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The Postmaster General, in his report for 1911, says:

PFNSIONS FOR SUPERANNUATED EMPLOYEES.

Almost without exception foreign nations provide for the pensioning of civilservice employees when they become superannuated. Large corporations in this country are rapidly adopting the same prinicple in the retirement of their aged employees. On business grounds, if for no other reason, the Government should do likewise.

While the compensation of postal employees has been considerably increased during the last few years, it is hardly more than sufficient to meet necessary living expenses, and consequently does not permit the putting aside of any considerable savings against old age. It is believed that a civil pension bill based on length of employment should be granted by the Government. Benefits to the service far outweighing the expense of such pensions would undoubtedly result.

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

At post offices of the first class the employees number about 50,000, and less than 1,200 of this number have reached the age of 65 or more, many of whom are in nowise superannuated. It is believed, therefore, that less than 2 per cent of the employees of classified post offices would be retired under a pension system.

In the Post Office Service a large sum of money accrues annually from the lapsed salaries of employees absent without pay where no substitute is employed or where the substitute receives less than the salary of the absent clerk or carrier and also on account of failure to fill vacancies immediately or where the force is reduced temporarily during the dull season when vacancies occur. The employees themselves, in a measure, contribute to this fund, since the absence of regular employees throws additional burdens on those remaining on duty. This fund is more than sufficient to cover the cost of pensions for the superannuated employees among the 60,000 clerks and carriers at first and second class post offices. There is another source of revenue that might properly be used to constitute a pension fund, and that is the money turned into the Treasury each year from money orders issued and never presented for payment. The Postmaster General, in his report for 1912, says:

PENSIONS FOR SUPERANNUATED EMPLOYEES.

Civil pensions, based on length of service, should be granted to postal employees when they become superannuated. It is likely that the expense of such a system would be more than offset by gains in efficiency. Although the compensation of postal employees has been considerably increased during the last few years, it is still insufficient to permit adequate savings against old age. Foreign nations pension their aged employees as do also many corporations, and on business grounds, if for no other reason, the Government should do likewise.

The First Assistant Postmaster General, in his report for 1912, says:

INJURED AND SUPERANNUATED EMPLOYEES.

In the Postal Service the employees rarely are able to accumulate savings, and the injury of an employee in the line of duty, necessitating his absence without pay or resulting in death, is a serious hardship to his family. The

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Government should take the lead in dealing fairly with employees who are injured while in the performance of duty and those who, when burdened with years and worn with faithful service, are forced to relinquish their positions because no longer able to work.

The First Assistant Postmaster General, in his report for 1914, says:

SUPERANNUATION.

It is said that the loss sustained by the Government on account of superannuation aggregates many millions annually. A careful canvass of first and second class post offices seems to indicate that this loss is probably less proportionately in the Postal Service than elewhere. Alertness, dexterity, quickness of hand and eye, and other qualities of youth are peculiarly required for the performance of post-office work and tend of themselves to assist in reducing superannuation in the service. However, superannuation is an important problem in properly reorganizing the Post Office Service, and the increasing volume of parcel-post traffic accentuates the need for an early and definite solution. Some postmasters refrain for humanitarian reasons from recommending demotions and removals in accordance with the declining efficiency of employees. The result to some extent is that tenure of office in the Government service does not now depend on the law nor on the uniform needs of the service, but upon the varying temperaments of the postmasters and their varying conceptions of their public duty. This condition is wrong and works injustice to the employees and loss to the Government.

The First Assistant Postmaster General, on March 1, 1915, in a communication to Senator Bankhead, which was printed in the Congressional Record of March 4, said that

Superannuation, however, remains a pressing and urgent problem, and a practical plan for dealing with it effectually should be accepted and advocated. Now, Mr. Chairman, there is just one thing more and that is this: The occupation of a post-office clerk is, of course, mainly that of distributing the mail. The public never sees this man. They know very little about his conditions, and consequently they draw the impression of the post-office clerk from his title, which is one of the most misleading titles ever given to a group of men. Post-office clerks are not clerks. They are distributors of the mail; and, as such, follow a very arduous occupation, one in which most of them work nights, and work under insanitary conditions; many of them work in ill-lighted basements, and in basements so poorly constructed for the purpose that they work under artificial light even during the daylight hours, and the health statistics of the Post Office Department prove that it is a wearing occupation. It is one which is detrimental to health and detrimental to long life and long efficiency. The claims that are made by the railway mail clerk in regard to the hazards of his occupation are met by the extra-health hazards under which the post-office clerk labors, and a handicap to which the letter carrier to a certain extent is free from, so that the claims of the post-office clerk for consideration owing to the peculiarities of his occupation are, I think, at least on an equal footing whith those of the other branches of the service, and he should receive equal consideration when the question of a pension is brought up.

Here is a short table of statistics, with a few comments made by the secretary of the sick-benefit fund which is maintained by the clerks' union in Chicago, in which they make reference to the rapidly increasing number of claims owing to disability on account of sickness; and, particularly, to those arising from tuberculosis owing, of

course, directly to insanitary surroundings; and, as the end of my testimony, I would like to have that in the record also as it is very short.

I thank you very much.

STATE OF HEALTH IN CHICAGO POST OFFICE.

Although the Chicago Federal Building from an architectural viewpoint is an imposing and attractive edifice, its interior arrangement is mute evidence of the fact that the Chicago post office incidentally was allotted some space as well. It was squeezed between the more spacious apartments which accommodated the Federal courts, the customhouse, the internal revenue office, etc. Therefore, the inadequate space and consequent congestion and poor ventilation are one of the well-founded reasons for the proportionately large numbers of clerks on the daily sick list. That such is the case can be substantiated by the numerous claims for benefits in the sick benefit branch of the Chicago Post Office Clerks' Union.

OVERTIME.

Another very potent reason for a big sick list is the excessive number of hours the average clerk is compelled to toil almost throughout the year. That such conditions are harmful not only to the employee, but to the institution he serves as well, is really self-evident, as the employee on account of the imposition on mind and body can not invest the vim and vigor, either mentally or physically, to do justice to the task assigned to him.

SICK BENEFIT CLAIMS.

In the swiftly moving and ever changeable panorama of life few occurrences and conditions are more pathetic than the sight of a stricken head of a family who has no other means but his employment which illness forbids him to follow, to provide for those dependent upon him. The Chicago Sick Benefit Branch offered the much needed relief. In recent years, however, when claims for sick benefits increased at an alarming rate on account of the numerous cases of fatigue due to overwork and a very noticeable increase of tubercular diseases the dire need of a sanitarium, as proposed, became more and more apparent.

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Mr. ALCORN. Mr. Chairman, we would like now to hear from Dr. Jordan.

STATEMENT OF DR. LLEWELLYN JORDAN, CHIEF SECTION OF SURETY BONDS, TREASURY DEPARTMENT, REPRESENTING THE UNITED STATES CIVIL-SERVICE RETIREMENT ASSOCIATION. Dr. JORDAN. Mr. Chairman, I do not know that I should take your time or trespass upon the good nature of those present here to make any extended argument in addition to what I have previously stated

on so many occasions in the interest of retirement legislation. It is unnecessary to argue as to the urgency of this meritorious legislation. It may be enlightening, however, to state that the endeavor to secure this legislation at the hands of Congress has been a source of constant agitation on the part of the employees, in the main, supplemented by recommendations of department heads, bureau chiefs, and other supervisory employees of this Government for about 20 years. During the progress of the efforts to secure this legislation about every known variety of retirement bill has been produced and introduced, either in the Senate or in the House.

We have had numerous hearings, but, with the single exception of a bill which was reported by the Committee on Reform in the Civil Service of the House about 16 years ago by Congressman Gillett, at that time the chairman of that committee, we have never had any direct report from any committee of Congress on this proposed retirement legislation. The chief obstacle in the past to securing a report, with the exception noted, has been due to the fact that the employees have been seriously divided amongst themselves upon essential details and the form in which this legislation should be proposed to Congress.

I want to address myself briefly to the two distinct points of view of the advocates of the retirement plans in order that this preliminary hearing may as cogently and as clearly as possible present those points of view for the benefit of your committee. The first point of view, and the one which is the most appealing, and, I might say, the most popular one, is predicated upon the idea that the Government of the United States should, in recognition of fidelity and long service, reward the employees by granting a pension or superannuation allowance, paid directly from the Treasury of the United States, without any reference whatsoever to compensation paid during the period of service. To summarize briefly a few of the objections from my point of view to this proposed form of retirement legislation I would state, in the first place, that in every scheme governmentally controlled, where it has been attempted to pension the employee directly from the treasury of the supporting country, invariably the question of compensation or salary has entered at some stage into the computation of the pension itself. One of the witnesses referred to the pension granted by the English Government, and in that connection it may be stated that the English Government in its endeavor to solve the question of superannuation in a much smaller civil service than we have, after experimenting for a number of years with different forms, in 1859 established what was then known as a straight civil pension plan, which contemplated that the pension to be paid to the superannuated employee would be a direct charge upon the exchequer or treasury of the nation.

Within 15 years after the enactment of that law an agitation arose amongst the employees, which was brought about in its initial stages by the postal employees of Great Britain, in which the view was taken that this pension, supposed to be an outright gift, gratuity, or reward for faithful and long service, was, in fact, operating to keep down the wage scale of those who came within the scope of the pensionable class of employees. As a result of this agitation, with a civil service at that time numbering about 125,000 employees, an

organization came into being which was known as the Deferred Pay Organization. The name "Deferred Pay" was selected to designate the organization because it was conclusively shown, as I have intimated, that this so-called pension, when granted, took into consideration compensation paid during period of service. To my mind that constitutes a vital objection to any plan where the employee to be benefited does not participate by making a direct contribution to the fund and where he can have, as he has a right under that condition, to participate in the administration of the fund and the law applicable thereto. If every man and woman working for the Government were adequately compensated, so as to maintain the individual in reasonable comfort and so as to enable him or her to achieve that standard of American living to which we all aspire, we might reasonably hope that the employees, as a matter of prudence and foresight, would accumulate something against old age or decreased earning capacity; but human nature being what it is, it is rare that those who work regularly for wages make provision against old-age dependency.

But independent of that we recognize that the wage scale as paid is totally inadequate, and that, I might emphasize, is one of the crying needs of the service to-day in those branches where no attempt has been made to reclassify or to provide compensation somewhat near what it should be along the lines of adequacy. So that the first objection is centralized in the thought that a straight pension operates to keep down the wage scale, and every employee who has his or her best interests at heart should, in my judgment, espouse that form of retirement legislation which makes for better wages.

The next thought and objection is that with a straight civil pension it has the invariable effect of tying the man so completely to his position that under any sort of autocratic administration on the part of overbearing supervisory officials he has but limited opportunity to resent such treatment or to improve his working conditions. In my opinion, it strikes at his very manhood and freedom as an American citizen. To return, with the agitation that came about within 15 years after the enactment of this so-called straight pension system of Great Britain and after the subject had received the serious consideration of royal commissions appointed by Parliament, it was finally conceded that there was not only merit in the statement of these gentlemen, who said that they were suffering in the way of reduced pay because of this so-called pension grant, but it was admitted that a grave injustice was being done these people, and the Parliament of that country in September, 1909, radically changed the law so that essentially the system which is operating to-day in Great Britain is fundamentally a contributory system, where the employee receives a portion of what he otherwise would have contributed in the way of a commuted pension if he retires from the service or if he dies before reaching the age of retirement. The third objection to a straight pension is-and that is confirmed by statistics in the English Government-that only one person out of seven actually receives the benefit. Now, if it is admitted that the pension takes into consideration salary or compensation, and if it be further conceded that the salary or compensation is less by reason of the pension grant, if these statistics mean anything, they

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