Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-07-22
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsrArcH.l

16uet VI IuS 1uuONdIiOA
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsPATcH.i
WASHINGTON, July 21.-The expert
ment of placing the 5000 employees of the
railway mail service under the operations
of the civil service law has turned out to be
a disastrous failure 1t is not at all likely
that Mr. Theodore Roosevelt or his col
leagues, Messrs. Lyman and Thompson,
would concede the truth of this statement,
but the evidence of its entire accuracy is
easily obtainable.
The members of Congress of both politi-
cal parties, who are daily in receipt of com
plants as to the very unfair manner in
which men are selected for appointments,
the postal clerks themselves, who, with re-
markable unanimity, declare that the SER
vice is being ruined, and the chief officials
of the Railway Mail Service Bureau, who
are disguised with the class of employees
that are being sent to them, all stand pre-
pared to testify that the attempt to improve
on the practical system of civil service that
had been in operation in the Postal Depart
ment for many years, has not met with
gratifying success.
NOT RUNNING SMOOTHLY.
Things are not running at all smoothly
between the Civil Service Commission and
the Railway Mail Service Bureau, and if
the machinery is not oiled soon there is sure
TO be a breakdown somewhere. The main
trouble seems to be that the men certified
for appointment are not the men best fitted
to perform the work of handling the mails,
and in fact large number of them are
thoroughly incapable. They manage to
answer a sufficient number OF the cooked
up questions put to them by the Chinese
commissioners to get certified for appoint
ment, but when put into a postal car to
throw letters into the proper boxes their
ineficiency Is at once apparent.
One of the head clerks in the service, a
man who has run on the road for years, is
authority for the statement that he has
never met with such a worthless lot of men
as are now being appointed. Although the
salary of postal clerk is small, and the
work hard, there is
GREAT PRESSURE FOR THE PLACES,
and taking advantage of the examination
process, college graduates and young men
Just out OF the public schools are coming to
the front in large numbers. They are not
only poor clerks, unable to do the heavy,
rapid and accurate work required, but they
soon become disheartened and disguised,
and cause Generalization among the other
clerks.
The most troublesome part of the new
system to the officials in charge of the mail
service, however, is the total inability to
get men certified to them who reside in the
neighborhood of the railroads upon which
they are to run. Prior to May 1, when
clerks were appointed in the good old
fashioned way, they were distributed as
equally as possible among the different Con-
gressional districts, and were chosen for
service upon the particular line of railroad
upon which vacancies existed.
ONLY ONE RECOGNIZED.
In certifying men for appointment, the
only geographical location the Civil Service
Commissioners will recognize is the State
in which the appointee resides. They send
in his name, with utter disregard to the por-
tion of the State in which he is TO be as
signed to duty.
1t will be readily seen how this beautiful
plan works. A clerk is needed for duty on
a road running out of New York City.
Three names are sent in by the Civil Service
Commission. The first man on the list is
rejected because he lives at Ogdens-
burg, the second because his home is
at Buffalo Number three is chosen
live 100 miles away from the line of his
railroad. Another vacancy occurs, and
three names are again sent in. Again num-
bers one and two are rejected, and that ends
their experience with the Civil Service
Commission, for, according to the rules,
after a mans name has been twice sent in
and rejected he is turned down forever.
MOST ABSURD OF ALL.
Then the most absurd feature of all comes
to view. When the third vacancy occurs, it
is found to be in the exact locality of the
residence of applicant No. 1. He is out of
the race altogether, however, and the next
man who comes out of the civil service
hopper finds himself disqualified for the
same reason that No. 1 was.
A very simple remedy was suggested for
this trouble. 1t was that the officials of
the railway mail service be allowed to see
the list of eligibles, and select therefrom
the applicants who were properly located
geographically for appointment to the exist
ing vacancies. The civil service triumvirate
held up their hands in holy horror at such
suggestion. They would never allow a
chance like that to be given to post the cor
rupt politicians as to the names of eligible
applicants, although they brought forward
no proof that they are above
JUGGLING WITH THE NAMES.
themselves. They will not consent that
men be chosen according to the location of
their residence, and so the man who has
home and family in New York City, and is
SO unfortunate as to be assigned to duty on
the Rome, Watertown and Ogdens5urg Rail-
road, must move his residence up into that
part of the State.
Under the interstate commerce law,
postal clerks cannot be given transportation
to and from their homes when off duty, as
was formerly the practice, and so the
trouble and expense all falls on the innocent
but unoffending appointee.
To avoid the appearance of being guilty
of receiving men under false pretenses, it is
said that the officials of the mail service
have In contemplation a general order re-
quiring all postal clerks to reside on the line
of the railroad upon which they are to be
employed. They will then
KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT.
The effect of this order may be to satisfy
the clerks somewhat, but it will not aid In
getting good men for the service.
Under the old system of appointing men
after practical examinations, with regard to
the particular class of work to be performed,
the service got just the kind of men it
wanted. If they could handle mail rapidly
and accurately they were retained, if not
they were removed. Now they are ap-
pointed if they can do a sum in arithmetic
or answer questions in history, no matter
what their qualifications are as postal
clerks. The majority of the men appointed
since May, after squeezing through the
civil service examinations, have turned out
TO be almost useless as postal clerks, and the
managers of the mail service are quite tired
of the whole business, but the question is,
what are they going to do about it?
BEEcHAM's Pills cure sick headache.
PEARSi Snan the nnrasf and hest mafln.