properly pushed
aside in order to give Uncle Sam full
swing in the war-making function,
are now to receive the thoughtful,
liberal and sympathetic consideration
which they deserve.
The Commissioners estimates for
next year, now under consideration in
the Senate, were framed with the pros
pect that next year would be one of
war; and municipal needs, except those
of absolutely essential maintenance,
were patriotically pushed aside. Since
the change from war to peace came at
the eleventh hour there has been no
opportunity for the radical revision of
the estimates which the new conditions
demand
The situation then calls for the
wisest iberality in appropriating fully
ir accordance with the restricted esti-
mates of the Commissioners and later
for ready acquiescence in an abnor-
nally heavy District deficiency bill.
The Commissioners estimates for
salary increases for next year, aggre-
eating sl,6oo,ooo, through the applica-
tion to them Of an executive sugges-
tion or order to the departments which
is not fairly applicable to the District,
have been cut out and separated from
the other District estimates and were
not considered at all by the House ap-
preparations committee or the House in
passing the District appropriations bill.
They ought to be considered thought
fully and sympathetically by the Sen
ate appropriations committee and the
Senate and by the two houses in con-
ference.
The average of department salaries
(outside of those of the new war work
ers) is too low, absolutely as well as
in relation to the present high cost of
living. The average of District sala-
ries is lower yet. The school teachers
average pay goes down a step further.
The average pay at the Public Library
IS the very lowest.
The Commissioners increased pay
estimates are based on careful study
of these and other inequitable pay d.
versities and undertake to provide
some measure of correction. Congress
on the Senate's initiative ought as an
equitable obligation to respond read
lily to the Commissioners appeal
If minimum wage is established
it ought to apply to District employees;
but the equitably equalizing increases
through the District appropriation bill
should not be omitted on account of
reliance upon possible minimum-wage
legislation. The District employees
should not be permitted to fall be-
tween the two stools.
The thoughtful District legislator
who examines into District conditions
will discover an appalling accumulation
of unmet municipal needs, neglected
in the wartime, which demand the
wise and economical expenditure of
millions, as soon as Uncle Sans call
to Us to sacrifice everything else to
the nations defense ceases to sound
in our ears
IF Congress viii meet its equitable
appropriation obligation in respect
=