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SERVES UNCLE SAM 71 YEARS. ! i Annual Pay of Thomas Harrison, 91, j ' ^ Still Nine Hundred Dollars. j ! (Kansas City Star.) Seventy-one years ago Thomas j Harrison became a clerk in the Unit- j ed States naval observatory at Wash-! ington. He was 20 years old then, j * and his salary was $900 a year. Today, Thomas Harrison still is a clerk - in the naval observatory. He's 9,1 j years old now?and his salary still is $900 a year. Even back in the administration of James K. Polk, when Mr. Harrison r entered the civil service under Maury, the first superintendent of the ob A A A A ^ ^ ! servatory, $yuv wasn i mucii, as money went?and especially as it went in Washington. Today it's less. j But there's a little old-fashionea j home in Georgetown that has to be ! kept up. There are clothes to buy?' and food. And so it is that Thomas j Harrison, who has spent more than ' - three score years and ten in the ser-! vice of his government, plods every: day through snow or mud or dust to ; the observatory. Of course there was a time when A he received more. A few years ago his salary had advanced to $1,300 a: year, hut $400 of that was lopped off at his own request. The work had ; grown too heavy for his aged should-< ers to bear, so he asked to be re-: lieved. To have failed?to have had j a younger men display greater ap-; titude than he?would have meant dismissal; fortsuch is the rule of the service. So Thomas Harrison asked , for lighter work. To lose one's job ! at 91 would be a tragedy. There J aren't many demands for 91-year-old j men, and there hadn't been many op- j portunities to save from his meagei j salary. In a lifetime in Washington, Thomas Harrison had seen many . ^ others drop out and younger men take their places. He had seen superannuated employes engulfed in the square seas of poverty; he had seen them seek refuge with some kinsman in a poorhouse. And he took no chances. / He knew the heartlessness of the j machine of which he was a part; the ; machine whose workings are apparent in this incident, related by j Thomas Ewing, United States commissioner of patents, to a congres . v , sional committee: n , "I had in my office a very tragic , experience. There were four persons j .. . of the examining corps whom I re- j v/ duced one grade, a difference . of i S3AA h OPO11CQ worn Inn i-vl/3 fn I Tw v v) wvvwuuv 1.41VJ n t-iv, tvv Viu tU > discharge the duties of their positions. One of these men went from my office directly home and didn't get out of his bed, and he died the second day thereafter of nothing in the world but mortification. "Another *of those men went from k Li /<S As ? I ? // /& {Jif/J, bJSmi /'/ V? cfij/ If i k lB ^mmSSSSSSSS^mmmmS \ '! 4 ? Ik A my office to an undertaker's place on Pennsylvania avenue and blew out his brains. Fifty per cent, of the cases are prcud men. They have been capable men. It was one of the harsh things I had to do. Perhaps it was a mistake, but none the less I believed it best." Efforts have been made to grant the aged naval observatory employe an annuity, but congress has shied from'any action that might embarrass it as a precedent in the future. There might be others in years to come who, having reached the age of 91, after 71 years in the harness, might demand a. pension and, while congress says it's perfectly willing to take up the question of pensions for superannuated civil service employes some time in the future, it isn't ready to consider it now. About two years ago Senator Jones of Washington introduced a bill proposing the retirement of Mr. Harrison on a pension of $100 a month. The senate passed it viith enthusiasm, but it died in the house, where it had no sponsor. Again, in the last congress, Senator Jones proposed a pension for Mr. Harrison, this time for $50 a month, but the bill stopped in the committee of naval affairs. In offering his second bill, Senator Jones read the following to Mr. Harrison from Franklin D. Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the navy: "I have to inform you that in accordance with the recommendation of the superintendent of the naval observatory you have been granted leave without pay for six months, be* ginning October 13, 1917. "As you have been in the employ of the government now nearly 69 years, and during all that time your record has been excellent, I regret that there is no way in which the department could continue you on the rolls with compensation. "I desire at this time to express the appreciation of the department for your lo ig and satisfactory service and the hope that you will be *so benefited by this leave that you can return and resume your duties at its expiration/' That "leave without pay" expired in the spr ng of 1918, and Mr. Harrison has teen on the job ever since. Others hava taken up the fight for him, but be harbors no resentment against the employer for whom he still works, after 71 years of service. Mr. Harrison was born in Washington, D. C., while John Quincy Adams was president. He has served during the administrations of 18 of the 28 chief executives of the United States, and has known personally ev erv president since Van Buren. Although born in Washington, his boyhood was spent in West Virginia, where his' father, a former officer in the regular army, had gone after retiring fom the army following the r ^II An Old Chinese Town. i (Christian Science Monitor.) ; Even as time is counted in China, ! Fen Chou Fu is quite an old town. People were living there 2,000 years {before the Christian era, and when ' the Manchus drove out the Mings the j defeated rulers took refuge in Fen ! Chou Fu and rebuilt its city walls, j although how long they stayed there i the Twentieth century traveler who describes the ancient city in a current magazine, neglects to tell the reader. T},,? +Vi/a n-allc ctrnriO' a n rl j I)UL inc.* illau^ C ilU Willi*? C VA V/11^4 ; | probably set up the great, longlegged bronze birds that perch on them. In the gateway two upright) stones mark the width of vehicles j permitted to enter the narrow, I crooked streets, and everywhere the I crows, hawks, magpies, and whistling kites build their nests. An odd , old city, Fen Chou Fu is, nevertheless, not altogether immune to out' ! side influence. The traveler photoi graphed a Chinese wedding party, j and atop his native habiliments the ; bridegroom is revealed wearing a j derby hat. I l I war of 1812. | "It was a wilderness then," Mr. Harrison said recently, "and we lived rather primitively. I was outdoors almost all the time and the work in j the field and the sports in the woods I gave me a rugged constitution, for j which I have since been thankful many times. We returned to Wash, ington after about six years of life in Virginia. My father died in 1848, j and I was given a position with the j federal government. He left a large family and their support devolved in a large measure upon me. My father died in the midst of his usefulness. It fell to my lot, my very happy lot, to look out for the family." Congress for some years has been talking old age pensions for civil service employes, but it is probable that long before any law authorizing them becomes effective, Thomas Harrison, the oldest employe of the United States government, both in years and in point of service, and probably the oldest government employe in the world, will be beyond its benefit. Rub-My-Tism is a great pain killer It relieves pain and soreness caused by Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Sprains, etc.?Adv. MEETING OF TAXPAYERS. A meeting of the taxpayers, voters of Bamberg School District, No. 14, is herphv r??llpd to hp hpld in thp City Hall in the town of Bamberg, S. C., on Monday, May 26, 1919, at 4 o'clock p. m., for the purpose of electing one member of the Board of Trustees, and for the transaction of | any other business that may legally come before the meeting. W. M. BRABHAM, Chairman Board of Trustees. Bamberg, S. C., May 7, 1919,?2tn j 3 | Thick, | flavor. - I I K * p Karo is practica fc and slic ?for swee ^Uiiflliil There A jHHfl "Crystal Wh "Ptolrlpn Rrr "Maple Flai gm the new mMw friUffi substance I ja I y wj Hnf Y g f HERE may be can be done w ? pickin' a wife an * "J ain't amongst 'et Oi la ? We put away millioi * Kentucky Burley tobac ? in wooden hogsheads. 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