my fullest sympathy, and I urgently appeal to you gentlemen to report the same as promptly as possible and I earnestly hope that it will have favorable action in both the House and Senate.

The Government should wake up in matters affecting the after welfare of its faithful employees, and I hope soon to see adopted a civil-pension bill which will provide for all of them.

I thank you, gentlemen, for the privilege of appearing before you and of raising my voice in behalf of the employees of the Government service.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM D. STEPHENS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA,

Mr. STEPHENS. Mr. Chairman, the United States has a great army of employees, and in all that vast number there are none more painstaking, none more capable, none more efficient, none more selfsacrificing than are its postal employees.

In my judgment, the United States does not pay its postal employees as much as their services are worth. They should be paid all they now earn so that something might be saved for the days when they can no longer work.

We all know that the men and women who distribute and deliver our daily mails are perhaps the most economical of all our worthy citizenry. They spend no dollar extravagantly, and yet, Mr. Chairman, they can not save for "the rainy day. Not enough is paid

them for that.

Mr. Chairman, every man that knows his honest labor will be rewarded gives more and more to his employer. Every man that gives to the Government all there is in him during a long term of years deserves to have the balance of what he has earned paid to him in monthly installments during his declining years.

This bill is along right lines, and I hope this great committee will consider and report a bill that will do as much for the Government's faithful employees as private employers are doing all over this broad land.

STATEMENT OF HON. HUNTER H. MOSS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA.

Mr. Moss. Anyone who has investigated the subject matter of the bill must be convinced of two important facts: First, that it would be just to retire those who have broken themselves down in the service of the Government; and, second, it would greatly promote the efficiency of the public service to provide for such retirement and replace them with employees much younger and more efficient. The committee is going into this matter very thoroughly, and I will not occupy your time any further than to state that I earnestly hope that you will render a favorable report on this bill, and that the House of Representatives may adopt your report.

STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL J. RIORDAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

Mr. RIORDAN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I appear here this morning in favor of this bill. The pensioning of postal employees is one I have given a great deal of attention to during my long serv

ice in Congress, and I know of no class of Government employees who are more deserving of legislation to this end. The efficiency and attentiveness of postal employees has merited universal commendation in the city of New York.

I sincerely hope that this well-merited recognition will be favorably considered by this committee, and this bill when reported to the House I am sure will pass by a very large majority.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM W. WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.

Mr. WILSON. The Griffin bill, House bill 6915, for the relief of superannuated employees of the Postal Service is, in my opinion, the best legislation that has ever been presented on this subject. It provides for the employees who have given their lives to the service, and does it without great expense to the Government.

This bill has the indorsement of the postal employees of all branches of the Postal Service in Chicago.

I am and always have been deeply interested in the welfare of the employees of the Postal Service, and sincerely hope that this bill will come before the House so that I may have the privilege of voting for it and giving it my support.

I am more than pleased to see more than 100 of my colleagues in the House appearing before this committee this morning to advocate the passage of this legislation. This great outpouring is conclusive evidence that there is a nation-wide demand for this bill.

The fact that the heads of the Post Office Department have for years been asking Congress to enact such legislation is the best proof that the efficiency of the service demands it. The fact that so many great private corporations have voluntarily established pension systems for the retirement of their faithful old. superannuated employees is the best evidence that it is sound business policy to do so. We are all in favor of the classified civil service and believers in the theory that only merit should rule in dealing with the employees. Such study as I have given to this subject convinces me that the merit system can never be fully developed until the heads of the Postal Service are enabled, through the enactment of such legislation as you have under consideration, to rid the service of its superannuates in a just and merciful manner.

The Griffin bill is a very reasonable bill, and I am glad to see, from the statement of the actuary who has testified here, Mr. Miles M. Dawson, that it can be put into effect at a total cost of not to exceed $360,000, which is an insignificant percentage of the total salaries of the great army of employees who will be affected by its provisions.

I hope your subcommittee will favorably report the bill to the full committee and that the full committee will recommend its adoption, so that we Members of Congress may have an opportunity to pass it at the earliest date possible.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH V. FLYNN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

Mr. FLYNN. I am most heartily in favor of this pension bill and am most happy to say something for it. The bill is most meritorious and I sincerely hope it will be enacted into law at this session of

Congress. It is high time that something is done for the benefit of this class of employees who have spent the best years of their life in the service of the Government and some just recognition given in this way for long, faithful, and efficient service.

STATEMENT OF HON. J. H. CAPSTICK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY.

Mr. CAPSTICK. Convinced that sentiment in the fifth New Jersey district is increasingly in favor of the provisions embodied in H. R. 6915, now before your committee, I desire to advise of this feeling and to express the hope that consideration of the proposed measure may result in a favorable report at an early date. I would also like to add, personally I am impressed with the justice and feasibility of this bill.

(Letter from Hon. William J. Cary, a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin :)

It was my intention to appear before your honorable body in behalf of H. R. 6915, granting indefinite leave of absence to superannuated employees in the Postal Service, but illness, confining me to my home, prevents me from doing so, and I am taking advantage of this opportunity to ask that my hearty indorsement of this measure be considered by you.

It is well known by all of us that the letter carriers, post-office clerks, and railway-mail clerks of this country are a respectable, faithful, and very efficient body of public servants, and we also know well that their labors ofttimes are too little appreciated by those whom they serve. As their age increases, their hard work tends to impair their human machines, and, as they discover their vigor wasting, are prone to ask themselves, What am I to do when I can no longer perform my duties?

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How well do I remember a case which has so often been brought to my attention of a man in Boston, Mass., who, in 1914, after performing 42 years of faithful, continuous service-we might say had given his life to the servicewas stricken blind, and discharged from the service. This man, who found it impossible to save from his meager compensation, due to the present high cost of living, found himself penniless and dependent upon the contributions of friends for his livelihood.

Had a law similar to the one espoused by the honorable gentleman from New York, Congressman Griffin, been enacted, this calamity, which is similar to others happening every day of the year, would have been prevented.

I do not desire to take up the time of the committee, but the eyes of the country are looking toward Washington for some adequate means of retirement to care for their "old soldiers," so to speak, so I therefore hope and pray that this subcommittee of the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads will favorably report this measure.

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES H. RANDALL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

Mr. RANDALL. Mr. Chairman, I think I have the honor of having added after my signature the letters M. C. longer than any other Congressman who has appeared before this committee. Twentyfive years ago I began the practice, and while these initials stood for mail clerk instead of Member of Congress, I am filled with pride because of that fact, for if there is a choice between the usefulness to the people of the two occupations, I am strongly inclined to give the preference to my earlier occupation.

For about 15 years my life was in the Postal Service, and for the major portion of that time in the Railway Mail Service. During a number of years I had a run in the longest railway post-office line

in the United States, over 900 miles. It began at Cheyenne, Wyo., and ended at Hutington, Oreg. The bulk of my service, however, was upon the fast mail trains of the Union Pacific Railway in what is known in postal circles as the Omaha & Ogden Railway post office. The actual work performed in this branch of the Postal Service is little known to the public, and likewise its importance as the connecting link between the dispatch in one city or State and the receipt in another city or State of the millions of pieces of mail consigned to Uncle Sam's greatest public utility is illy realized or appreciated.

When you mail a letter in Washington to-day addressed to the village of Podunk on a jerkwater railway in the backwoods of some far-away State, the secret of its receipt in that hayseed village by the quickest possible railway schedule is locked up in the craniums of the 20,000 railway mail clerks of this country. How do they perform the feat, when Podunk represents only 1 of the 55,000 post-office units in this country, about whose train and post route schedules some one must have the same accurate knowledge which applies to Podunk?

Every railway postal clerk is a traveling encyclopedia of post offices and railway train schedules. He must be able to tell his superior officers just where 12,000 to 16,000 post offices are located, upon what railway lines or mail routes, and by what trains they can be most quickly reached. While this sort of knowledge would puzzle you, even if you could sit here in this room and figure out these connections, it must be remembered that the railway postal clerk is in a rapidly moving train, and his knowledge already acquired must be thrown away every time his train passes a railway junction, for the whole scheme of getting a piece of mail to its destination changes just that often.

I mention the class of service which is demanded of this class of postal employees to illustrate the importance from the standpoint of the public to maintain a highly efficient personnel. To secure such a service as we have to-day in the Postal Service the credit is due to the civil-service law. With the application of civil service and consequent security of permanent employment, the Postal Service has attracted a high grade of men during the last 25 years.

But let me warn the committee and Congress that the usefulness of the civil-service law in this respect has reached a turning tide. If it is now to go out that men who went into this service 25 and 30 years ago are to be dropped, after they have given their lives to Government service, and unfited themselves for any other work, then civil-service employment will cease to be attractive to young men of ability and ambition. The reaction will come against the quality of the service and the public will be the sufferer. Only by the enactment of a just and equitable retirement law can the civil service continue to attract the skillful and the ambitious. There will hereafter be a constant effort of young men of quality to quit the civil service before old age and unfitness for employment in more remunerative lines finds them fettered to a Government which will cast them off at the close of long and efficient service. Under the plan of retirement you have under consideration the cost to the Government is practically nothing, as I understand, yet the Government will reap good dividends from its enactment.

An equitable retirement law will give high returns to the people, for it will insure the continued superior quality of its mail service. We are at the dividing of the ways. Retirement with civil-service tenure of office means an upward trend, but civil service with dismal prospects at the end means down grade in public service.

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES BENNETT SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

Mr. SMITH. I hope the committee will adopt a favorable report on the pending bill, and that a special effort will be made to bring the measure before the House at an early date. Such a policy on the part of the committee will have my fullest cooperation and support. Legislation of this general character has been under discussion for more than a quarter of a century, yet one Congress after another has met and adjourned without accepting or rejecting the principle involved in the Griffin bill. The time has arrived when Congress should decide whether those employees of the Post Office Department who have served faithfully and satisfactorily until the years have deprived them of their full vigor and efficiency are to be cared for according to human standards or treated as machinery which has become obsolete and cast ruthlessly aside.

Personally, I have always favored a policy of superannuation. When the firemen, policemen, and school-teachers labored in my home city of Buffalo for adequate protection against the ravages of age, I worked to bring about a permanent and workable plan to accomplish the desired result. I assumed this attitude, not alone because of the social justice involved but because of the economy and wisdom, from the viewpoint of the taxpayer, of replacing with new and young men and women those who had given their best years to the duties assigned to them. Conditions which obtain in a city are not different to those which are found in the United States service. Cabinet officers, chief clerks, and efficiency experts have published volumes of testimony to prove that great savings could be made in administering the Government if the pay rolls could be purged of those who have reached an advanced age and are no longer fitted for active and continuous service. To my mind it would be monstrous to discard these employees until provision is made for their retirement under a pensionable arrangement such as that provided for in the bill under consideration.

I assert, with knowledge gained from actual observation, that the enactment of this bill into law will raise the standard of service to the Government with an additional expense so small that it will be negligible. The bill is meritorious from every standpoint and should, in my judgment, be placed on the statute books at the earliest date possible.

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE HOLDEN TINKHAM, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Mr. TINKHAM. Mr. Chairman, I desire to record myself as being absolutely in favor of a suitable form of retirement for all postal employees of the United States Government.

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