Payday

The Senate finally began doing something about the Government's long-under paid hired hands. Convinced at last that the U.S. could not get first-class service for second-class salaries, it voted some $476 million a year in pay boosts for the 1,600,000 members of the armed forces and 1,400,000 Government employees. With only perfunctory appeals to economy, the Senate approved:

P: A $61 million-a-year raise for about 500,000 U.S. postal workers--an average of $100 each (but only half the amount the House had voted).

P:A $110 million boost for 885,000 civil-service employees--an average of $125 each (but trimming the pay limit of $15,000 set by the House to $12,500).

P:A $304 million House bill, increasing pay rates for men & officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, National Guard, Air National Guard, Coast & Geodetic Survey and Public Health Service.

Urgent Appeal. Although the nation's fighting men were already the highest paid in the world, military pay, particularly for officers, had long lagged behind the civilian level. The result was the first general brass-to-rookie pay boost in 40 years. Some samples: a corporal, who got $42 a month before World War II and now draws $105, will get $132; a master sergeant drawing $157 before the war and $283 now, will get $363 ; majors will move up from $484 to $560; brigadier generals from $712 to $961.

After the big bills, with only the smallest of the Administration's pay bills left to pick on, the Senate began worrying about economy all over again. For two days it haggled over the Administration's proposal for boosting the salaries of some 250 key U.S. officials. Harry Truman sent an urgent letter to Vice President Alben Barkley to prod the Senate. The reason the proposed increases seemed so large, he argued, was that they had been so long in coming. Wrote the President:

"The 15 top executives of a single private corporation in this country [i.e., the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., which pays its top officers an average of $213,715 each] are paid more than the aggregate salary now paid to all the 250 or so federal officers to whom this bill applies."

New Equality. After a little more grumbling, the Senate gave in--but not before it had lopped almost a half off the President's proposal, which the House had already approved. Cabinet officers were jumped from $15,000 to $22,500 a year (instead of the $25,000 Harry Truman requested); Presidential Aides Clark Clifford and John Steelman got raises to $20,000; White House Secretaries Charles G. Ross, William D. Hassett and Matt Connelly to $18,000. The under secretaries, assistant secretaries, bureau heads and commissioners who run Washington's alphabetical beehive were raised to $15,000 --approximately the amount Congressmen and Senators voted themselves in 1946.

But the new equality might not last long. After thinking it over for a day or so, Congressmen were beginning to talk this week about raising their own pay again--this time to $25,000 a year.

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