The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1924-12-18
INJURY TO
SERVICE
SEEN
Describes How Star lnvesti-
gators and inventors Go to
Private Industry
BY WILLIAM HARD

seven hours a day. Their Sun
days, their lawful holidays and
half-holidays, and their vacations
amount to some ninety-five days
a year.
They work approximately two
hundred and seventy days in the
year, which is a bit less tran
three-quarters of a year of three
hundred and sixty-five days.
They work a bit less than three
quarters Of the days; and on the
days when they do work they
quit working with magnificent
multitudinous promptness at pre-
cisely one minute before half past
four in the afternoon.
This all gets them in bad with
Representative Blanton of Texas
who thinks that life is made too
easy for them and who threatens
with whip and spur to make them
work longer and go farther and
faster.
Some Salaries Cited.
Short hours and numerous holt
days and long vacations, however,
are the inevitable compensations &C.
corded to Federal employees for the
lack Of certain other compensations.
The two great con1pensations in
life, after all, for most people are
income and chance to get to the
top.
Most young talent looking for a
career, tends in the end to go where
the income is ana where the chance
to get to the top is.
In the Bureau of Standards and
in other such bureaus in the Do.
partment OF Commerce in Wash
ington there are some twelve hun
dred scientists of full professional
service grade. They are enraged
In work OF the deepest difficulty
and of the highest social, public,
national value.
Only eight OF them get salaries
of more than $500 a year.
Some nine hundred of them get
salaries of less than $500 a year.
Some two hundred and eighty of
them get salaries of Jess than $4,000
q year.
Is it good bargain for the Gov
eminent? Herbert Hoover. Secretary
of Commerce, does not think so.
II Mr.. Hoover is not passionately
devoted to Government ownership.
and If he accepts 1t only when 1t lie
unacceptable, and then with loathing
and reluctance, the reason is In
large part because OF the pain with
which he has seen good man after
good man leave the service OF the
department of Commerce in order
to accept the suDeric~ Inducements
os the service OF some private or.
sDEization.
In the bureau of soils in the De.
partment Of Agriculture q certain
chemist recently, in collaboration
with the chief of the bureau,
worked out certain great i'm
provement in fertilizer practice.
This gave, pride to the Govern
ment.
But where is that chemist now?
He is working for a fertilizer COM
pany.
The Government does not pay it's
employees enough to keep them from
leaving its service in hordes. 1t
does not, and it will not.
w. G. Teagle, president of the
Standard Oil Company Of New
Jersey, gets an annual salary of
5000, He can contemplate pay
ing an employee $4,000 year with.
out fainting.
Poor Pay of Congress.
A Congressman gets $500 a year.
In return for it. in this writer's
judgment, he usually does a very
large amount, indeed, of laborious
and useful work.
Congressman, in this writer's
judgment, are distinctly underpaid.
They do not dare. however, to
raise their salaries. Their con.
stitutents, they know, would re,
buke them-and perhaps defeat
them--for it.
In these circumstances, getting
only $500 a year themselves. and
knowing what their constituents
think Of high salaries in the public
service, our Congressman do not
and never viii. compete with the
directors and managers Of private
business in the matter of income
for commercially ambitious young
men.
1t is a situation which cannot
be changed.
Nor can the situation be changed
which prevents the young men
who enter the public service at the
bottom from ever arriving really
at the top.
When Attorney General Harry
M. Daugherty resigned from the
Department of Justice, he was not
succeeded by any one of the ex-
tremely experienced lawyers who
for years and years have been do.
ing the actual daily operating OF
the Department OF Justice. He
was succeeded by a distinguished
professor Of law from New York
city.
Presidents have to appoint dis.
ting lished persons, nationally
known persons, locally influential
persons. TO high office in Wash.
ington.
Unavailable for Posts
Men do not become nationally
known, they do not become locally