by Enabling the People to Know and Apply the Truth 1 Other Departments of their Government at Washington. VOLUME V A Busy JUN 3 1920 LIBRARY Sever fund THE SEARCHLIGHT JUNE, 1920 Your Government at Washington With the approach of the summer political recess, the congressional machine speeds up a little. The appropriation bills are being pushed along, though the dark-lantern work of conference is by no means completed as yet. The Senate without a dissenting vote passed a reasonably good budget bill, and conferees are busy trying to iron out the material differences between the House and Senate measures. Another stage in the interminable treaty controversy was reached when the Senate passed the Knox peace resolution. More important was the passage of the long-overdue civil service retirement bill, and the outbreak of practically open war between the Departments of Justice and Labor, which led to Assistant Secretary Post's appearance before the House Committee on Rules and his able defense of his action in deportation cases. The President's veto of the legislative, executive and judicial appropriation bill added interest to a month marked by continuous fighting over proposed bonus legislation and by a number of able speeches in both Houses dealing with the facts of profiteering and social unrest. One scans the columns of the Record in vain, however, for really adequate proposals for dealing with a situation difficult beyond all precedent. Salvation, apparently, must come from the people, not from Congress. After long discussion and careful consideration in both houses, the civil service retirement bill has at last been passed. The Turned Out measure was fought to the very to Pasture last, the final stages of its consideration in the Senate being marked by a determined filibuster. Yet there seems to be no rational ground for opposing the bill, and every consideration of humanity and efficiency dictates its adoption. But of course, as we have got along without a retirement measure for 131 years, we ought so to continue forever. The maximum annuity provided is $720; the minimum $180. In order to be eligible an employee must have been in government service fifteen years, and he is required to contribute 22 per cent of his salary to aid in creating the pen NUMBER 1 sion fund. General employees are eligible for retirement at 70; mechanics, letter carriers and postoffice clerks at 65; and railway postal clerks at 62. More than 100,000 government employees in the District of Columbia alone are immediately eligible for retirement. It is estimated that the maximum number of annuitants will not exceed 30,000. They may receive as much as $18,000,000, of which the Government will contribute not more than $10,000,000. While the measure is by no means wholly satisfactory to those who have so long fought for an intelligent retirement policy, its enactment represents a distinct forward step in the civil service. Not only does it do something toward relieving employees of the fear of want in old age; but it makes possible the retirement of inefficient workers. The actuary of the Treasury estimates the consequent gain in efficiency at not less than 5 per cent, equivalent to over $18,000,000 a year. Yet the measure has been fought to the last ditch. A Glorious For a century and a quarter there has been an American tradition of the right of political asylum. Men yet live who heard from the lips of their own fathers the thrilling story of Louis Kossuth's reception on our shores. Seventy years ago we threw wide our gates to the German "forty-eighters." They had dared all, even life itself, in the struggle against tyranny. Defeated, they fled across the hungry seas to the hospitable land of liberty in the West. It is but a decade and a half since the present generation of Americans opened their arms to receive Catharine Breshkovsky and Nicholas Tchaikovsky and all the host of proscribed victims of imperial Russian tyranny. During all these years we have maintained our tradition as a crown of glory. The glory is not yet departed. Though "the fierce spirit of liberty" of which Burke spoke slumbers, it is not yet dead. But the steady pressure of industrial autocracy perpetually threatens to throttle it. When the diplomatic and consular appropriation bill emerged from the conference committee, it carried under the caption, "Fees for Passports and Visés," the two provisions following: |