Evening star., 1935-03-05
900 TAX WORKERS
STILL AWAIT PAY.
Many Risk Their Lives in
Alcohol Division, Al
though Unpaid.
BY ROBERT b. PHILIPS, JR.

BY ROBERT b. PHILIPS, JR.
How would you like to risk your
life for nothing?
That, precisely, has been the oppor-
unity Uncle Sam has afforded scores
of his 900 payless workers in the
Treasury Department Alcohol Tax
Unit since December l, 1894.
In return for the difficult and often
dangerous task of uncovering Illicit
alcohol sources. effecting the arrest
Of liquor tax dodgers and prosecuting
the cases, the unsalaried workers get
nothing. Their incomes gone. they
have become dependent upon the
credit Of merchants, the aid Of friends
and such odds and ends of extra work
as they can obtain.
Some Look to Relief.
Naturally, these workers are not
openly eligible for Federal relief,
while there is chance Congress will
give them back pay and reinstate
them in the Government service. But
1t is not unlikely that with their re-
sources exhausted, their friends and
storekeepers unable to help further,
a few families have been forced onto
charity rolls A quiXotic situation.
with active Federal agents, many OF
them vested with police powers. at the
same time receiving outside financial
aid because the only thing they can
get from the Government Is the power
to do it favors.
Secretary of Treasury Morgenthau
has been before the Treasury Appro-
priations Subcommittee Of the Senate
this week, fighting for the rights Of
the paylesS hundreds.
He has advanced the argument that
the present workers should be given
full status, because they know the
work, in which it would take new men
months to become efficient; that the
method whereby the 900 were dis
qualified, would demoralize the civil
service employees as a group, if they
believed they could be similarly ruled
out by congressional action, and that
there are hundreds of cases in various
stages of investigation which would
collapse II the present force OF men
was eliminated.
Hints of Misery.
Since 1t Is not considered proper
for cabinet officers to argue Senti-
mental reasons before the Senate, he
did not go into the misery suffered
by the workers and their families in
the last three months. His attitude
did indicate. however, that dur
ing that time, when they were crowd
ing their families into smaller apart
ments, patching up old clothes,
borrowing from friends and even cut
ting rations for their children to a
minimum, the 900 turned in an en-
forcement record which made him
desirous of keeping them in the serv-
ice.
The 900 have, as a whole, fulfilled
their duties and taken the usual risks
as if the pay envelope was full twice
month. rather than non-existent
There has been some slight Interrupt
ton of morale, one of the division
chiefs pointed out, because the men
occasionally find day or two of out
Siuc NUIh. Ill 1NtW 1OIh, lOI chdIH-
pie. several did not show up at the
office during the first couple of days
Of the recent blizzard. They had jobs
shoveling snow.
Two Spurned Brides.
Two other men were offered bribes
by an illicit alcohol dealer in Syracuse
recently. They were proffered $3.50
a month each, as regular salary, to
overlook the shipments of alcohol they
had detected in movement The man
who offered the bribe was not only
indicted for ia xevasion, but the
grand jury returned an indictment
against him for Offering bribe to q
Federal officer. The pair, living from
hand to mouth, await chance to
send him to Jail for offering them
money they sorely needed.
Realizing the workers cannot pos
sihly hold out much longer, Secretary
Morgenthau is pressing for their i'm
mediate relief by congressional action.
If nothing is done, he says the Gov
ernment will lose more money by in
efficiency and disruption of normal
procedure than the back pay would
cost.