Evening star., 1932-05-22

- EDERAL payrolls list s.1S6 men and
women past the compulsory retirement
- age. This may seem strange. with T.
0O0, 900 more citizens reported beg
ging for work. but there Is splendid
reason for it, to-wit:
Specialized training and accumulated
knowledge make them indispensable. Some
cannot ever be replaced.
Retirement of United States Supreme Court
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes at 81 was q
jolt TO this column of loyal soldiers of the serv-
ice, and blow to the judiciary where he had
become a vital reliance in decisions affecting
big business and constitutional matters.
Sidney Y. Smith, chief Of the State Depart
ment,s important treaty drafting division. is
four years beyond the limit set for his retire
ment due to third special request to the
Civil Service by Secretary Stin1son
Frank C. Skinner has reached rs through
"a tedious years as senior member of the Patent
Once board of examiners, where he originated
the system of cataloguing patents. and this
cataloguing represents inventions worth many
billions of dollars
Clair A. Huston, rs. designer at the Bureau
Of Engraving and Printing. with 30 years
experience, has been retained three times so
that new issues Of postage stamps and docu-
ments produced there may not lag.
DEAN of the "indspenssnles." s5-year-old
DR.. william Henry Holmes, has had eight
extensions past the deadltne. He heads the
National Gallery of Art worth SIS. 600 600 He
brought it UP from paintings worth only q few
thousand dollars
OF Uncle Sans 737.46o employees (not in
cluding Army and Navy scattered through
out the United States and foreign lands, the
e.000-odd super-service people have mounted
from only $500 IN the last dozen years. be-
cause Of comparatively new Government
policy OF utilizing to the ultimate that which
the workers have acquired from the Govern
nent itself in the way of experience.
In the Steamboat Inspection Service $500
employes). one to whom the Government clings
with affection is Nils Nelson. rs. supervising
inspector for Buffalo, Toledo and Cleveland,
~the man who keeps his weather eye on local
Inspectors. knows his steamships and his regu-
latiofls," and whose decisions are final"
The Governments greatest map making es-
tahlshment, a part of the Geological Survey
Is in charge of 73-year-old Stephen J. Kuhel,
who for 40 years has supervised the drafting
and printing of hundreds of thousands of maps
OF the United States and its possessions. What
he cannot ten about American geography no
body can.
tA/HEN Congress considered o retirement
w bill. making impossible the continuing of
employees past threescore and ten the Smith
sonian Institution protested
Its specialists and research experts were
threatened They could not be spared Their
removal might mean closing Of activities in its
widely varied branches
For instance, how would the National Zoo
logical Park which is part of the Smithsonian
Institution, do without william H. Black
burne?
Mr. Blackburne came to Washington Al years
ago with two elephants. They started an ami
NAL community which now numbers 5000 crea-
lures He had no place for his elephants and
chained them to trees in Rock Creek copse
where they remained with proper attention four
months, when elephant house was built
giving the famous Zoo its beginning
He remembers every animal the Zoo has ever
had since that time The monkeys want him.
the bears yowl for him, and when the sea lions
sense his footsteps they set up racket that
starts all the others-it'S the regular Zoo
THE Hoover Dam, costing $l09 900 600 and
! the An-American Canal $34 00o 900 COM
panion project in Boulder Canyon, owe much
Of their final success to another great veteran
too modest to permit the use of his name for
publication. But he is responsible for increas-
ing the purchasing power OF the West 81 ,761.-
Gas, 500, due to reclamation activities He has
. string of college degrees-four or Eve
II was just ut the beginning Of the Chinese-
japanese war situation. when the State Depart
ment personnel was taxed 10 the utmost Of its