The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-05-23
CLEANING HOUSE.
Secretary Garfield Causes a
Storm i'm Washington.
Discharges Eighteen FavOrites
of High Officials.
ON PER DIEM ROLL.
Two of Fairbanks Men Are
Among the Number.
IncOmpetency Is Given as Cause
ON PER DIEM ROLL.

| w aShlngtOn, May ga furious polit-
zeal storm has broken over Washington
which has no bearing on the presidency.
James r. Garfield, who was made secre~
| tary of the interior to shake up that
| ponderous department. is the center of
/ this disturbance. As first step toward
reform, he discharged eighteen en-
| ployes of the land office for incompet-
ency. They heard from Mr.. Garfield in
| the form of yellow discharge slips. He
heard from their political hackers in
the form of yellow telegraph forms, fill
| ed with the nearest approach to profan-
lty tnat the telegraph companies would
| transmit under a frank.
To Mr.. Garfield's explanation that the
discharged employees are incompetent
/ the angry answer is that they were put
| in the land office by Vice President Fair
| banks, sundry senators and lesser
| statesmen, and things have come to
pretty pass if a young, tennis playing
| friend of the president, who answers to
the name of Jimmy is to be allowed to
disturb political fences in a dozen states
reform, has committed the supreme
sacrilege. He has interfered with the
'P. d. roll of the senate.
The 'sP. d." Roll.
After congress publicly and ostenta-
tiously abdicated its wide patronage
powers over the departments in favor of
the civil service the senate stealthily
created the "P. d. roll, of which the
public is supposed to know nothing.
Those cabalistic letters stand for per
diem" When a senator has somebody
on his hands who must be cared for
that person is employed as extra help in
one of the departments at at per diem,
in contrast to the permanent positions
filled through the civil service commits
sion which pay an annual salary. But
custom has made the p D." roll the
most permanent thing in Washington.
The favored ones who secure a place
theron without the embarrassing ordeal
of a civil service examination are the
aristocrats of the government service,
before whom even autocratic bureau
heads and chief clerks tremble
These "P. d. favorites, every one
the protege of a powerful senator,
have been accustomed to do as little
work as they pleased, to be absent
when it seemed good to them or when
their senators needed them. and to
generally swagger through the de-
partments, envied by all beholders.
When rumors of a shakeup ran
through the interior department the
"P. D." fortunates smiled supercilious
sympathy on the -unfortunates who
had won their positions in the regu-
lar way through a civil service ex-
animation. No shakeup, no reform
could touch the sacrosanct senatorial
roll. But when the axe fell-thud-
six sacred heads from the "P. d. list
fell into the basket. One was that of
a woman placed on that roll a the re-
quest of Vice President Fairbanks
himself. Another had been employed
at the command of Senator t. C. Platt
of New York. The four had similar
excuses for drawing their per diem.
Fairbanks Is Hit Hard
Vice President Fairbanks suffered
double dose. Captain w. X Ellis,
who was carried on the rolls as file
and briefing clerk because he was
handy man politically in Indiana, was
one of those who received a yellow
discharge slip. He was bustling a bout
among his fellow clerks collecting
potency, and shaking a wise head over
predictions as to what Mr.. Fairbanks
would do with this material in the
coming tilt with Mr. Jimmie Gar
field.
All of the discharged ones commune
Gated Immediately with their hackers
and today most of them received re-
assuring word that just as soon as
several senators found time to tend to
Mr. Garfield, things would be read
justed in a satisfactory manner. For
Mr. Garfield must ask appropriations
of congress, for one thing, and the
president, who will have some work
for that body to do this winter, is to
have notice served on him that while
it may be all right to talk about re-
form, men who vote for his measures
protected from the unbridled plunges
CT the secretary of the interior
through the political landscape.
This beautiful row is just promise
of more to come, for Secretary Garfield
has only started to clean house. In the
recording division of the land office
alone he expects to reduce the force
from rs to about 80. He is showing a
most unholy knowledge of intimate
things deep down in these obscure di-
visions under him. Employees are be-
ginning to remember with alarm that
Mr. Garfield as a member of the Keep
commission that investigated the de-
partments, showed great zeal in finding
out inside affairs in the interior depart
ment. Thus equipped. his descending
ak hits the dead wood every time.
Clerks in the department say he has
shown a verita bic second sight in pick
ing for discharge the idle, trifing and
incompetent.
Work OF Years to GO.
Moreover this department is the
visions walking on each others toes
and all tied up in yards of red tape.
This sort of organization Increases
the number of employees about one
third for the same amount of work
BY using typewriters to record land
patents where handwriting has been
used since Washington's time, by abol-
ishing useless bureaus, consolidating
divisions and generally overhauling
things, the secretary probably will sue
coed in reducing the payroll by many
thousands of dollars and making the
senate and the house eorrespondingly
infatuated. For it IS the foundation of
all political principles to increase the
number of jobs as often as may be, but
never to abolish one.
Mr. Garfield is really in the process
of putting one government department
on business basis-and he is already
learning that this is the last thing want
ed of him by congress.