The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-02
PANAMA AND THE POST OFFICE

Why Should Politics Count Less on the Isthmus Than at Home.
 President Roosevelt's letter to the
 Panama Canal Commissioners is. of course, really letter to the country.
 Those eminent gentlemen did not need to be informed so solemnly of their
 own eminence They knew, before they
 were told, that they had been chosen to
 do a great work that they are not poli- ttcians. but engineers; and that the moro business-like and honest their
 methods. the better will be the result
 It is, therefore, the public and not the Commission that the President is talk ling into his confidence. He wants the people to know that he intends to have the isthmian canal uncrossed by the trail of politics. The Commission is to be non-partisan, having no relations with the spoilsmen and place hunters,
 and it work, accordingly, is to be
 marked by integrity and efficiency throughout.
 This is excellent, and MT. Roosevelt
 deserves praise for enunciating these
 principles, and for acting upon them
 But what a reflection it all involves
 upon the manner of conducting the other large business enterprises of the
 Government! At Panama, the Presi-
 dent says. we are to rule out utterly all political considerations We do not
 want to see slackness and waste and
 esfy, ,t.t
 undertaking, so we resolutely exclude
 politics. Admirable; but how about the
 other departments of governmental bus
 mess where we allow politics to hold
 sway? If political appointments and
 political control at Panama would mean
 bungling and pilfering and squander-
 ing of the nations funds. do they not
 imply the same thing at Washington?
 The conclusion seems unavoidable. MT.
 Roosevelt's letter, in fact apears to
 contain an accurate if unconscious defi- milton of politics. By it's absence we learn what it's presence signifies The
 President tells his. friends indignantly that he Is incapable of imperilling the grea. national labor on the isthmus by turning it over to the politicians Yet he is all the while turning over to them much greater and more important busi- ness of the Government. Thus, on his own showing, the efficiency and waste which he is guarding against at Pana- ma he is tolefating at home.
 Compare, for example, the Panama Canal with the Post Office. The former 1 is to cost say $500 100000. and will do
 9 business of perhaps S4,000,000 or $5, ,000,- 900 q year. But the Post Office invest
 ment of this country must be far larger and it's yearly business is twentv-five times as great. Yet this department of the Government is steeped in politics. Some of the resulting waste and fraud we have lately seen painfully in evil dence Does the President, however say word about applying the same business and non- partisan standards
 there that he insists upon in building
 the canal. To be thoroughly con-
 sistent he should have written letter
 to Postmaster General Payne on that lgentleman's appointment to office, of tenor similar to the one he sent to the Canal Commissioners. Paraphrasing
 the letter, it would have run about as follows:
 Dear MT. Payne:
 T have appointed you to be head of the post office department simply be-
 cause I think you best fitted for the great task. I have not sought tUascer- tain your politics. If at any time I feel that you are not rendering the best ser vice which it is possible to procure I shall disregard my feelings for you and get better man forthwith. I shall ex- peet you to appoint no man for reasons other than your belief in the aid he can
 render you and under no circumstances Will you pay the slightest heed to any backing or influence he may have. The
 expenditures you will supervise as l # they were being made for a private corporation dependent for it's profits
 upon the returns. Representing neither section nor party, you are to secure the
 best talent this country affords to meet 1 the conditions as they arise.'
 The very suggestion sounds like 1 joke-but why should it? Business is business. What would mean extrava- gance and delay and peculation and lscandal on the isthmus will surely mean | lAt SYGl J " itCtS GlSG. NIL T cy II6 WAS OuL into the Post office Department purely as politician, and for the very purpose of letting politics bring forth it's perfect work The appropriations mount; the deficit swells scandals thicken Why mot? Has not the President just ex- pained how the same calamities would befall the canal if he did not keep it out l of the clutches of the political looters?
 A principle of human nature does not alter with a few degrees of latitude The way to be economical, honest and efficient at Washington is the same as at Panama. MT. Roosevelt starts back l in horror at the thought of surrendering the isthmus to the spoilers; but he yields 1 them the continent without qualm.- { New York Evening Post.