Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-01-30
FEDERAL EMpLoYEs IN POLITICS

While the senate had under discus sion those provisions of the penal code which protect federal employees from assessments for campaign funds, Mir. Bacon called attention in no partisan spirit, to a kindred evil-the participa- tion of federal employees in political campaigns, says the Washington Her ald. The senator from Georgia was un- able to see "how it was any greater evil for an employe in the executive department to contribute money to al campaign than for any officer or em- ploye in the executive department to- stunt his proper attention to his off eial duties and devote his time and energies to the advocacy and promotion of any political party or any person who may be interested in campaign. " MT. Bacon drought that an executive employe, desirous of taking part in campaign, should give up his office, par tisan activity being incompatible with the efficient performance of public du- ties, which concern citizens of all par ties.
 We presume MT. Baeon's remarks were inspired by his observation of the activity of many federal office holders in behalf of the presidential canvass of Secretary Taft, form of political campaigning to which the senator s ami madversions seem pertinent. So fragrant has the abuse of the federal patronage in Taft's behalf become that it has invoked severe criticism from all sec tions of the country. This criticism has at last drawn fire from the White House, and no one will be surprised to learn that everybody who intimates that the president is using federal of fees to further Taft s nomination is re- garded by Mir. Roosevelt as an unquali- fed iar. But there are good many people who, in view of the evidence of their senses, will be unable to adopt the presidential point of view. What is the meaning of appointments to federal office of Taft men, and of meet ings of political committees, composed in large part of federal employees, for the purpose of indorsing Taft's candi- dacyi What ground have the Taft eampaigners for claiming all the south ern delegates, if it is not that the fed eral office holders, who constitute the Republican party in the south, have been ordered to line up for Tafti
 Besides giving the lie direct to all charges that federal patronage is being used to further the Taft campaign, the president, according to an inspired ar ticle in the Boston Transcript, declares that many federal office holders are working openly for other presidential candidates than Taft. In Indiana they are for Fairbanks; in Illinois for Can non; in Pennsylvania for Knox; and even in New York, it is asserted, over half of them are actively engaged in booming Hughes. Even if this be so, we do not see that it helped the ad- ministration s case. Two wrongs do not make a right, and the use of sen atorial or congressional aspirations of senators and others does not justify or excuse the use of some other part of the federal machinery in Taft's interest. The whole business is demoralizing to the federal service, and we would be glad if Senator Bacon s suggestion, that federal employees be given to under stand, as a condition of taking office, that they must keep out of politics al- together, could be enacted into law. The federal service should not be a mechan- ism for the promotion of anybody s political asnirations