The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1903-01-17

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coLoRED MAN WITH SNAP.
(Gets s72o a Year for scrubbtng Public
| Servants.)
ties in that place. They each lost
two months pay.
In 1900 w. II. Ridley, negro, came
to Washington for the purpose of talk
ing one of the Richardson's posi-
tions. They compromised by paying
him $40 month each, and he went
home, where for eight months he
received the money. The Richard
sons appear to have had several close
calls for their positions, and to have
been saved more than once by the
inability of the applicants for their
places to battle congressman and
take care of the bathroom satisfac-
torily. Ridley damned them and
threatened them after they had to-
gether paid him $50 per month for
eight months, but they stopped the
payments, having been compelled to
give up $16O in addition to the S240
above noted in order to keep their
positions.
1t is shown that one superintend-
ent of the document room paid $500
per annum from his salary of $4,000
per annum toward fund for men
who had to be looked after. Later,
when Mr.. Award was made reading
clerk at salary of $4,000 per annunl,
he paid over $1,000 per annum for
the same sort of fund. Disbursing
Clerk Robinson testified that Award
retained $4,000 of his salary of $4,000;
that A. c. Smith got $1,000, and the
remaining $500 went to the general
fund to increase the pay of others
on the rolls, or to pay persons not
on the rolls at all.
You will understand that these
things occurred in former congresses.
and that we are not telling tales on
the present congress, for we have
no testimony of the kind which was
ELECTED for the use of the Civil Sery-
ice Reform league. What the pres
ent incumbents of the elective of
fees will do in the next congress.
or what they are doing in the pres
ent congress, is not affirmed. Poll
ticians are politicians in all ages, and
the demands made for political con-
tributions, and assented to by Office
holders, have been made in all ages
and climes, since civilization began.
The payment of salaries for services
never performed is only incident to
existing political methods. Black
mail in various forms has al
ways been levied on those holding
public places with excessive salaries.
The politicians of this republic and
of this age learned some of their les
sons from predecessors no better
than themselves.
The Civil Service Reform league dis
covered and exposed one of the news
paper correspondents who was draw
ing salary of $4,000 a year. He had
charge of the subscription lists and
the files of newspapers. Not more
than 20 or 25 people day consulted
those newspapers, and the newspa-
per man simply had soft strap. A
colored man, who received salary
. of $1,4OO per annum as messenger,
. kept the files in order.
HC uOuSC VI representatives. mas
. on it's pay roll 3S5 employees, and
their salaries aggregate $4,000
: each year. Commenting on this
statement, the league committee says
r that if such peculiar practices can
, exist where only 3s5 men ar. en-
8 ploycd, we may well imagine what
, excesscs might be reached if the &c.
t 900 people now in the civil service
2 were thrown upon the mercy of the
spoils system. Out of the facts gath
cred and here epitomized the civil
7 service reformers make great con-
. tention for extension of their system.
1t may be recalled that since the
5 above abuses were suspected and
8 openly discussed by the house of rep
8 resentatives and leading civil service
, reformers, an effort was made to in
e crease the employees in the senate by
1 20 or more. This was successfully
r opposed by Senator Allison, of Iowa,
] and the senate has man 'ged to get
= along without that increased force.
= The Civil Service Reform league is
l carefully watching all cases of the
s kind described, and hereafter its
: agents will endeavor to fix the re-
, sponsibility on individual representa-
r tives who require the employment of
I constituents who do not perform
Q service SMITH D. FRY.