The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-10-30
Republicans Defy Provisions Of civil
Service Act.
THEY MAY BE PROSECUTED
OPENLY SOLICIT FUNDS FROM
FEDERAL EMPLOYEES.
Commission Has Taken the Matter
In Hand and Decided That the
Law Was Violated and This Con-
c1usion Has Been Endorsed BY
ex-senator Edmunds.

Washington, Oct. pa long official
statement reviewing the legal phases
of the political assessment question
and holding that the soliciting of cam
paign funds by letter comes clearly
within the remedial provisions of the
civil service law, was made public by
the civil service commission tonight.
The commission made the statement
because of circulars sent out by w. F.
Burdell, as treasurer of the finance
committee of the Ohio Republican
state executive committee soliciting
contributions from federal employees.
The commission says that the Ohio
circulars bring up clearly the ques-
ton so long awaiting judicial deter
mined as to whether soliciting of con-
tributions for political purposes by
means of letters addressed to federal
officers or employees at their offices,
constitutes an offense under the twelfth
section of the civil service act. The
commissions ruling or brief now made
public was submitted by President
Proctor, of the commission, to ex-Sen-
ator f. Edmunds of Vermont, who was
chairman of the senate Judiciary COM
mission at the time the civil service
act was passed. The latter in his
particular significance says:
Law Has Been Violated.
Il entirely agree with the conclu-
sions stated in the brief. 1 think it is
clear that the solicitation of such
political aids by means of the post
office is distinctly within the prohibi-
ton of section XII, of the act to which
you refer. The language of the sec
ton is that no person shall, in any
room or building etc, solicit in any
manner whatever etc. 1t is not that
no person being in a room or building
shall solicit, but it is that nc solicita-
ton shall be made in any such place
no matter where the person making the
solicitation may be.
IF, for instance. a person on the
street outside the treasury department
should send a written offer to some
person employed within the building
to pay a price for robbing the vaults
or committing other wrong, it would
be clear that his offense was COM
mitted within the building, for the
writing of the offer would be entirely
incomplete until delivered to the per-
SON to whom it was addressed.
Il think it impossible, therefore, to
maintain that such acts as you refer
to are rot within both the letter and
the spirit of the act of congress.
Views of the Commission.
After quoting this letter the commits
sion reviews at length legal dictions
opposite to the question under consid-
Grafton and says that from these the
conclusion is unavoidable that the
writing or sending through the United
States mails of a letter addressed to an
officer or employee of the government
at his Office, asking for contribution
of money for any political purpose
constitutes a solicitation of money for
that purpose and that since such
solicitation has its. full effect only
upon the delivery of such letter
to the addressee, which delivery
occurs within a government building,
it is an act of soliciting done in a gov
eminent building and hence comes
within the meaning of the express
terms of the statute.
Continuing, the commission says:
1.-THE intention of congress as expressed
in the twelfth section of the civil serv-
ice act, was to protect federal en-
ployees in the discharge of their Of
fetal duties from political assessments
by any one.
Mischief to Be Suppressed.
1.-THE mischief to be suppressed was
the official and quasi-official solicita
ton of clerks for political purposes.
Officers used their stations to intimi-
date subordinates; quasi official when
outsiders, made use of federal build
ings for purposes demoralizing both
to the efficiency and discipline of the
service. The statute does not deal
with the mode of solicitating but the
fact itself, and it would have been
most unusual if congress had under
taken to specify the different forms of
soliciting.
1T is not sufficient for the party
to keep from troubling in
order to avoid the legal penalties while
at the same time he commits all the
harm which congress intended to
prevent. The evil has been aggravated
by the large number of circulars sent
to employees of the government
through the mail, that agency being
a very convenient one by which to
reach a number of persons.
THAT these very circulars We're
definitely in the mind of congress as a
main source of evil here sought to be
remedied, is clearly inferable from
the fact that numbers of such circulars
were actually presented and read and
the fact of their being sent through
the mails to persons in the government
employ clearly alluded to during the
debates in the senate prior to the pass
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