The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-03-06
CENSUS BUREAU BILL
pREsrpENr,s DELAY Is oAua- ,.. ING COMMENT. k.
Danger is Seen in the Measure as it Now Stands by the & Civil Service System
 Heformers.

New York, March 5.-A Washington
 special to The Evening Post says:
 The stage has now been reached in the
 matter Of the permanent Census Bureau
 where the President must decide what ht
 will do with the bill which Congress
 has sent to him. There Is not very
 much in the general provisions or the bil.
 toe excite controversy, but among civil
 service reformers Q strong feeling has
 been sttrred up. by the efforts of tht
 spoiisinAn in. Congress to ,foist, their
 favorites, who have obtained employment in the office of the twelfth census. Into
 permanent places in the reorganized es-
 tablishment. After much wranglfng, and
 the submission and rejection of many
 tentative amendments. the conference
 comfortably settled on the following
 language for section i've and the two
 Houses adopted 1t:
 That all employees of the census office
 ar the date of the passage of this act
 except unskilled laborers, may be ap-
 pointed by the director of the census.
 with the approval of the head of the de-
 partnent to which said census ofHce Is
 attached, and when so appointed shall
 be, and they are hereby placed, without
 further examination, under the provision
 of the civil service act, approved Jan.
 16, 1883, and the amendments thereto, and the rules established thereunder; and persons who have served as soldiers in any war in which the United States may have been engaged. who have been honorably discharged from the service Of the United States. and the widows of such soldiers. shall have preference in the matter of employment; and all new appointments to the permanent clerical | force in the census office hereby created shall be made in accordance with the requirements of the civil service act above referred to-" "1sa .i2 On the face of the measure the director of census sems to be left to exercise I his own discrtion as 10 whom he shall appoint from the permanent force, and | the President Is saved the necessity Of issuing an executive order. Of course. if | a permanent census act had been passed without any civil service provision. the President would, have had his choice be- tween ordering the director of the per- manent Census Bureau to select his eul- ployes from the registers of the Ctvtl Service Commission or permitting him to
 reappoint any or all of his present em- ployes, and then extending the civil ser vice rules to cover the reorganized office. It is sNmore than probable that he would have chosen the latter course. as the employees now in the census office have had their drill at census work and this would save the trouble of breaking in a multitude of new people. The only thing. therefore, which need give any alarm to civil service reformers is the danger that the Director of the Census may retain
 on his permanent roll g great many per- jsons with no claim to consideration .ex- cept their Congressional Influence, with | the purpose, not of keeping them in the | census office for good, but of making them eligible to transfer to other departt ments and bureaus. ~ N It IS true that Congress has attached a price to. Its gift to the President, saying | substantially: x3t. <
 You may have your permanent bureau
 but only on condition that you accept our proviso as to manning 1t. That proviso covers about the same ground as what you would have done yourself, if we had | said nothing about It: but we find we shall feel little more comfortable for
 having made 1t a part of the law"
 | The antidote for the ono dangerous fea- ture, oft the .arr1ngement-the, eligibility | of some riffraff to transfer, Is in .the | Presidents own hands. There Is nothing | to prevent his signing civil service or | der. which will take Congress at its word but will not go a step beyond that. He can, by .a- single word. make 1t impossi-
 ble to effect the transfer of a single clerk
 or other employe from the census office | to any other part of the depa-tmental
 service, at least for a sufficient period to
 assure the elimination of the riffraff and l the concentration of the best elements | in the census office. If he were to veto | the bill while this power to ;.neutralize | any of it's vicious possibilities remained | in his hands he would be held responsi- | ble for the failure of fhe good Legislation ! if he accepts the good legislation and | nullifies the bad results which might in-
 cidentally flow from 1t. he will have kill ed two birds with one stone.