" UNCLE SAM'S " PENSION LIST

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 83, 9 April 1910, Page 14

" UNCLE SAM'S " PENSION LIST

LARGEST OF ANY NATION. The United States Government maintains the largest civil list of any nation m th« world, having 370,000 functionaries with a pay roll aggregating more than 400,000,000 dollars, according to a computation of the Indianapolis News, and this gigantic sum is exclusive of the appropriations for the Army, the Navy, and pensions, reaching into other hundreds of millions. It is estimated that the increase in the number of public servant* is 14,000 per annum, adding 10,000,000 dollars yearly to salaries paid. No wonder we have come to the twobillion Congresa (says the Washington Post) and the three-billion Congress is not far ahead, for it was. but twenty years ago that the country was in a convulsion of horror because of a billiondollar Congress in time of peace. If to the public servants of the Federal establishment should bo added the State, country and municipal officials, doubtless the number would exceed 500,000 individuals to keep our governmental machinery going. It ought to bo the best Government in the world. It costs enough. John Randolph of Roanoke was one of the clearest thinkers and one of the moet. formidable debaters in the entire history of parliamentary government, here or elsewhere. One of his greatest speeches was mad© in opposition to a multiplicity of public servants, and it has Tjcen quoted wiUi approval and as warning, a "thousand times einco his death by statesmen andt politicians from all sections and of all parties. In his day the Blue Itook was a primer ; now it is a stupendous lexicon of several volume*. If the business affairs of the- governments of the Slates and Nation were administered by a directory composed of men like C. P. Hunt ing ton, Jay Gould, K. H. Harriman, J. J. Hill, J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andy Carnegie and others of that ilk, and they should bring to the work the same vigilance, economy, skill, and intelligence they employed in their personal enterprises, the public expenses would be reduced one-half or more. But that would not be representative republican government, and possibly such a^ system as we have is worth it* price. The people can force reform when they eet about it,