Chapter XIX - Efficiency and Compensation of Governmental Personnel

On the other hand, our public policy has been to reward the rank and file of public employees, from common labor up, because they cast many votes, considerably better than the same persons could hope for at similar work for private employers. That, too, is all wrong. There is no reason why a [ 3°9] Tao Much Government-Too Much Taxation man should earn more money as a city policeman than as night watchman in a warehouse; .or why a trimmer of electric street-lights should earn more than a trimmer of the same lamps in a railway yard. Yet such is the custom all over the United States; and the difference between the wages in the one case and the other is in part grafted out of the man who earns it by the parasites of the political machine. In short, the thoroughly tested principle of big business should be applied, it seems to me, in public affairs, namely: to make the compensation of the constructive directing minds commensurate with the results actually achieved, and at least equal to the rewards of private business; in which case the honor and distinction of public office should attract the very ablest men to the public service. Onthe other hand, the compensation of those who merely work with their hands or pens (simply skilled work men under orders, average men and women whose ambition stops with doing a moderate day's work and drawing a full day's pay) should be fixed by the law of supply and demand, exactly as in other occupa tions, at merely "going wages."

Pensions. In this connection a word about pen sions is in order. Most governments grant pensions to superannuated military or civil servants of the community, besides their wages, which last in this country range higher for the rank and file than going wages in private business. I am personally doubtful as to ordinary pension systems, for the great reason that they discourage thrift and encourage wastefulness during the best years of men's producing power. Why should a man work hard to earn, and save hard to lay by, if gov ernment is to step in by and by and take care of him? .His family will probably be off his· hands by that [ 310 ] Efficiency and Compensation of Personnel time; and meantime he can spend as he likes. I can not believe in discouraging thrift or relieving any man of responsibility for his own future, especially at the expense of the community. Pension systems based upon compulsory contribution, taken out of daily or weekly wage, have at least the merit that the man provides for his own old age; but they have the vice of compelling him to do so. Voluntary thrift is the.

great desideratum. For instance, in France and Belgium, thrift is perhaps inborn, perhaps only habitual among the working classes.; but either way it is one of their most striking characteristics. Pauperism is almost un known. I remember one day walking down the Rue St. Antoine near the· Bastille in Paris; a street which corresponds to the Bowery in New York. I saw a crowd staring into a shop window and joined it, expecting to see a parrot and a monkey, or similar happy family in a cage. But what the crowd looked at was a lot of small-denomination bonds of one of the great French railways exposed in the front window of a local branch of the Credit Lyonnais. The bonds were in pieces as small as 50 francs (or less than $10.00) and bore 4-per-cent. coupons. That laboring crowd was going in, and buying those bonds, as fast as the clerks could hand them over the counter. Even so the common people and the farmers of France took t1}.e French government bonds back in the 70's, whose proceeds paid the German war indemnity of 5,000 million francs!

Look now across the Channel to England, where there was at that time (fifteen years ago) the most extravagant system of Poor Laws in the world. (Since then I think an old-age pension system has been added and an unemployment insurance, too). The consequence was what Commander Booth, of [ 311 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation the Salvation Army, called in his book that appeared just then "The Submerged Tenth." According to him, one tenth of the population of Great Britain was pauperized, dependent upon poor relief and destined to die in the poor house. Yet the popula tion of Great Britain was no more dense than that of France; nor its natural conditions in any way harder upon the working classes. It is true that the great distilleries and breweries, then as now owned and financed the English public-houses, and developed the sale of ale and beer, rum, gin, and whiskey, with all the powerful machinery of commerce; whereas the French cafe, and the sale of the cheap red wines of the country, was not so organized and financed.

This difference undoubtedly meant much; but it then seemed to me that the existence of so frightful a fact as "the submerged tenth" was directly traceable to the English Poor Laws; to the popular habit of wast ing during the productive years, without fear of, or shame at, becoming a dependent on public charity sooner or later. I expressed this thought one night to an English gentleman whom I met on a steamer crossing the North Sea some fifteen years ago. He turned out to be a magistrate, and one of the Poor Law Guard ians for his country. He answered about as fol lows: "I am afraid you are right. In my county we keep on building new poor houses and infirmaries. Our population does not grow, but the new houses all fill up at once. 'Nature abhors a vacuum,' you know. Create a free lodging, and that will bring a lodger to fill it." This matter seems to me fundamental and vital to the virility of a nation. For the manhood of any nation can be no stronger than that of its individual [ 312 ] Efficiency and Compensation of Personnel cItIzens. For that reason, I doubt the wisdom of governmental or compulsory pension systems; while, on the other' hand, I thoroughly believe in voluntary life and endowment insurance, in private or regular insur~nce companies-the insured saving up his own premIum.

Conclusion. Finally, it is my conviction that a marked distinction should be made between legisla...; tive and administrative public office. Legislative office should be entrusted only to the ablest, most experienced, most unselfish, and most incorruptible members of the community. When a man under takes to lay down the law for his fellowmen he should work for the honor of it and not for cash. That would put him in position to say to his fellow men, with authority, what they should or should not do; and without suspicion of selfish motive on his part in framing the law. His sole motive should be the general prosperity of the community; and his personal interest should, as far as is humanly pos sible, coincide with that general prosperity. It is a powerful argument for selection of men of ample fortune to serve as legislators, that in direct propor tion to their fortunes, must increase their interest in the general prosperity. It is as impossible for great properties to escape loss from general shrinkage in values as to escape gain from general prosperity.

While it is true that the poor man also likewise loses or gains, the rich man loses or gains more. Of course, he can live longer than the poor man upon his own fat, but his waist-measure shrinks much faster in proportion. Administrative office may, on the other hand, be a life career, commencing in youth, at the bottom of' the ladder in· the public employ; or else the reward of ability proven outside of that employ. It should [ 313 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation offer as great opportunity for not only an honest and comfortable living, but for brilliant success and large personal fortune, as is offered by private enterprise; for the latter, plus the prestige of high office, alone can command the highest ability. [ 314 ] CHAPTER XX TOO MUCH AND TOO COMPLEX TAXATION No CONSEQUENCE of the Great War is more interest ing or fraught with more beneficial possibilities than its ultimate effect on taxation. Everywhere through out the world, or at least among those nations lately belligerent, the powers that be are looking for new sources of national and local revenue-for something new to tax. At the same time everywhere the tax payers are rebelling against further imposition.