Great Falls daily tribune., 1920-01-08
HASKIN LETTER
CIVIL. SERVICE FACES COLLAPSE.
By FREDERIC J. HASKIN

/ Washington. u. C., Jan. THE ma
| chinery Of government in Washington is
! literally on the verge of collapse be-
cause 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 governments,
with business and with universities.
| The Forest Service since July /. 1913,
has lost 100 men, which is a fourth of its
trained technical experts, who are hard
| to replace, and require several years to
attain their fullest usefulness in Job
The Bureau of Standards is said to
have lost 1,4O0 men in four years, and
nearly all of these technical men--the
brains of the institution.
The Bureau of Markets in the depart
meut of agriculture. which is doing in
valuable work for the farmers, is los
ing its men as fast as it trains them
! Business wants them and gives them
double the salaries the government pays
This and other government bureaus are
now nothing but kindergartens for busi-
ness.
The income tax division of the Inter
nal Revenue bureau is another branch
that cannot hold it's really valuable men
That is Il fact for which many of us
suffer. One big concern reports that
it has not yet gotten its 1917 income tax
account straightened out The reason
is that each man in the division who has
started on the work has resigned his
position to accept a better one before
he finished the job and his successor has
had to start all over again
Tho Forest Products Laboratory at
Madison, Wisconsin,. which solved the
problem of kiln drying airplane spruce.
and which is doing work of the highest
industrial value, has n force of 81 men.
One fourth of these have accepted posi-
tions at greatly increased salaries An
ether fourth are considering similar of
fers. Unless it is enabled to pay better
salaries within six months, the Forest
Products Laboratory 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 best men with him.
One of them had been drawing a salary
of $500 from the United States gov
ernment The Indian government gave
him $1,000 and his transportation to
Dehra Dun in the Himalaya mountains.
The other man got proportionate raise.
Another young man in the Forest Ser
vice became an expert in eastern hard
woods. He bore the title of forest ex-
aminer He was thirty-three years old.
His salary was $500 a year. The
American Walnut Growers association
offered him $4,000 to become its Sec
retary. 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 government Not
only are other governments and bust
nesses getting the American civil service,
but even the faculties of American uni
vcrsities, traditionally underpaid, are tax
ing technical men away from the govern
ment.
One government hospital has forty-five
positions on its staff Of medical men
Twenty one of them are vacant. Young
medical students drawing salaries of
81 200 year are performing major op-
erations in this hospital. This indicates
that perhaps the wounded soldiers who
comulsin that they are not being well