Читать книгу One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money - Harold Morse Dunphy - Страница 240

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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.

The Interstate Commerce Commission has afforded the opportunity to a number of civil-service employees to secure advancement to positions paying $5,000 a year.

These instances could be multiplied many times. No attempt has been made to cover all the departments and bureaus; the selections have been made from large numbers of equally interesting cases. Aside from the excellent opportunities for advancement in the Government service, many men have received training in Government establishments which has qualified them to hold positions paying as high as $12,000 a year, and even more, in private employ.

It is human to measure success by standards of money, but, of course, pecuniary reward represents only a certain kind of success. Achievement, work well done, whatever it may be, is success. The civil service of the United States offers a wide field of opportunity where individual tastes may be developed and where real constructive work may be done. Its offices, laboratories, and workshops are equipped with modern appliances. Its libraries receive currently the books and periodicals needed by the worker in his effort to keep abreast of his fellows. Its working hours and vacation periods permit the worker to live while he works, and he works better in consequence. The civil service has much to commend it to the discharged soldier, sailor, or marine, or any other citizen who seeks work.