APPENDIX K.

[The Washington Post, March 19, 1906.]

SYSTEMS OF RETIREMENT OF VARIOUS GOVERNMENTS AND CORPORATIONS.

The subject of superannuation of employees in the civil service of the Government is now receiving a large amount of attention.

Something of the extent of the various methods now followed by governments and corporations in caring for employees, who by many years of active, earnest work, and devotion to duty have earned the right to assistance when they are disabled by age or accident and no longer able to earn a living, may be interesting.

All the great nations except the United States have provided for retirement of employees under various conditions, with pay, as shown by subjoined tables. The officers of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada say, in part, as to the effects of a retirement scheme put in operation by that company thirty-two years ago:

"It has been stated that the existence of a pension acts as a detriment to efficient service, owing to the tendency on the part of an employee approaching the retirement age to become lax in the performance of duty in consequence of the knowledge that he will soon be able to leave the service and draw a pension. The experience of this company has demonstrated that such reasoning is entirely fallacious.

Every company and corporation having a retirement pension system in operation regards it as a good business investment, without considering the humanitarian principle involved. Many say that the plan results in creating among the employees a feeling of permanency in their employment, enlarges their interest in their employers' affairs, and induces them to remain in and devote their best efforts and attention to their employers' service.

France has had a system in operation for over fifty years and has granted pensions far beyond anything of the kind ever proposed in this country, contributing large sums annually out of the public funds to sustain the system, which includes the consular and diplomatic service.

The following table gives a synopsis of systems established and in operation:

Among the corporations paying the entire cost of pensions are the following:
Canadian Pacific Railroad.

Pennsylvania Railroad.

Pennsylvania Railroad Lines west of Pittsburg.

*New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. *Boston and Albany Railroad.

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Illinois Central Railroad.

Boston and Maine Railroad.

Southern Pacific Railroad.

Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad.
Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.

Midvale Steel Company.

*Cumberland Valley Railroad.

San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad.

*Champlain Transportation Company.

Metropolitan Street Railroad.

Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company.
Boston Elevated Railroad.

Fourth Street National Bank, Philadelphia, Pa.
*Southwark National Bank, Philadelphia, Pa.
*First National Bank, Pittsburg, Pa.

*Girard National Bank, Philadelphia, Pa.

*Bank of New York National Banking Association. *Merchants' National Bank, Baltimore, Md.

Old Dominion Steamship Company.

In corporations preceded by mark "*" retirements in each case are treated upon merits. As a general rule, retirements are compulsory at the age of seventy, while voluntary retirements are permitted from ages fifty-five to seventy.

The Brownlow bill, lately introduced in Congress, provides for retirement of employees in the classified service at various ages under certain conditions, with a pension after retirement equal to 50 per cent of the average salary paid them while in active service. Said bill provides a method for creating a sufficient fund for the payment of pensions by assessments on salaries, promotions, and original appointments.

APPENDIX L.

WILLIAM H. DEARDEN, Esq.,

Clerk of Committee on Reform in the Civil Service,

FINANCE DEPARTMENT, Ottawa, Canada, April 2, 1908.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 27th ultimo, requesting certain information in connection with the Canadian system of retirement. With regard to the expense of administration of the retirement fund, no definite account is kept of such expense. The matter is comparatively unimportant, and the business is conducted simply as part of the routine business of this and other departments. The number of separate accounts on the books of the fund on the 1st of April, 1907, was 2,768.

I trust this information will suit your requirements. If there are any further points which you desire to have elucidated, I shall be happy to do my best to oblige you. Yours, truly,

APPENDIX M.

H. BOVILLE, Deputy Minister of Finance.

STATISTICS OF EMPLOYEES, EXECUTIVE CIVIL SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES: 1907.

[Outline of contents of Census Bulletin 94.]

The employees in the executive civil service are the subjects of a statistical inquiry which has just been completed by the Bureau of the Census. The results of this inquiry are published in Census Bulletin 94, which was prepared by Lewis Meriam, acting chief of the division of revision and results.

On July 1, 1907, according to this bulletin, the total number of employees in the executive civil service, exclusive of persons in the consular and diplomatic service, was 286,902; and of this number 29,103-practically one-tenth-were employed at the national capital.

SCOPE OF BULLETIN.

In the detailed statistical tables it was considered impracticable to include all these employees; in a few cases because the returns were too incomplete, but more often because certain classes are so peculiar in respect to the way they are appointed, or the basis on which they are paid, that their inclusion would have impaired the value of the statistics for the remaining classes. The most important classes omitted for this latter reason include 62,663 postmasters, 18,376 mechanics and laborers in navy-yards and naval stations, 12,850 clerks in post-offices not having free delivery, and 1,031 occasional employees of the Weather Bureau. Data for 4,584 employees of the Isthmian Canal Commission employed on the Isthmus were too incomplete to be included. the net result of all omissions, the total number of persons treated by the Bureau of the Census as employees in the executive civil service is 185,874.

OVER 6,500 GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES AT LEAST 65 YEARS OF AGE.

As

One of the most interesting questions considered in the bulletin is that of the age of the employees. One-half of them are under 36.5 years of age. In the District the median age is slightly higher, being 38.8 years, while elsewhere it is but 36.2.

The advanced age periods are, however, more interesting than the medians. The figures show that the Government employs in the civil service 4,364 persons from 65 to 69 years of age; 1,557 from 70 to 74 years; 465 from 75 to 79 years; and 137 at least 80 years of age. These figures give a total of 6,523 employees in the executive civil service who are 65 years of age or over. Of this number, 1,852 are employed in the District of Columbia and 4,671 elsewhere. Although less numerous in the District than elsewhere, employees of advanced age form a much larger proportion of the force in the District than they do of the force elsewhere. In the District practically 1 Government employee in 14 is at least 65 years of age, while elsewhere the corresponding figures are but about 1 in 34.

In an effort to determine whether these figures represent any special tendency for Government employees to remain in service after persons in other walks of life would have retired, the Census bulletin compares the ages of the Government employees with the ages of all breadwinners at the census of 1900, and reaches the conclusion that the tendency to remain in the Government service after reaching advanced age is not unusual, except, perhaps, among the male employees in the District of Columbia.

CIVIL-SERVICE RULES NOW PREVAIL.

Of the employees considered in this bulletin 164,051, or about 9 out of 10, are in the classified service, and most of the employees, about two-thirds of the total number, secured their present positions through open competitive examination. This is, in fact, practically the only way in which a person seeking Government employment can now enter the classified service. The two exceptions to the fundamental rule requiring a competitive examination are both unimportant, as only 2,573, or 1.4 per cent of the total number of employees, were reported as securing their present status by "noncompetitive examination" or by "preference." Persons who secured positions in the classified service through "classification and extension"—that is, survivors from a former system of appointment-form less than a fifth of the total number of employees. Thus the figures indicate that the geater part of the Government employees hold office by virtue of the new system instituted by the civil-service act of 1883.

TWO-THIRDS DO CLERICAL WORK.

In respect to the character of their work, the bulletin divides the employees into six main classes, as follows: Clerical, 122,636; subclerical and manual labor, 37,097; professional, technical, and scientific, 9,745; executive, 2,157; and miscellaneous, 5,643. Practically two-thirds of the Government employees are thus engaged in clerical work. The next largest class is formed by those whose work is subclerical and manual. These two classes together include 86 per cent of all the employees. None of the remaining classes is large, the percentage they constitute of the total varying from 1.2 for the executive, the smallest class, to 5.2 for the professional, technical, and scientific.

The median ages of the employees in these occupation classes are as follows: Clerical, 35.5; professional, technical, and scientific, 36.8; subclerical and manual labor, 37.7; mechanical, 39.4; miscellaneous, 43.7; and executive, 49.1. The youngest class

38257-08- -10

is thus the clerical, the oldest the executive; and the difference between the median ages of the two is no less than thirteen and six-tenth years.

HALF HAVE SERVED LESS THAN FIVE YEARS.

The figures for length of service show that almost one-half (48.2 per cent) of the employees have worked for the Government less than five years. In each successive fiveyear period of service the number of employees grows smaller. There are 1,052 employees, or 6 out of every 1,000, who have been in Government employ more than forty years. A constant decrease of numbers as the period of service increases is the inevitable result of resignations, removals, and deaths. At the same time the growth of Government work also tends to increase the proportions in the shorter periods, since the creation of new positions, necessary as the work of the Government expands, generally results, directly or indirectly, in the appointment of persons who have never before been in the service.

MANY OF ADVANCED AGE WHEN APPOINTED.

Length of service is of course intimately connected with age. No young man can have served a long period. An old man, however, may have served a short period, and it is this fact which makes particularly interesting the table in the census bulletin, which classifies the employees by age and length of service. This table shows, that at least 1,129 employees must have been appointed after reaching the age of 60 and that the actual number appointed after reaching that age is probably considerably larger. Although the proportion formed by persons of advanced age is greater in the District than it is elsewhere, this does not appear to indicate a greater tendency in the District toward the appointment of elderly people.

APPROXIMATE AVERAGE COMPENSATION.

In the District of Columbia the approximate average compensation for men is $1,178 and for women $837; elsewhere it is $935 for men and $766 for women. That the women are paid at a lower rate than the men does not indicate that women receive less than men for the same class of work, but reflects the fact that a far larger percentage of women than of men are engaged in subclerical work or manual labor.

The approximate average rates of compensation for different classes of employees are as follows: Executive, $1,983; professional, technical, and scientific, $1,375; miscellaneous, $1,221; mechanical, $959; clerical, $953; and subclerical and manual labor, $711. In the clerical class, it is interesting to note, the approximate average compensation for women ($950) is practically the same as that for men ($953).

COMPENSATION INCREASES WITH AGE.

Among the employees engaged in each class of work a general tendency is apparent toward an increase in average compensation as age advances, though this increase is not always uninterrupted; and similarly there is almost uniformly a consistent increase in compensation as the length of service increases. The clerical class is a particularly good illustration of the latter tendency, since the average rate of compensation for that class, beginning at $757 for those who have been in the service less than one year, increases in each successive period without a single interruption until for those who have served forty years and over it is $1,450, an increase of $693.

POST-OFFICE LEADS THE DEPARTMENTS.

Of the employees considered in this bulletin more than one-half (106,811) are in the Post-Office Department. The great importance of this Department is of course due to the enormous number of persons required to handle the mail of the country. The figures include 37,389 rural delivery carriers, 28,846 clerks in classified offices, 24,696 letter carriers, and 13,892 railway mail clerks. It should be recalled, moreover, that 62,663 postmasters and 12,850 clerks are not included in the figures. If these are added, it will be found that the total number engaged in handling the mail of the country is 180,336. In marked contrast to this army of employees is the administrative force in the Post-Office Department at Washington, which consists of 1,988 per

sons.

WAR VETERANS IN SERVICE.

In answer to the inquiry concerning war service, 15,207 employees, 8.2 per cent of the total number, reported that they were war veterans. Of these veterans 8,464

had served in the civil war and 6,743 in the war with Spain.

The total number of employees at least 60 years of age is 13,363, and of this number 7,768, or 58.1 per cent, are war veterans. Roughly speaking, therefore, among every 10 employees at least 60 years of age 6 are war veterans.