The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-05-06
Trouble Expected Over
Railway Mail Service
Appointments.
MANY HOMES THREATENED.
Defects in the Civil Service Law
From Which Politicians May
Profit.

WASHINGTON, May 6, 1s89-The biggest
task ever undertaken by the Civil Service
Commission was assumed when it took
charge of the 5000 employees of the Rail
way Mail Service. Therei is not to be smooth
sailing in its management, either Railway
Mail Service officials have made no APP
pointments since Monday last, the Civil
Service Bureau having taken charge on
Wednesday, and Monday having been q
national holiday. Today the first requisi-
tions for clerks will be made, and then the
trouble will begin.
Under the rules when call is made for
apostal clerk three names will be sub
mdtted for each man wanted, and from
these, appointees will be selected. Here
comes in the difficulty, as the officials
have been unable to devise scheme
whereby men can be selected who live ad-
Jacent to the railroad lines on which they
are to be employed, as it is very necessary
they should do.
WHERE THERE is TROUBLE.
Under the rules the Railway Mail
Superintendent only designates in his call
for clerks the States to which they are to
be charged. Whether they are wanted
for railroad lines in the north, east, west
or south part of the State the Civil
Service Commission is not supposed
to be informed Thus postal
clerk who is selected for railway line
running out of Buffalo may happen to be
a resident of Long Island City; one for a
Syracuse road may live at Hornellsville,
or one for postal line in northeastern
New York may own house in Dunkjfk.
1t has been suggested that the Railway
Mail "a 10 IOntr
the list of eligibles, and select men who
live adjacent to the railway lines for
which the clerks are to be ap-
pointed. This the Civil Service Commits
sion will not agree to, for fear
the information might be used In the
interest of men endorsed by the politi-
clans. The Commission at the same time
expresses its inability to study up the
location of railway lines and mail routes
in order to select men who live near them.
The only alternative therefore is for q
general order to be issued compelling all
roads on which they are to be employed.
| This would be a great hardship, and the
mere thought of it has created great con-
sternation among the clerks all over the
country.
POSSIBLE TRICK.
There is another side to this question,
which is, that there isnothing in the world
to prevent politicians from influencing
appointments by another trick altogether.
Republicans can simply leave with the
Railway Superintendent list of their
friends who have passed the civil service
examination.
Then these men can be selected
in preference to the others on the list.
There is little doubt that this plan will be
worked very persistently and successfully,
and republicans appointed instead of
democrats, just as for the past four years,
democrats have been appointed by the
Civil Service Commission, instead of re-
publicans.
The Postoffice Department officials do
not expect to get first-elass set Of clerks
through the tortuous working of the
civil service examination and selec-
ton, and for that reason they did
their best to fill the service with repub-
lieans of their own selection before they
were prevented from further action by
the arrival of the fatal 1st of May.