Making Crookedness Straight

ín o just person who knows auything oi tho coat of living in Washington woulc say that tho incre'ased salaries of meinbers of Congress and othor public functionaries was exorbitant. In tho back pay and in the way that they took it they botrayed their groediness and their cupidity. Thero was no excusa for that. During tha debate on the " salary bill," just before tho holidays, somo vory curious Congressional ideas of compensation carne to the surface. Objection was made to the bill because it also reduced tho salarios of " inadequately paid employés of Congress." Among" these inadequately paid" servitors were " messengers." whose salaries had been raised from $1,800 a year to $2,700 for services during the sessions of Congress. There were "folders" - men whoso mighty task is to paste the wrappers on documents - whose salaries had been raised from $1,440 a year tof 1,653 a yoar. There were " mail boys" whoso yearly salaries had been raised from $1,728 to f 1,987 20. Aud there wero assistant messengors - usually little boys - whose pay had been increased from $1,080 to $1,242. They were paid by tho year ; yet quite half of ono and inore than half of every other year was to them a holiday, in which to do as they pleased - their salaries continuing. The increased rato of pay for mechanics on naval steamships, allowing for commutation of the rations, is $84, or $1,008 a year ; and their year of labor means an entire year. Ten hundred and eight dollars a year is considered high wages to be paid skilled mechanics on Government ships ; but the messengers, folders and mail-boys of Congress are declared to be "inadequately paid" when they get wages rangiug from $1,410 to $1,800 a year. The services of a boy darting about with mails from desk to desk, two or three times a day, on tho velvet-carpoted Hoor of the Senate, for a half or quarter of the year, are estimated to bu worth nearly twice os much as the services of a skilled machinist in the navy for an entire year. - and at these ratos it is tho broadelothrobed and skipping boy who is declared to bo " inadequately" paid. This is one side of the " crookedncss" so difficult to be made straight. Hero is another. Several years ago Congress passed a law declaring that no woman in Government employment - no matter what her fitness or accomplishments, nor how responsible the labor that sho performed - should receive more than $900 a year. As a re8ult, while there are many women in Government employment who do not earn more than this, there are many others who perform the labors of men, more than one who filis the desks of two men. Ho matter what her qualifications, no matter what labor sho performs, Congress has deeided by law that, for doing what a man would receive from $1,000 to $2,500, sho is to be paid $900, and in that sum is ' adequately" paid. Worthy this of a body of men who delight in public assombly to lower their heads and to elévate their heols.