The herald., 1896-02-21
SUPERANUATED CIVIL SERVANTS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13.-An opinion has
been expressed by some of the members OF
the house committee on civil service re.
form, in connection with the demand on
the heads of departments for list of EN-.
ployes who are below the requisite stand
ard Of efficiency, that some means must be
discovered for retiring from the service
those clerks who are no longer able to earn
their salaries. The suggestion of some
sort of approximation fund has come
from various quarters, and ultimately
steps will be taken to pension off clerks
who have becom an incubus through fail
ure Of their powers of mind and body. For
the present, however, any mention of the
idea is received with the sneer that this
civil pension scheme is one of the expens-
i've fruits of civil service reform.
Nothing is further from the truth. In
this country the civil service reform move
ment has been all in the opposite direction.
Before the merit system of appointment
was established by law thousands of inef-
flcient mon and women were foisted upon
the government by members of congress,
through pity for their forlorn condition.
Here and there a good clerk would be
worked in among a dozen who we're seek
ing public employment because tney had
never been able to earn living at any pri :
vate occupation. 1t was in spirit of pity
that congress passed the law which gives
preference to veteran soldier or sailor
who has been honorably discharged on ac-
count of wounds or disabilities incurred in
the line of duty. This was unfortunate,
not only because it gave q false
direction to the popular impulse to
take care of the Union soldiers, but
because the class of soldiers who
procured discharge on account of wounds
were not always 80 deserving as those who
went back to their commands and resumed
their lighting as soon as they were out of
the hospitals. Every regiment had its
malingerers. who were reported unfit for
duty when the hardest work was to be
undertaken, and who jumped at the first
chance of getting discharge after they
had pocketed their bounty money. It
would have been much better. if a prefer
ence was to be given at all, TO give it to
honorably discharged veterans indiscrim-
lnately, instead of narrowing it down to
those who were discharged for disability.
Tho contrast between the bright, fresh,
self-reliant young people brought into the
service through the competitive examina-
tons and the rank and file of the clerks
among whom they were thrown was too OBJ
vious to pass long unnoticed, and then the
heads OF departments began to look about
for means OF sitting out the undesirable
element As soon as they would threaten
one of this class with dismissal up would
come Senator This and Representative
That to enter vigorous protest. At last
device was hit upon which promised to
work pretty we'll. Under the practice pre-
vailing before last year, the civil service
commission obtained it's corps of exan,in-
ers by detail from the several depart
ments: So the heads of departments
proceeded to detail the most hopeless
cases to the service of the commits
sion, promising, at the same time. to give
the commission aI1khOritu to rio+a 70 lie
missnls. Here and there clerk who had
done very poorly in his department would
take fresh start under the commission
and make good record; but as a rule the
incompetents we're recommended for dis
Inissel after being given fair test and
found wanting. 1t was, of course, hard on
the commission to make its Office Botany
Bay for the idle or incompetent, but it ac-
cepted the burden in the interest of the
improvement of the service. This plan
was presently superseded, however, by an
appropriation for an independent corps of
examiners for the commission in lieu of
the departmental details.
Now the old question recurs. To their
original shortcomings the clerks appointed
from motives of pity have meanwhile
added further load of years and the in
firmities of age; and the heads of depart
ments are feeling somewhat disturbed by
their inability to get rid of the Improbable
clerks. Once in a while one acts in q fit of
desperation and discharges dozen, but
the outcry raised against his merciless
course frightens him out of the idea of re-
Pc sting It for long time to come.
Ihe charge that the superanuated clerk
IL product of civil service reform grew out
OF the fact that tile merit system involves
The notion of indefinite tenure for satisfac-
tory clerks. But a. . matter of fact the
statistics would show that the average torn