The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-03-09
DIFFERENT STANDARDS

/ the way in which public business is
! conducted viii incline to agree with
Mr.. P. c. Jones in the belief that a
mercantile system OF accountability
| would provide a large amount Of good
work for a minor percentage Of the
sum that small amount OF Indifferent
work now costs the taxpayers. 1t is
| far easier, however, to detect the
| faults Of the public system of doing
business than it is to provide a rene
dy for them.
This is because of a vital difference
in standards. The first thing man
must do in seeking private employ is
to prove his ability to meet a special
business requirement; but in seeking
a public job he must first demonstrate
his usefulness to the party. If he is
good politician the fact will cover a
multitude of faults as a bookkeeper.
The private employe works because,
partly, he knows that he viii lose his
job if he shirks it, but the public en-
ploye always feels that, in whatever
he does short of stealing, his party Will
protect him for the good he is expect
ed to do in the primaries. The one
case makes for efficiency and the other
for careIessness. A private employer
has the vital power of summary dis
charge; the public employer must
think of the effect politically. Fur
thermore while the head of corpora
a minimum and finds it to his personal
advantage, in his relation to the stock
holders, to do so, the head of a public
department must make room for good
political workers and finds it to his
personal disadvantage, in his relation
to the party organization, not to do so.
Take street and road making for ex-
ample. A private firm could, the law
half what it cost the Public Works de-
partment to pave it, do a better job
and finish it in half the time. Why?
Simply because the private firm would
hire the best labor, no matter what its
politics or race, get it at the lowest |
market price and drive it hard. The |
on the other hand, must |
only hire Citizens" usually meaning |
lazy natives; and it must be easy with
them to get their votes when election
day rolls around. 1t hardly dares to
discharge p man or to refuse one
job at high pay; and if it undertakes
TO push things and get an honest days
work for a fair days wage, it is
warned that it is running
the party behind it-as perhaps it is.
Honolulu is by no means alone in the
sum of the offending. 1t simply typi-
les the abuses of the American spoils
system, thing of continental growth
and significance. In San Francisco,
twenty years ago, the Blind Boss,
chris. Buckley, said he would take the
&. 100000 per annum it cost to govern
hat city, provide better admins
ra ton than it had and save 81, 600 900
or himself Ard nobody doubted that
lie could. From San Francisco to New
York, from Minneapolis to New Or
cans, the story is the same. Wher-
yer business and politics mix, business
suffers
Is there a remedy? In Federal civil
government one has been sought and
found in civil service re-
so,y17 xUharabI- man ara ma SSed into
,ffice by merit and kept there by eff
,iency. the tests being those imposed
by a non-political examination. The
same system is employed in the army
md navy. Eventually, perhaps. it
will extend to all the subdivisions of
government, reaching even to counties
Ind townships, so that no man will be
Eligible to appointment under local
elective officers until he has passed an
examination in which all men, of
whatever politics, shall have an equal
show; the head of the bureau or de-
oartment being removable upon indict-
nent by a competent grand jury for
using his office for political objects.
In some such way an approximation
might be had in public employ to the
standards of efficiency in private en-
oloy; but we know of no way of less
drastic character to reach that end
AN AWAKENED EAST.
Gonna 1-,ars qo Of a semi diDIoraa +io