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Show WHAT OF THESE OLD MEN ? Congress enncted a low In 1800 requiring re-quiring all heiids of departments and Independent establishments In the federal service to report each year to the secretary of the treasury the number num-ber of employees under them who were below a fair standard of efficiency. Every year this Is done and the letters to the secretary of the treasury from the various departments and bureaus are printed In the book of estimates of appropriations compiled for use by congress In making up the annual supply bills. Congress never pays the slightest heed to these reports. They are made up year after year, but the Inefficient are never fired. For example. Inst year the chief clerk of the treasury reported 170 employees em-ployees of the Treasury department as below a fair standard of efficiency. But nothing will be done about It The Interior deparlint reported 139 Inefficlents, In-efficlents, and will probably go on reporting re-porting them till they die of old age. There are employees of the government govern-ment In Washington who are totally blind and who are led from their homes to their offices each day and back home again In the afternoon. I knew In l!r20 one gentleman of ninety-two years who had been In the government service for seventy-two years. He was being paid at that time $000 a year. His maximum pay during dur-ing his long servlco was $1S00 a year. James K. Polk was President when tills old gentleman came Into the serv-Ice. serv-Ice. fie was born on January 10, 1S2S. His father was a captain of the regular army In the war of 1312. Afler that service he led an active life In other occupations until 1S-18. when he died, leaving a dependent family of nine persons, three of them boys. It fen to the lot of one of them to be the chief support of the family. It came to pass, then, that at the age of twenty he received through the Influence of navy friends nf his father a small clerkship at the naval observatory, observ-atory, then under the superintendence of that accomplished officer. Matthew-Fontaine Matthew-Fontaine Maury, whom he served as nmnnuensis for ten years, aocountlrig it a great privilege and pleasure to j have heard Maury's voice dictating the ! words of svnse and wisdom which : make up the sailing directions, the ! wind and current charts .and Other . publicatlrns issued from the observ-: observ-: atory for the benefit of the world. J from a copyist at first. Noxemher 9. : 1S4S. nt 53 a dny. the young man was i advanced as fi.lloxvs: 1 July 1. 1S53. clerk at $1,200 o year; July 1, clerk at $1,500 a year; July 1, 1870, principal clerk nt Sl.SOO a year; December 6, 1011, clerk at 1,400 a year; May 1, lHiS, stenographer stenog-rapher and typewriter at $900 a year. It will be seen that he was demoted In December, 11111, and again In May, 1018, to lower positions. Involving less work and responsibility. These demotions demo-tions were at his own request. In October. 1917, he received from the assistant secretary of the navy, Mr. Roosevelt, the following letter: "I have to Inform you that you have been granted leave without pay for six months beginning October 13, 1917. "As you have been In the employ of the government now nearly sixty-nine sixty-nine years, and during all thnt time your record has been excellent, I regret re-gret that there Is n way in which the department could continue yon on the rolls with compensation. "I desire at this time to express the appreciation of the department for your long and satisfactory service, and the hope that yon will he so benefited by this leave that yon con return and resume your duties at Its expiration." I talked with one of the cabinet officers aboat the old and feeble employees. em-ployees. He said: "I don't know what congress con-gress intends to do about them, but I know what I Intend to do with those In my department. I Intend to leave them alone. They ran stay here as long as they like, until some provision Is made for them. When I was new In the department I dismissed two of these old people and demoted another, on the ground that they were superannuated super-annuated and Inefficient and were a hindrance to the work. "All three of them wrote me sad letters and promptly committed suicide. sui-cide. That was enough and more than enough for me. Never ogaln will I disturb one of them. I do not choose to have '.t on my conscience that I pronounced sentence of death on nn old man or an old woman In the service of the government. They can all stay on here as long ns they like. I found them here and some of them will be here when I leave. If congress chooses to proxide for them that Is its obligation. But I wiil never sentence another one of them to self-flest self-flest ruction, no matter xx hnt the cost to the taxpayer and the go erurneiit." The Beaten Road. Sincerity Is like traveling in a plain, beaten road, whirh cutmnenly brings a mnn sooner to his journey's end than hy-wnx-s. In whleh men often lose themselves. Til lot son. |