Speech #680161228

A customs inspector. for example. at Vanceboro. Me.. which is a mere railway junction point on the Canadian frontier. receives exactly the same salary as a customs inspector of the same grade working in New York City. An immigration officer stationed at the same point in Maine receives the same pay In his grade that the immigration officer receives in New York City. and the various officials of the Public Health Service scattered throughout the country receive Identical pay in identical grades for identical classifications of work. We saw no reason why we should differentiate as between the Post Office Department and other executive departments of the Government. and we decided to treat the Postal Service as a unit and to make uniform increases in salary. though we well knew that in some instances salaries would be provided in excess of those paid for comparable employment by private employers. and in some instances salaries would be much larger in their purchasing power than the same salaries would be in the more populous centers of the country. but our whole feeling was that the Increase in salaries granted by this bill proceeded upon an accurate differential among the various grades in the- Postal Service. beginning with the laborers and going up to the higher executives. and that as a whole the increase in salaries was justifiable. That increase in salaries meant an addition of something like $68.000.000 to the expense of conducting the Postal Service.