The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1905-10-27
WASHINGTON.
Legislative and Cen
eral Topics from
the Capital.
Oct. 81. 1905.

menu diners from the government
of the other great powers Of the
world in that its civil service far
exceeds in personnel its military
or naval services. This cannot
be said of Germany. Of France,
Russia or any other great power
With them there are far more sol
diers bearing arms than clerks
welding pens aud the United
States government is further pc
culiar in its extensive employment
of women in clerical work. Per.
haps in no other country except
Russia is the civil service estab
liShment so much in need of reor
ganiZation and reform. A great
reform was doubtless effected
when admission to the service
was made dependent on a com.
petitive examination requiring
certain educational attachments.
The service under Roosevelt is
decidedly better than it was
under Grant. But the fact that
man or woman has proved by
an examination that he can spell,
write and knows something of
arithmetic does not prove that
he is willing to work or will not
take advantage of the many on
portunitles to neglect and shirk
his work. The departments are
encountered with employees who
have been placed there Oh ac.
count of their political services
or on account of their relationship
to Senators or to Senator's wives
or mother in-law, they have
held fast through many admins
trations, successive cabinet Of
ticers as heads of departments
hesltatlng to displace clerks so
respectable, so venerable and Of
such formidable antecedents.
These clerks are so well intrench-
ed that they have a most demon
alizing influence. They have
long drawn pay doing little or
no work, aud are adopts in all
the arts of Sinking work and
making the most of their sine
cure. The President and cabi,
net officers have long been cogi-
zant of this state of affairs and at
a cabinet meeting just previous
to the Presidents departure for
the South it was decided that
the President and cabinet officers
should be entitled to the right to
dismiss peremptorily any civil
service employee known to be in
efficient, or obstructive to the
government service. In such a
case dismissal should be final
aud the discharged employee
without recourse or right of
appeal. The howl that has arisen
in the departments in Washing
ton demonstrates better than any
thing else could the number of
heads that should fall. The eff
Gent, honest and Industrious
clerk has nothing to fear from
the order and it is conservative
to estimate that thirty per cent.
of the government clerks are
shaking in their shoes at the
present moment. 1t is not to he
supposed that thirty per cent. of
the civil employees will be dis
missed nor that a third of even
that proportion will go, but every
man and woman with a guilty
conscience is conscious that he
or she is in range of the light
ming that may strike at any mo-
ment.
The government clerk does not
have hard time. He is asked
to work seven and a half hours
six days in the week. He has
thirty days annual sick leave
aud thirty days annual vacation.
He has as many holidays as a
patriotic people can devise rea-
sons for or find dead heroes to
honor, including Labor Day.
During three months of the sum
mer he is dismissed every Satur-
day at noon. And for all of this
he gets a salary higher than
would be paid by any private
corporation and paid with a reg
ularity that nothing can inter
rupt. And does he in exchange
always give honest and efficient
servicesi Not by any means.
The majority actually steal from
the government in time, service
and supplies more than they are
worth to it, and the manner and
diversity of their evasions and
speculations would take a book
to describe. In the small Incl
dent of receiving visitors during
office hours it is impossible to
compute how much of their time
the government loses. Som G
clerks are permitted to receive
visitors until two O'Clock Of each
day, and it is no uncommon sight
to find the toilet room for the
women clerks filled with the
clerks and their guests up to
that hour. Every bureau has q