Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-28
m your part as not to warrant him in max
.ug presumption in your favor.
Miss Tyner's APPOINTMENT

ug n presumption IN your 1dNOr-
Miss Tyner's Appointment.
For instance, on March -. 1902, you,
writing on the paper of the Office of the
assistant attorney general for the Post
Office Department to the postmaster at
Portage. Wis. asking that your daughter
le retained in the Portage post office, wrote
N part as follows:
But l don't want my daughter to re-
main at Portage except with your full ac-
,tuiescence. l can secure a transfer for her
20. probably, any other office | may select.
In fact two such transfers
tanged for and are held in allegiance. If
she goes elsewhere the money that pays her
salary win go to the office to which she
shall be transferred. If she remains al
Portage | shall add slightly to the salary,
md. of course, secure an addition to the
allowance for salaries at the office to pay
the increase. The allowance to pay her
present compensation is made specifically
FOR her by name, as would be an addition
20 the same.
II thought it proper to write you thus
frankly before you take the oath of office.
Up to the close of department hours yes
terday Saturday no official notice of your
confirmation by the Senate had been re-
ceived. Therefore. there is ample time to
receive your reply hereto, which / have
the honor to request may be given promptly.
Hoping to know you personally in a
short time, and to be able to do you off,
cial faVorS. "
This request was a grossly improper one
for Il man in your position to make of
postmaster, and your letter certainly i'm
plies that favors may be given or with
held In the discretion of the man making
the request. The postmaster by the way,
answered in very frank and honorable
style. declining to commit himself. and
closing his letter follows:
Il received the appointment without hav-
ing made any pledges or promises. and l
desire that l shall SO take the oath of
office
wrote you as follows in reference to your
daughter:
The amount of her salary and the du-
Ties performed by her must be known to
every other enploye in the Office here: to
avoid Jealousies and public censure each
must receive absolutely fair treatment,
without any favoritism.
The salary which you demand for her
is proportionately much larger than the
other employees receive. 1t seems to me
therefore that it will be better for your
daughter and the service, under the cir
cumstances. If she were transferred to the
Chicago office"
Accordingly Miss Tyner was transferred
and the position which she held at Portage
was forthwith abolished and no appoint
ment to the vacancy made. 1t appears
clear. therefore. that you were keeping
your daughter in the postal service simply
for the sake of giving her the salary. and
that when she did not occupy the position
1t was not deemed necessary to fill 1t at ALL
and you actually called the attention of the
postmaster at Portage to this fact in order
to induce him 20 retain your daughter
pointing out to him that, as actually hap
pened. he would lose the appropriation for
the position unless he acted as you desired
On March 90, 1902. you wrote the postmas-
ter at Chicago, ILL.,, saying:
Il desire to ask the favor of you to ap-
point as clerk in your office a kinswoman
of mine on the condition that will
furnish you the allowance necessary to pay
her salary. specifying 1t as such allow
ance."
She was then transferred to Chicago.
The Case of Cora Watson.
On April of the same year you wrote to
the postmaster at Ware, Mass, requesting
that he appoint one Cora Watson as a clerk
IN his office on condition that he was pro-
vlded with an allowance to pay her salary.
IN this letter you, the law official of the
Post Offlce Department, deliberately in
Structed the postmaster to violate the law
ny appointing Cora Watson in the Ware
post office, where her services were not
needed. subsequent to the Office having been
claSSlned. The furtivenesS of your action is
shown by this statement in your letter tn
the postmaster:
You can do as you wish about giving out
the impression that She is there as repre-
sentative of the Post Office Department TO
assist in the establishment of free delivery
II Is only frank, however. to say that she Is
rot post office expert
1t was not a bona fide appointment hut
one designed irlpI operly to get Miss Watson
in the classified service. When the post
master objected you assumed an offended
tone In your letter to him of April L. ask
ing him why he wished so much ''cere-
mony' and why he was "timid" in the mat
ter, assuring him that the appointment was
proper and correct and warranted by law
because you we're the law adviser not only
OF the Post ffice Department but of the
entire postal service; and yet you could not
possibly have been ignorant that the trans
action was an Illegal one.
For the tha
dent regrets to have to state to you that he
cannot comply with your request. The ques-
ton or your guilt on the criminal charge on
which you were tried having been passed
upon by jury the President of course
acquiesces in its finding; but the evidence
seems to him overwhelming that you were
guilty either of moral obliquity in the per-
foImance OF your duty or of the grossest
inef.iciency. Very truly yours.
VIM. LOEB, JR.,
Secretary to the President.
JAMES N. TYNER, ESQ,
14I1 kenesaw avenue northwest,
Washington, d. c..