The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-01-06
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington, ID. C.
CIVIL SERVICE FACES COLLAPSE

| CIVIL SERVICE FACES COLLAPSE.
Washington, d. c., jan 3.-The ma
chinery of government in Washington
is literally on the verge of a collapse
because the United States will not pay
the men who work for it enough to
live on much less enough to compete
/ in the brains market with other gov
e-nments, with business and with uni
/ VerSities-
The forest service since July 1, 1918,
/ has lost 700 men, which is a fourth
of its permanent force. OF these men
| 400 are trained technical experts. who
are hard to replace, and require sew
: eral years to attain their fullest use
/ fitness in job.
The bureau of standards is said to
| have lost 1,400 men in four years,
| and nearly all of these teachnical
men-the brains OF the institution.
The bureau of markets in the de-
partment of agriculture, which is do
ing invaluable work for the farmers,
! is losing its men as fast as it trains
! them Business wants them and gives
them double the salaries the govern
ment pays. This and other govern
ment bureaus are, now nothing but
| kindergartens for business.
The income tax division of the in
/ terna1 revenue bureau is another
! branch that cannot hold its really val
liable men. That is a fact for which
many of US suffer. One big concern
reports that it has not yet gotten its
! 1917 income tax account Strengthened
out. The reason is that each man in
| the division who has started on the
work has resigned his position to ac-
| cept a better one before he finished
the job. and his successor has had to
start all over again.
| The Forest Products laboratory at
Madison. Wis, which solved the prob
| lem of kiln-drying' airplane spruce,
and which is doing work of the high
est industrial value, has a force of
sixty-five men. One-fourth of these
have accepted positions at greatly in
| creased salaries Another-fourth are
considering similar offers. Unless it
is enabled to pay better salaries within
six months. the Forest Products lab
oratory will practically cease to work.
Recently the government of British
India sent a man to this laboratory
to study the remarkable work it is
doing. When he went back to India
he took two of the laboratorys hest
men with him. One of them had been
drawing a salary of $4,000 from the
United States government. The In
dian government gave him $1,000 and
his transportation to Dehra Dun in the
Himalaya mountains. The other man
got a proportionate raise.
Another young man in the forest
| service became an expert in eastern
hardwoods. He bore the title of for
est examiner. He was 80 years old
His salary was s1,S00 year. The
American Walnut Growers associa-
ton offered him $4,000 to become
its secretary. He became.
The government of South Africa re-
Gently took another valuable young
man away from the forest service at
more than double the salary he was
getting from the United States govern
ment. Not only are other govern
ments and business getting the Ameri-
can civil serve, but even the faculties
of American universities, additionally
underpaid, are taking technical men
away from the government
One government hospital has forty
five positions on its staff of medical
men. Twenty-one of them are vacant.
Young medical students drawing sal
aries of $1,000 a year are performing
major operations in this hospital
This Indicates that perhaps the wound
ed soldiers who complain that they
are not being well taken care of, have,
some truth on their side.
The Bureau of Public Roads has
about $500, 100000 to spend this year
1t used to be run by a man named Lo-
gan Waller Page. He drew the mag
nificent salary of $4,000, but he was a
rich man and a good engineer. Sal
airy was no object to him. When he
died and it came to filling his position,
the salary was raised to $4,000. Yet
commissioners
states draw salaries of $4,000. and
they have not a 1.-THE OF responsibility
that rests upon the head of the Blu
reau of Public Roads.
Another technical bureau of the
government is taking desperate meas
ures to hold its staff together. 1t is
against the law for a man connected
with a government bureau to do any
other work in the United States. This
bureau gives its best men leave of alb
Sence to go to foreign countrieS-and
do work for other governments and
for private concerns SO that they may
make enough money to return to the
United States and do the work of the
American government.
One government bureau. in order to
make its case clear to the Reclassifi-
cation Commission, studied the for
tunes of eight of its best men for a
period of years before and after the
war. This study showed that their
earning capacity actually rose until
about 1914. Tt then began to decline
so that they are now earning less than
they did in 1912. so far as power to
buy the necessities of life, is concerned.
Another study has been made of
1000 technical men who have left the
government service. IT shows that
nearly all of them have at least
doubled their incomes, and many have
multiplied them by three.
You may find this hard to believe,
but the work of the government is
done very largely by men who are
losing money to do it. If every tech
meal man in government employ who
has been offered a better job outside
the government should accept tomor-
row and leave, the government work
would collapse. There are many in
stances of men working for $500 or