AFTER RECESS.

The committee reassembled at the expiration of the recess. Mr. ALCORN. Mr. Chairman, I would like you to hear Mr. Hyatt, president of the Federation of Postal Employees.

STATEMENT OF MR. GILBERT E. HYATT, PRESIDENT OF THE
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES.

Mr. HYATT. Mr. Chairman, the subject was opened up this morning by Secretary Morrison, of the American Federation of Labor, of the peculiar situation of postal employees in this respect, that they follow a calling which is, more than any other calling, a Government profession. More so, even than men in other branches of the civil service, for the reason that stenographers, bookkeepers, and men in the strictly clerical branches of the service perform duties which have some common ground of meeting with occupations outside, and that is more true of the printer and of course the men employed in the navy yard and so on than it is of the postal employees.

The postal employee is, I think, peculiarly an employee of the Government in the sense that he learns a calling that has no other market than with the Post Office Department, and he learns a profession whose purchasing value is not worth $1 to him, however expert he may be, when he leaves this service, and for that reason postal employees are peculiarly lifelong employees of the Government. Almost every man who enters the Post Office Department enters it with the idea that he is going to make it his life occupation and those who leave the service are those who have found conditions such as to disappoint them in the desirability of this expectancy of a lifelong occupation. Now, that means that the Government is peculiarly in the position of having to take care of these men. I do not mean to take care of them in the way of charity or gratuities, but to see that their living conditions are such that make for efficiency and are in the interests of humanity; and, obviously, there are only two ways that that can be done so that the man will be in reasonable security through the entire period of his life, and one of them is that the wage scale shall be sufficiently high so that he can live according to the American standard of living, one befitting an employee of the Government, and provide a margin over that whereby he can provide a reasonable surplus for his old age; and the other is that he shall receive a living wage and in addition to that a pension which will assure him of competency and ease in his declining years and releve him from this constant load of anxiety and worry, which is the most debilitating thing in the world, as Mr. Morrison pointed out, wondering what is going to happen to him when his energies are no longer capable of keeping pace with the strenuous requirements of the service.

In this respect the postal employee is in an unfortunate position, because it has been clearly established by voluminous evidence in this session of Congress that the postal employee has been underpaid for a period of 10 years. The only relief he has received was a rather inadequate one of a bonus for one year only of $200, which was

granted to him by this session of Congress, and the scale of wages under which he has been living was set 10 years ago and was not considered 10 years ago as being a munificent salary or anything but an ordinary living salary, and so it stands to reason that in the face of the facts presented the postal employee has been unable to lay up any surplus that would provide for his old age. Therefore we find that most of the old employees of the Post Office Department are simply working as long as they can work, flogging their declining energies to keep pace with the increasing requirements of that department until such time as they finally break down and either go out to a dependent old age or die.

Almost every one who has come in contact with the post office employees in all three branches of the service have noticed the numbers of old men, obviously physically decrepid, who are hurrying to keep up. One gentleman, I believe it was Representative Hamill, called attention to the scandalous fact that aged letter carriers were staggering on the streets under loads of mail, and almost every railway mail crew had in its personnel some old man working right alongside of younger and more vigorous men, trying to hold up his end in order that he may not be discharged for incompetency.

In the post office in which I worked for a number of years I recall now with distinctness two examples. One of them was especially pitiful, an old man who had been in the service for 40 years and was a Civil War veteran, who was a man of unusual vigor of mind and body and a man of indomitable pride. He was a distributer of mail, which is an assignment that requires an intricate knowledge of thousands of post offices; and in addition to that the work requires unremitting attention and accuracy and considerable physical exertion.

It is a line of work that is wearing on even a young man, and this old gentleman was endeavoring to memorize facts with a mind which was not as ready in picking up new facts as of course that of a younger man, and trying to keep in mind the thousands of changes in this complicated scheme of distribution to which he was assigned, and in addition to that was endeavoring to do just as much work as any of the younger men, and we used to comment on his failing vigor from day to day and from month to month, until finally-there was nobody, thank heaven, in that service in a supervisory position who was brutal enough to kick the old man out-his powers waned so that they had to make a special job for this old gentleman so that he could sit at a table and arrange in proper order labels for the packages and sacks of the other distributors. In a little while even this became too strenuous for him and he went home and almost immediately died, practically died in the service, and I think his life was considerably shortened by the fact that his last years were spent in a losing race with the machine.

Another instance I have in mind along the same line was another Civil War veteran who had been assigned to a particular detail that placed him in supervision over a group of youngsters and this required alertness and decision and all that sort of thing, and the old gentleman, as the city grew and the requirements of his job grew, was unable to keep pace with the work and finally in the evening of his days was placed on a tour of duty that was less exacting but

which compelled him to work at night, and he is an aged man. I am stating these two instances as being typical of the situation in almost every post office in the United States with which I have come in contact; and it is plain to anyone that such a condition of affairs is not only inexcusable from the human angle from the angle of common, ordinary humanity-but it is inexcusable from the standpoint of efficiency, because, obviously, these old men with waning powers are a drag on the efficiency of the service, and the service would be in a great deal better condition if their places were taken by men capable of 100 per cent work in the course of a day.

Now, I have not gone into the question of a civil-service pension from the standpoint of statistics and have not taken it up with anything like thoroughness in regard to actuarial reports as some of the other gentlemen have, because I did not think it was necessary. I considered that the proposition was so plain that men who had not been properly provided with a good wage during their lifetime and who had reached a point where they were unable to any longer perform maximum service, should be retired, that nobody could discount the facts, but I would like to insert in the record a letter from an old railway-mail clerk which illustrates what does happen to a great many of these old men who, not having a pension, are forced out. They do not die in the harness but are forced to retire. It is a very pitiful case of another Civil War veteran who could not stand the pace any longer and much to his regret was forced to leave the service.

AMES'S RETIREMENT INVOLUNTARY-CIVIL WAR VETERAN FORCED OUT.

In a pathetic letter to the Leominster, Mass., Enterprise, T. J. Ames, railway mail clerk and war veteran, tells of the inhuman treatment awarded him by the postal administrators, who forced him out of the service:

MR. EDITOR: May I ask for a little space in your paper to set my friends right in regard to my severing my connection with the Railway Mail Service, I am receiving very many congratulations on my retirement, supposing I have done so with a pension, but such is not the case. I should feel much better were it true.

The facts are that the Post Office Department is reorganizing the mail service, much to the detriment of the service, and much more so to the postal clerks, The department seems bound to force these changes, law or no law. The second assistant postmaster, under whom comes the railway mail, seems to have no consideration for the old clerks-and none others so far as that goesso they are curtailing the service to a great extent.

The short runs (one man) are being taken off almost entirely, going back to close-pouch service of 40 years ago. Much of this service is placed on the large railway post offices, and they are reduced from four crews to three, which increases the running time of these clerks 50 per cent, which of itself is a reduction in salary of $150, if not considerably more, on account of expense in being away from home 50 per cent more time. Then, in addition to that, a cut of $100 on each clerk's salary, and this in these times of high cost of everything, and when most everyone is asking, in fact is receiving, an advance in wages rather than a cut.

As I was the oldest clerk, as well as the oldest man on the Boston & Albany railway post office, the assignment given or offered me was one of the worst to be handed out under these conditions, which were that I had got to run six days on and only three days off, not being able to reach home during the six days on duty, and run on night trains at that. Thus I concluded I had been a slave long enough, as I desired, if permitted, to live a few years longer, to enjoy my home, with family and friends, and not be subject to the dictates of a Kaiser, in what we call free America, and for which I gave three of the best years of my life.

I was the last Civil War veteran left on the Boston & Albany, and with over 37 years in the mail service, I feel I have faithfully served Uncle Sam over 40 years, and thereby done my little bit, trusting I have so conducted myself to at least gain the respect of my fellow citizens, so many of whom I count my friends.

I thank them for their congratulations, and wish my services in the Railway Mail Service could have deserved better treatment.

LEOMINSTER, November 5, 1917.

THOMAS J. AMES.

It is astonishing to learn that the English Government took up the matter of a civil-service pension by appointing a board of investigation as long ago as 1786 and had a pension act in 1810, and the Parliament of New Zealand, according to a statement I read, I believe, was established in 1856, and almost the first act that they considered was the passage of a civil-service retirement bill; and, on the findings of a commission appointed at that time, a general pension bill was passed in New Zealand in 1858. In the English postal service they have, at the present time, a postal act which is amplified and made general under an act of 1909, which retires a man at about 50 per cent of his salary and a bonus in addition, and it is a noncontributory pension.

The stand of the organization which I represent has always been against a noncontributory pension for several reasons, and one of them is this: The experience of civil-service employees-pensioned in other countries long enough to be able to see the real effect of that sort of thing is that the tendency is to assume that the pension is given in lieu of wages and that all that is necessary is to give them any sort of a living wage, because they have this pension, which costs them nothing, and it is considered by them to be a very severe drag on the already great handicaps that they are under in keeping pace with men outside of the civil service; and, another thing-which is obvious to any man who takes at all a sympathetic viewpoint toward the civil-service employee-is this:

Being, as I have said, under a great handicap in fighting the battle for better conditions and keeping pace with the constantly improving conditions of other people, the fact that they have a pension and that they put in a certain number of years in the service and have an equity in that pension, operates against aggressiveness, so it would really produce a state of mind which would make a man prone to accept almost anything he found in the service rather than endanger his discharge and the loss of that pension. This danger is removed by some form of contributory pension; and, inasmuch as the civil-service men have been able for the first time to unite on this McKellar-Keating bill as a 50-50 proposition, we are perfectly willing to indorse it for that reason, because we are thoroughly cognizant of the fact that the crying need for civil-service retirement is growing every year. It is not only recognized now, but it has been recognized for a long period in the past, so much so that a great many officials of the Post Office Department have recommended pensions; and, in this connection, I would like to insert in the record a few statements, collected by Representative. Tague in connection with some testimony which he gave previously on the subject of retirement, in which the recommendations of the various post-office officials are given:

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The Postmaster General's report for 1909 states:

RETIREMENT OF SUPERANNUATED EMPLOYEES.

In recent years the subject of making provision for the retirement of superannuated employees in the civil service has received much consideration. It is believed that the interests of the employees and of the Government alike demand legislation to this end.

The work of the Postal Service, like that of every great business institution, public or private, requires special training. Years of experience are necessary for the attainment of a high degree of proficiency in the discharge of the duties devolving on postal employees. The department's policy is, therefore, to recruit its force from young men and to retain them until such time as their usefulness is impaired by advancing age.

In view of the increased cost of living the salaries paid are barely sufficient to enable the employees to meet current needs, and the opportunity to make provision for old age is small. These conditions suggest the adoption of measures that will insure Government employees against want after they pass the period of active service. Private business establishments in this and foreign countries find that such a course brings practical returns in the increased loyalty and zeal of employees.

Experience has shown that in default of such provision administrative officers hesitate to recommend the dismissal or the reduction in salary of superannuated employees who have spent their lives in the Government service. The drain on the national finances by their retention at full pay after they have become incapacitated for efficient service is far greater than would be the cost of a reasonable system of civil pensions.

The First Assistant Postmaster General for the same year, in his report, states:

A RETIREMENT FUND FOR SUPERANNUATED EMPLOYEES.

The question of retiring superannuated employees on a pension has confronted the executive departments and has been discussed in Congress for many years. The present law prohibits the maintenance of a civil pension list and makes it the duty of executive officers to drop from the rolls all employees who are permanently incapacitated for performing service. This law, however, is most difficut of enforcement, and it is undoubtedly a fact that there are many employees in the Postal Service who should be retired on account of age and physical infirmities. Many of these men have spent their lives in the service. On account of the long hours and exacting nature of their duties they have not been able to add to their meager savings by outside employment nor to lay up a competence for old age. To remove them from the service for incompetency when their period of active usefulness has passed is in contravention of the spirit of our institutions. Good administration and humanity alike demand that some provision be made to care for these veterans of the service when overtaken by old age or disability.

The First Assistant Postmaster General, in his report for 1910,

says:

PENSIONS FOR SUPERANNUATED EMPLOYEES.

Nearly every country of importance makes some provision for pensioning its civil employees when they are overtaken by old age, and many of the large corporations in this country have devised a similar plan for the retirement of their aged employees. From the standpoint of economy alone it would seem that this Government should do likewise. In the Postal Service, on account of the long hours, the small salaries, and the exacting nature of the duties performed, the employees rarely are able to lay up a competence for old age. It is hoped, therefore, that Congress will take action looking to the retirement in some suitable manner of its superannuated employees.

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