$40 a month the Postal Service offered me, and I felt it my duty to go out and earn it for them. I will illustrate what happened to both of us.

He went into a lace house at $4 a week. I went into the Postal Service at $40 a month. In four years I had advanced to $115 a month I think, in fact, that I had advanced to $115 a month in two years. I resigned at the age of 20, when I was drawing $115 a month. I then went into a law office at $5 a week. I was a night clerk and had been studying law in the daytime whenever I had the opportunity; my tour of duty in the post office was midnight until 9 in the morning. By getting out and starting anew in the way I did I have been able to accomplish what little I have accomplished in the world. But supposing I had stayed in the Postal Service. What would have happened to me?

Mr. TAGUE. You would have been Postmaster General.

Mr. O'SHAUNESSY. No; just what happened to most of them. Instead of getting the $1.380 a year, which was the salary I received when I resigned, I would have been reduced to $1,200 a year; perhaps less, the same as others were.

Î would have been entitled to a pension for the work I did, had I remained in the service. I worked from midnight until 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning, as it suited the necessities of my superiors, and without any pay for overtime. It was very hard work, under the system then in vogue. Conditions have changed since; they have improved materially.

My chum began at $4 a week. I would have liked to continue in the house where I was employed and from which I resigned to enter the Postal Service at $40 a month; I would have much rather continued there at $4 a week, but I could not afford it. My chum was raised as soon as possible to $7, $8, and $9 a week. He was working as stock clerk in a lace house. Then they sent him out on the road at a salary of about $2,000 a year. The man became a very successful salesman. When I inquired about him some 15 or 16 years ago, the man was worth $100,000. Suppose his family had needed that $40 a month, as my family needed mine, and supposing he had gone into the Postal Service as I did; he would have remained a clerk. He would have advanced up to $115 a month, and then back down to $1,000 or $1,200, as many more of them have been cut down. I knew men in New York in the Postal Service who, after working 20 or 30 years for the Government were working for $60 a month. The boys fresh from school came in and got the $100 or $115 a month simply because their memories were better, their eyesight was better, and they were more proficient in distributing the nail. These men I have mentioned were up against the blank wall that I mentioned at the start. There are many, many men who enter the Government service and afterwards realize that they have made a mistake. The question may be asked, Why don't they leave? There are others who are willing and eager to take their places, it is said. That is so, but that is not the question. Many of them get married, and when a man gets married he is anchored there for all time; he can never get out of the service. That is one of the reasons why I am in favor of the Government pension system. I want you to think of the good luck of the men who fail to get into the

Government service; they may be disappointed, but how great is the benefit if they can only wait for the opportunity as my chum waited. You all have heard of Abraham Lincoln's ambition, when he finished a term in Congress to be appointed Commissioner of the Land Office; & lucky day for him and the Nation when he missed the dust of the department and its banalities. He missed the stone wall of Government service.

I hope that this committee will go into that question and investigate it thoroughly. They should take these facts into consideration. The committee can not do better than to urge the establishment of a retirement system, so that men may look forward to the day when they can retire on a Government pension, after they have become so old as not to be as efficient workmen as their younger brothers. I think that a pension system will go a long way toward increasing efficiency in the service, for the simple reason that a man can work much better when he can look forward to being retired on an old-age competence and does not have to wrestle with the fear of having to face the poorhouse in his old age. We have seen such a system in vogue in England. They have a pension there for civil employees and an old-age pension besides. I favor it, gentlemen. I favor anything that will give men something in their old age to keep them from the poorhouse. Let us preserve them. That is the foundation of good government and the foundation of a good home and the foundation of a good citizenry.

Mr. Tilson referred to the fact of there being a lot of old men in the departments and the difficulties which the heads of the departments have in dealing with them-in dealing with the problem they create. Where is the man with a heart so cold and hard as to throw these people out? Still, the Government suffers because they are there. There ought to be some system to automatically remove them, with a pension, and younger people in the service given an opportunity to demonstrate their ability and to get the higher wage. We want efficiency in the Government service, and the only way to get it is to enact a provision for retirement of the old people and their replacement by young ones.

The question is asked, would I advocate something other than this by way of a system for other employees? I would extend it to cover all Government employees. I have sympathy even with the farmers, of whom the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Cox) talks. I am not opposed to an old-age-pension system, because I think that will add to the sum total of human happiness in this country and result in better homes and in better government. Of course, we can not go into that now, but we have got to begin some place, and this is the place to begin. The Postal Service is a great service, and a service that comes more immediately in contact with the general public than any other service in the Government.

Mr. Cox. Would you incorporate this general pension provision in the same bill?

Mr. O'SHAUNESSY. We do not do that in Congress. You know that, Mr. Cox.

Mh. Cox. Why not put it all in?

Mr. O'SHAUNESSY. I am with you, if you want to do it that way, but I think it would be rather difficult. I believe, first of all, in a

straight-out pension system, because I do not think the men get any too much of a wage now. I am always bearing in mind that they are up against that stone wall, and they can not see beyond that. There their progress is arrested. There they stop. No further can they go. If such a system can not be gotten, then I think the second best is a system of contributions-the contributory system; and, after that, last of all comes the system that takes a little from the employees and makes it into a fund for retirement. I know, however, that the employees believe in a straight pension, and for that I stand.

I think there will be no regret if this committee puts its hand to the plow and works out some scheme of retirement. I think you will be covering yourself with glory by doing that.

Mr. PAIGE. I have heard it stated that when a man entered the Postal Service the door of opportunity is closed.

Mr. O'SHAUNESSY. Yes, sir.

Mr. PAIGE. You are still of that opinion?

Mr. O'SHAUNESSY. I am not in the Postal Service. I was one of the rare exceptions. There are exceptions to every rule. But I will say that the vast majority of the men who entered the Postal Service with me remained there. Many of them have died there. The ones I was associated with, many of them, have heavy hearts, because they realized that it was just so far that they could go and no farther; and, believe me, gentlemen, they earned every dollar the Goyernment gave them; and to-day, as in the days of which I speak, every dollar the Government gives the postal employees is earned. The clerk knows the ding-dong grind of sameness. Sorting letter after letter, constantly standing on his feet, the carrier bears his burden through the streets in all kinds of weather, and does much preliminary work in the office before he starts on his route. I have rubbed elbows with these men. I know their worth. That is the reason I am here to speak for them. I thank you.

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