An act of Congress, approved February 25, 1919, provides as follows:
“That all former Government employees who have been drafted or enlisted in the military service of the United States in the war with Germany shall be reinstated on application to their former positions, if they have received an honorable discharge and are qualified to perform the duties of the position.”
Some Men Who Have Made Good
In the Government service, as in private employ, unusual ability is rewarded by more rapid promotion. As indicating that opportunity is not lacking in Government offices for those who possess brains and ambition, a few examples, selected from a large number of similar cases, may be mentioned:
In the Department of Labor an employee now receiving a salary of $3,000 a year entered the Government service as a compositor in the Government Printing Office at $3.20 a day. Another, in the same department and receiving the same salary, started as a clerk at $1,000. An assistant to the Secretary of Labor, who is paid $5,000 a year, entered the service in 1906 as a stenographer at $900. This employee, as well as one who was appointed at $1,000 and who now receives $4,000, studied law while in the service, attending the evening classes held by one of the several universities in Washington. A former Chinese inspector, appointed at $1,440 in 1903, also studied law and by successive promotions has attained a salary of $4,500 a year.
The present Solicitor for the Department of State entered that department as a law clerk at $1,600 a year in 1909. His present salary is $5,000 a year.
The Department of the Interior pays $4,000 a year to one of its employees who entered the service as a copyist at $900.
A messenger boy in the Post Office Department, appointed in 1903, now holds a position in another department which pays $5,000 a year.
An employee of the Department of Agriculture now receiving $4,000 a year started in 1904 as a clerk-stenographer-typist at $1,000. In the same department there is an instance of a rise from assistant messenger at $480 a year in 1906 to assistant to the Secretary at $3,300 a year at the present time.
In the Treasury Department are two employees who rose, one from $720 and the other from $1,800 a year, to positions in that department paying $6,000 a year.