Evening star., 1924-08-03
Real Workers in the National Capital
HE United States civil service
claims as it's best prize pack
age Joseph S. Mccoy, the

HE United States civil service
claims as it's best prize pack
age Joseph S. Mccoy, the
government actuary.
He is recognized the world over as
"a wizard on figures" He has been
on the job for Uncle Sam for 80 years.
At any time during the last 25 years
great insurance companies and finan-
cial institutions would have thought
they were getting a great bargain if
they could have secured his services
for twice the money this great Gov
ernment is paying him.
1t was through an accident that he
got into the Government service. He
passed through Washington two
years after graduating from college
Stevens, at Hoboken, n. J.-where he
! took an engineering course. He took
a civil service examination for ex-
! aminer in the Patent Office, and pro-
ceeded on his way to Benwood, w.
Va, to take an engineering job.
First Government Job.
About that time the Treasury De-
| partment needed an assistant to the
actuary and asked the Civil Service
| candidates who were good at figures.
| McCoy's name was among the first
| three. He was never a particularly
| beautiful writer, but his writing was
| just as good at the end of IL hours
as when he started. The fellow who
stood highest started off writing al
| mn nSf n "a fn hui n
| few hours work it became practi-
| cally indiscipherable. So Mccoy got
| the job because he wore well.
| The actuary died after Mccoy had
been with him for about year and
| he succeeded to the office. Never has
| politics entered at all into his work.
He got the job by competitive test
| and held it by superior services dur
| ing 80 years
Gradually the work of his Office
| changed completely. At first it was
| practically all with the Treasury De
| partment on financial matters. The
! first big break came promptly after
| President Mckinley was inaugurated.
The old Dingley tariff law was passed
| and il contained many reciprocity
provisions. The State Department
asked Lyman ]. Gage, then Secretary
| of the Treasury, for the loan of a
man who could help it out in
| working up the reciprocity agree
| ments Mccoy was told to report to
| the State Department to assist the
| plenipotentiary commissioner en-
gagged on these new treaties. He eX-
pected to stay several hours. and the
| assignment lasted three years, with
| more than half of his time spent in
the State Department.
Helped Negotiate Treaties.
At first he aided only in the mathe-
| matical work, but after a month or
two the real work of negotiating the
treaties was turned over to him. He
met the plenipotentiaries from the
| foreign nations and in informal con-
| ferences got matters down to work
| ing agreements in black and white
before the State Department officially
| appeared. There were about dozen
| of these treaties that did not call for
sanction by the Senate, but some three
or four did require such ratification.
In the meantime the State Depart
| ment was forming the nucleus for the
present Department of Commerce.
John A. KaSSon, who was First Assist
ant Postmaster General in Lincoln's s
administration, chairman of the ways
|, and means committee for some ten
years, later minister to Austria and
Germany and said to he the only
diplomat with whom Bismark, then
in his prime, dealt personally, was