Valentine Democrat

GOVERNMENT SALARIES
Adjustment Necessary to Meet High Prices.
THE UNJUST REPUBLICAN PLAN
Protection to Trusts and Currency Inflation Cause Of the Enormous Increase In Cost of Living—Sliding Scale For Salaries Proposed as a Fair Solution of Conditions.

Congressman Littauer of New York and of army glove scandal fame is trying to make himself quite conspicuous in congress this winter. He perhaps is so presuming because President Roosevelt once said he was his "warm personal friend and close political adviser" and in spite of his grafting record is still welcomed at the White House. Mr. Littauer is opposed to a general increase in government salaries. "I do not believe," he said, "that the man who performs clerical labor is underpaid in Washington as compared to similar work in other walks of life." He declared he was not in sympathy with suggestions that increases should go to men and women working for the government on salaries below $1,800, "but," said Mr. Littauer, I think that there are men in the government service at the heads of bureaus who deserve more money. They are the men who initiate, plan and execute. Often, too, they are the men who really do the work of those higher up and receiving much larger salaries. The government profits by the brains of some of these men, but, I admit, it will be difficult to reward the efficient and do nothing for the inefficient."

This plutocratic idea that the poorly paid $900 or $1,200 clerk was not entitled to an increase of salary, but that the Republican pets, the chiefs of divisions with $2,500 and the still higher officials, were not sufficiently paid, is on a par with other Republican theories. The Republican programme seems to be "to him that hath shall be given and to him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath" by increasing the salaries of those already well paid and by plundering the poorly paid through vastly increasing the cost of living by standing pat on the tariff that protects the trusts. It now costs 55 per cent more to live than when most of the salaries of clerks were fixed as equitable, and as it requires $1.55 now to buy what did cost $1 the lot of the clerks with an average of $100 a month is not a happy one. But the Republican pets, the higher officials, the men who really do the "work," as Mr. Littauer erroneously declares, unless he means political work, are to have their salaries increased. Of course this Republican patriot of army glove contract notoriety voted to increase the salaries of congressmen from $5,000 to $7,500 and also for the increase to $12,000 of the salary of the speaker of the house and of the cabinet officials, but the clerk has no favor in his eyes, and the worst of it is that what he said was evidently inspired and approved by the president. This unjust Republican policy is a natural corollary of the iniquitous system of protectionism, which plunders the many for the benefit of the few and fosters trusts and combinations. As opposed to this system the Democratic party stands for equal rights to all. The tariff must therefore be revised so as to reduce the protection to the trusts and adjusted to a revenue basis, so that high and low officials of the government can be paid such reasonable salaries as will draw to the government the best talent in the country. As it will take some time to again adjust prices that have been artificially increased by tariff protection and inflation of the currency, it might be well to have the pay of government officials fixed each year by a sliding scale on the basis of prices and the cost of living, so that when the voters decide to "turn the rascals out" and abolish trust protection, which is one of the chief causes of the present enormous increase in the cost of living, the people will not be burdened with a greatly increased salary roll that would be unlikely to be scaled down, for experience shows that government salaries once raised have always prevailed.