On a day in June, 1918, it was announced that the Associated Press had decided to retire its old employees;-and further-that it would begin July 1!

Nearly 25 years ago, the Congress was considering retirement of the civil service. It is still considering. Committee after committee has taken evidence. Bill after bill has been printed. Pathetic instances of suffering from lack of legislation have been heard and read with tears. Elaborate card systems have been said to exist which have never reached the surface. In many sections it is unbelievable that this sentiment has not been incorporated in legislation. And now war emphasizes the need that every civilian, as well as every soldier, shall give his quota of service, and the old, with increased hours and diminished vacations, are straining every nerve to fulfill their tasks. But, oh, the pity of it.

Congress talks in billions, but we, with expenses increased over a hundred per cent, and incomes frequently reduced-we have to think in pennies.

Green B. Raum, once said in a speech before the retirement association that Congress was likely to think that the executive officers should probably have greater pay and greater emolument, but that the routine workers already receive more than their work demands. Now, he said after being at the head of two of the largest offices in the United States service, the Pension Office and the International Revenue Office: "My experience is that the executive officers, like myself, that their duties consist in signing letters they have never read in answer to letters they have never seen, while the routine workers are doing the task of the Nation."

It is true that children are receiving appointments at what may be considered extraordinary wages for beginners; but it is equally true, and especially of women, that many have been in the service 25 or 30 years and have not reached the salary now offered to applicants, and their advancement in grade is not even discussed. Most of these will probably be eligible for the $120 granted by the Congress for this year. So there has been small chance for clerks with family ties to accumulate anything worthy of mention in connection with the necessities of old age, and few are without depend

ents.

In my office today are, I believe, 13 clerks of retirement age and 5 not so old but pitifully disabled. Of these two classes, two are understood to have had each two strokes of paralysis; four are on two crutches, one is trembling with what seems like paralysis agitans, one has an artificial leg and a cane, one has a bullet in his frame from the Civil War, one has been disabled by a street-car accident, one is rallying from illness and surgery, six are obliged to go to and from work in hired private conveyances, seven are simply feeble, because they are old.

I am not here by the request of these, and if I represent them it is on my own responsibility. But I should consider it a poor and narrow mission to come up here and plead for myself alone, and I was using my best endeavors for retirement of the civil service when I had not yet realized that I could ever be weak or old.

And I beg of you not to go to your homes until you have provided for the immediate relief without a month's delay of the old civilian

servants of your government and mine. There will be time for other amendments in all the coming centuries.

I have been taught that England and France maintain both civil service and old-age pensions and I am proud of them.

I have been told that Russia has, or has had, for many years an old age pension for all; and I blush. I have heard that Germany maintains an old age pension for all civilians apart from its military pensions, and I hang my head in shame.

You, gentlemen of the Congress, represent your country's character and aims and ideals, and by your standards is your nation judged.

I pray you do not permit this fair land longer to lag behind the civilized world in its humanities, in its honor to womanhood, its protection of childhood, its reverence for old age, its extension of a democracy, inclusive of both sexes and of every race, for which the world is to be safe and for which the hour has struck and for which the man has spoken.

Mr. ALCORN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to have the committee. hear Mr. Thomas G. Allen, of the United States Civil Service Retirement Association.

STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS G. ALLEN, MEMBER OF THE UNITED

STATES CIVIL SERVICE RETIREMENT ASSOCIATION.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I am just here to-day simply to hear the different views of the persons present. I have no intention of saying anything at all. I have just been trying to support this matter in my way for the last 25 years, or maybe not quite so long as that.

I am heartily in favor of the present proposition. I think we are on the way to succeed. It has been a very discouraging proposition but it looks brighter to me to-day and I am very glad to be here and hear the different views and I sincerely hope that it will not be long till we have a statutory law that will receive the civil service employees that are superannuated.

Dr. REED. How long have you been in the service?

Mr. ALLEN. Thirty-one years. I am 79 years old.

Mr. ALCORN. I would like to have the committee hear Mr. Duffiell, a member of the National Association of Machinists.

STATEMENT OF MR. MARTIN F. DUFFIELL, COLUMBIA LODGE NO. 174, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS.

Mr. DUFFIELL. Mr. Chairman. I wish simply to announce that at a deferred hearing, Mr. N. P. Alifas will speak on this subject. His position as president of District 44, International Association of Machinists, carries him to various parts of the country wherein the Government has established navy yards and arsenals, and when he appears before you on his return, I am sure he will convey some very useful information to you, for he will be in a position to give, not only his own views, but the views of Government employees other than those employed right here in Washington.

However, there is just one thing I wish to touch on: Dr. Jordan spoke here a few minutes ago relative to the cost of retirement being

borne equally by the Government and employee. On the surface his arguments appear as perfectly logical, and will apply in perhaps a majority of cases; but how about the underpaid Government employee who can not perhaps afford to contribute even the small amount required.

If my memory serves me right, I believe that some years ago there was some agitation in the State of New York relative to establishing an old age pension or retirement fund to care for those, who by reason of old age or through disability, were unable longer to properly support themselves, and the data collected at that time, pertaining to the cost of such a system to the State, showed conclusively that it would be much cheaper to care for the indigent under a pension system than under the present system of establishing large community institutions, commonly known as "poorhouses" or "county homes," with their costly installations of water, sewer, heating, and lighting systems; and on top of all that the ever attendant overhead charges of maintenance. It is well known that there are comparatively few persons who have not some relative or friend with whom they may or could live if they only had some slight income to help bear the burden. Mr. Chairman, I firmly believe that within the lifetime of those here present that there will be enacted by Congress legislation which shall lift the burden of care of the aged and infirm from the shoulders of society and place it on the Government where it properly belongs.

Mr. ALCORN. I would like for you to hear Mr. Pittman, President of Local 215, International Molders Union.

STATEMENT OF MR. VIRGIL G. PITTMAN, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL MOLDERS, LOCAL UNION NO. 215.

Mr. PITTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I hope to be able to get some of our international officers who have a wider view than I have to appear before the committee at some later hearing and they can present. the molders' viewpoints better than I can.

I have noticed in the navy yard service, the foundry branch, these old men that are working there when they ought to be resting are actually often in the way of the competent workmen. I have noticed apprentices when they come to work, start at much smaller wages than even the old men are getting. They are inclined to measure their entire output by the work the old men do, seeming to figure if the old man gets away with a certain amount of work and more money than they are getting, everybody ought to be satisfied with that.

I think this has a tendency to keep down efficiency, not only while he is an apprentice, but all of his life. I would like to see this bill give these people much larger sums than $600 a year. I think it ought to be doubled all the way through, although the way prices are now I don't see how they could stand over 23 per cent. I speak for mechanics and I know that many of our people would not be able to make ends meet if it were over 24 per cent they would not be able to do it at all were it not for overtime, because of the high cost of living and so on. Yet they favor it. It is all the hope they have for their old age.

I believe that is all I have to say.

STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT H. ALCORN, CHAIRMAN JOINT CONFERENCE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE RETIREMENT.

Mr. ALCORN. Mr. Chairman, I believe that is about all that are here to be heard. I would like to say just a few words in conclusion.

First, I want to say in behalf of those not here, members of the conference committee and all interested in this legislation, I desire to thank the chairman for granting us this hearing and I would like to say further that we shall be very pleased to meet when you think it is convenient for you to have the committee meet again and give us a chance to hear those who are not here to-day. Dr. Maddrill in commenting on the McKellar-Keating bill from the viewpoint of an actuary, points out certain actuarial shortcomings of the bill. In considering his criticisms, I would also like you to consider a certain economic and social omission from the bill, which is that it makes no provision for those cases of physical and mental disability occurring under the ages of 65 and 68 for the two groups of employees concerned. It is not merely age that determines the state of superannuation, it is the bodily condition. In order to obtain the measure of relief from superannuation desired, a retirement bill should make provision for careful consideration of those cases of disability on account of age occurring under the year limits set for the average cases. If any changes in the bill are to be considered, this feature should also receive serious consideration.

I would further invite your attention that the first object to be obtained by the enactment of this proposed bill would be to provide proper subsistance for the superannuated employees now in the civil service and that during the days of war-time prices. A pension of $600 per annum is only $50 per month and any less than that amount would fail to keep a man and his old wife who have labored together these many years.

The scale of $6 per year for 30 years would only net a man $180, a pension of 50 cents a day for 30 years service. Let us make it a dollar a day for 30 years' service. A dollar a day would bring the pension up to $360. Next in order to bring the pension up to the lowest possible subsistence figure for the present superannuates, raise the other $6 factor proposed, up to $8, totaling $140 for 30 years' service, and making a grand total of $600.

Under this modification the bill would read:

The Government grants you a dollar a day for thirty years faithful service, all employees from now on purchasing in addition an annuity based on a two and one-half per cent contribution from his or her salary made as a loan to the Government, and for the period prior to the passage of this bill, the Government grants each employee $8 for each year of service in addition to the dollar a day.

The McKellar-Keating bill is the result of a determined effort on the part of many men of many minds to agree on certain fundamental principles. It provides a bare subsistence for the present, superannuates above certain ages only, it provides sufficient revenue to finance the first few years of its operation, it directs the keeping of records and the making of reports to the Congress of the actual operation of the system, and we believe that if passed without change it will be a tonic to the civil service. If its actuarial shortcomings are to be considered and remedied, we pray that the basic principles of adequate care for the present superannuates, of not more than 23 per cent contribution, and of safeguarded provision for those physically superannuated while still under the prescribed ages, be carefully considered and preserved in the revised draft.

The CHAIRMAN. I think we had better wait until a quorum of the committee returns to the city so that they may be present. It may be that some of the committee wants to examine or cross-examine some of the gentlemen who have appeared to-day, and if they do we will notify the gentlemen that have appeared to return here.

(Thereupon, at 3.40 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned.)