incapacitated on account of an accident or unavoidable injury while in the performance of his duty. In nearly all other lines of occupations provision has been made for compensation for those who shall suffer injury or become incapacitated. Take the great corporations of the country. They are paying their employees greater salaries than the Government and are protecting their aged employees, or superannuated employees, by paying them a monthly or yearly sum of money, sufficient in amount to maintain and support them and secure to them the comforts and necessities of life. Why, then, should not this committee make such provision in this bill as would meet this emergency?

I know the committee is erowded for time and that you can not indulge me to discuss this matter as thoroughly as I would like to discuss it, but I regard this subject as vitally important, and I sincerely hope and urge that your committee favorably report this bill. I have talked with a number of the Representatives in Congress, and the feeling seems to be almost universal in favor of this bill.

I know of no class of employees who make greater sacrifices than do the persons who are engaged in the Postal Service. The compensation which they receive is not commensurate with the services rendered, and they have no opportunity to lay up money for a rainy day. Their meager salary, in many instances, is scarcely sufficient to provide them and their families with the comforts and necessities of life. I am deeply anxious that this bill may receive your favorable consideration and that you may see your way clear to favorably report it to the House, where I am quite sure it will receive a large majority of the votes for final passage and enactment into law.

The postal employees render faithful and efficient public service to the people of this Nation, and in fact to the people of the world, and in my judgment this Government has been rather slow in taking this step. It is a proper step in the right direction. And, in conclusion, I sincerely urge you to recommend this bill to the House for passage.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM L. LA FOLLETTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. Chairman, I simply want to go on record as being in favor of the general principle embraced in this bill. I have not had time to study this particular bill with any great amount of care. I am inclined to think, however, that with some few amendments the bill should become a law.

I consider that this department of all other departments of the Government is probably most worthy of legislation of this kind, and it is my opinion that if we are to make a start in this direction we should start with the Post Office Department.

The services of the employees of the Post Office Department throughout the United States come nearer to the people and render a service that is nearer to their interests than those of any other department of the Government. I think the passage of this bill for the benefit of the superannuated employees of the Post Office Department will therefore cause less criticism if this sort of legislation is made to apply first to the post-office employees of the Federal Gov

ernment than it would if it were made to apply to the employees of any other branch of the service.

This is only an entering wedge. It will be only a matter of time until the employees of all of the departments will receive attention and will have legislation for their benefit under proper conditions. It is only a question of time, and unless we change our economic conditions in America we will be compelled to give pensions to superannuated employees regardless of whether they are in the Government employ or not. I think that is recognized by most of our students of economic subjects.

As I say, Mr. Chairman, I am not prepared to go on record as to the merits of this particular bill in every particular, but I am in favor of the principle embodied in the bill.

STATEMENT OF HON. E. C. HUTCHINSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I simply desire to say, without taking more than a moment of your time, that I am heartily in favor of this bill. I think the principle embodied in the bill is a right I am glad to see that our Government is about to start to follow the lead of the big corporations of the country.

one.

I would like, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, the privilege of extending my statement.

Mr. BEAKES. Without objection, that permission will be granted. STATEMENT OF HON. F. W. DALLINGER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Mr. DALLINGER. Mr. Chairman, as one who has been interested in the welfare of the postal employees for a good many years, it has always been a mystery to me why some such bill was not reported. long ago by some committee of Congress.

I am very glad that this matter is now before this committee, because this committee this year in the general Post Office appropriation bill has incorporated certain provisions for the welfare of the postal employees. That bill, containing these provisions, has already passed the House of Representatives.

I want to indorse what has been said by the other Members of the House who have spoken here this morning in regard to this bill, and particularly to emphasize the suggestion made by Judge Towner, of Iowa, that the bill ought to go further and include not only postal employees who become incapacitated from performing their duties, permanently incapacitated through superannuation, but through other causes, such as has been already suggested in the case of the man who had his arms frozen, or those who are injured in other ways-permanently injured in the discharge of their duties I think they ought to be entitled to the benefits of this bill.

I have no doubt that the author of the bill, Mr. Griffin, will be perfectly willing to have the bill include that.

As one who has studied the question for a number of years, I want to say that the experience of other Governments, and also the experience of private employers of labor, has been that a system of this

kind has resulted invariably in greater efficiency and in ultimate

economy.

When I was in college I remember in the course in elocution we had to recite a selection that read something like this: "Give me, oh, give me, the man who sings at his work." He will do more work; he will do it better.

That is true, and that is the psychology which underlies this whole matter of increased efficiency. The man who is happy in his employment, who feels that his employer is human and is going to treat him as one human being ought to be treated by another, is going to be more enthusiastic in his work; and that enthusiasm amongst the employees of a private corporation or of a government means a great deal. It is what we call the esprit de corps. It means a great deal in the way of efficiency and real economy.

If I were to sum up this matter in one sentence, I would say that every consideration of efficient service to the public and of ultimate economy to the Government and fair treatment of the employees demands a favorable report by your subcommittee and also by the full committee of a bill of this kind and its passage by the House.

I hope your committee will give the Members of the House of Representatives an opportunity to vote for this bill, drawn in the most careful way.

One suggestion has been made in regard to the discretion of the Postmaster General, and I trust your committee will guard that, because I know of cases where men who have been 40 or 50 years in the Government service, who are just as efficient to-day as they ever were, who have been recommended for a decrease of $200 in their salaries because it has been claimed they are not so spry as they were before.

I know of two cases of that kind of men who are not only veterans in the Postal Service but veterans of the Civil War, who are perfectly efficient to-day, and who can do the work as well as they could ever do it, and who want to work, who are willing to work, but who have been recommended for a decrease of their salaries by the Postmaster General. I think when those men are willing to work and able to work they ought to be able to do it, and that the Postmaster General should not be allowed to stop them from working. One of those men has a family, and he is getting $1,200 a year, and under this ruling of the Postmaster General that man would be put down to $600 a year, and he does not want to have that done to him.

I hope the bill will be favorably reported by your committee.

STATEMENT OF HON. ALBERT JOHNSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, I have received a number of telegrams asking me to look into this measure. I have examined the bill, and I desire to be recorded as making a statement in favor of it, with an amendment which would fix the maximum amount above which this question of retirement should not apply.

It has been my experience in the far West that most of the minor employees of the Government are woefully underpaid, and I am in hopes that this Congress will not only pass a bill of this kind but

that it will take care of the employees in the customhouses, the guards at the jails and penitentiaries, and all other employees who are paid less than $1,000 a year.

STATEMENT OF HON. ALFRED G. ALLEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I am glad that the committee is considering the subject of a retirement law, as it is becoming more and more apparent that the enactment of a measure involving this principle would be not only just and humane but would also promote the efficiency of the service. The great corporations of the country have found it desirable and economical, and it has long been adopted for the fire and police departments of many of our municipalities and for the teachers in our public schools. I trust that the committee will go into the subject fully and report a bill which may be acted on at this session.

STATEMENT OF MR. MILES M. DAWSON, CONSULTING ACTUARY, NEW YORK, N. Y.

Mr. DAWSON. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, this is the first time I have appeared before a committee of Congress on the subject of granting allowances or pensions for superannuation.

I am most gratified to have been present at one of the most extraordinary sessions any committee of Congress has ever had, either here or in any other legislative body, and I have been a rather frequent attendant on various committee hearings in reference to matters about which I had some special information. I have certainly never seen here or in any State legislature so remarkable an outpouring of earnest interest in a measure of this type or anything at all resembling it, and I doubt if any person in any country in the world has. It goes to show how fortunate has been the selection of the way in which this subject is now being presented.

It has not failed to be before Congress a great many times not merely in recent years but many, many years ago.

While I personally have been in touch with it for many years, I have not appeared before a committee heretofore in reference to it for at least 15 years past.

I was employed as an actuary of the United States Civil Service Reform Association at least 15 years ago, and gave them some advice upon the subject at that time. I was asked about various things, both when the bills with which, I fancy, the members of your committee are well acquainted were before the House of Representatives and the Senate, three or four years ago, and continuously up until last year. I was unable to appear before them because it seemed to me that some of the things they were asking for were things I could not stand for.

I was far from being able to appear in favor of the bills for providing pensions without some means of mulcting the employees of a part of their present salaries, which bills were put forward with perfectly good purposes by men who were quite as much interested in them as anybody was, but which were unquestionably very unwise measures, measures that would have done much more harm had

they been accepted, and cost more trouble and suffering than could possibly have been provided for. They would have failed except by the principle of Congress making appropriation to take care of those who are now becoming involved.

I say I regard it as extremely fortunate that this measure appears before you in its present general form. Its form now differs from either of the two forms to which I was personally unable to give my support. One of the measures I could not give my support to I have already referred to. That was a form of mere assessment upon the employees' salaries, to be deposited in a savings bank at a very low rate of interest, thus attempting to compel an accumulation of funds for the old-age idea.

The other form was one which called for pensioning of all employees after a certain limited term of service.

There was one bill introduced by a Congressman who is a personal friend of mine, which he very earnestly desired me to support, and that provided for a pension of civil-service employees after only 20 years of service. I am quite sure that is what the bill provided. I know I have seen bills that did such things, and as great as my interest in this subject has been, a technical interest as well as a general interest, growing out of great sympathy with the whole subject, and out of a very intimate acquaintance with it, and a thorough-going study of it, I found myself unable to come here in support of such bills.

This bill provides compensation to be given to these employees upon their incapacitation. It thereby avoids putting people out of the service who are still capable of the very best service, which is one of the evils of both the other classes of measures. And it avoids, on the other hand, attempting to saddle upon the taxpayers an enormous pension payment to the men who are quite as able to make a living as we are.

You will observe that while bills of that character have been here before, no committee of this House before whom those bills came had any large number of Congressmen from the different districts all over the United States appearing before the committee to record their favorable opinions concerning them. On the other hand, the moment it was understood in all the districts in the United States that a measure which would relieve only those cases of actual incapacity through superannuation was before this House and was going to have a hearing, every one of these Congressmen was reminded of things in his own district that should have been remedied in this respect, and I have no doubt that the vast majority of Members who have not appeared this morning are of exactly the same opinion and have exactly the same sentiment in reference to this matter, because it has been brought home to them in their own districts and they know about it. They do not guess about it.

It so happens that in the campaign-and that very active and thorough-going campaign reflected great credit upon the men who engineered it, so far as their quality was concerned, and I may also say reflected great credit upon them so far as their earnest desire to be useful was concerned-the Gillett bill provided for some scheme of assessing the employees-you may remember that at that time a very clever document was gotten out which your committee should carefully read from cover to cover. In the course of the preparation