Omaha daily bee., 1908-06-07

the District Of Columbia the proportion OF
negroes Is not 90 pronounced. Yet there
are 1851 Of them on Uncle Sans payrolls.
Eighteen Of them receive annual salaries
Of 1850 or over. Twelve hundred OF them
are getting salaries Of more than 1900 a
year.
Outside the District the increase in coll
ored employees is chiefly in the Postoffice
department Throughout the south more
negroes are taking the examinations for
clerks and carriers And. OF course. the
administration has been generous when II
ZANE to appointments in the unclassified
service.
Officials do not have much to say in re-
gard 10 the increasing number Of colored
employees in the departments. In one way
there Is nothing TO be said. The negroes
take the examination In open competition
and win. That's all there is to It. Nobody
is supposed to know, when the examine
ton paper OF John Smith comes TO hand.
whether said John Smith is black OF white.
The papers are marked. the averages listed
and the notifications sent out to those who
head the list.
A typical case came under the writer's
notice not Ions ago. An elevator boy was
earning $50 a month In an apartment house.
He was an intelligent negro about p. No
white man of that age, no matter what
his education or ability, would have been
contented for a week with so poorly paid a
job.
But the negro took It because he hadn't
much choice anyway and because he
wouldn't. take the alternative OF getting
out and tackling real hard labor. For all
bis cIeverness and his education, in fact,
largely because Of them. he preferred his
neat and easy job at 800. rather than to
earn two or three times as much at some
unpleasant work outside.
In the meantime he did as the rest Of thu
young negroes are doing. took a civil ser.
vice examination. Months vert by and
suddenly. one day, a notification came tina.
George B. had been appointed elevator
man in one of the public buildings at 4
salary Of sac q month. He gets one month
vacation with pay each year and can taxi
sick leave up to a limit Of one month, alsc
with pay
Well, he was a delighted as a white mai
would have been with an appointment a
bank president. He will probably hold tina
Identical job for years and will bring UP hi
children in the nurture and love-not fea
OF the government service.
So long as the negroes are occupying
only the so CalleQ manual places mere i
no complaint. of course. There isno opel
objection to them any way. How can Their
be? But almost every chief Of a bureau
knows that the presence of negroes in tn
clerical branches Of the service causes NOR
or less friction.
The whites are inclired to resent tn
presence Of the colored man, and the col
ored man is apt to try to demonstrate hi
conviction OF his right to be there by
touch Of aggressiveness which only make
things worse. Old -employes-white o
course-shake their heads over the matte
and even In occasional bureau chief wi
admit that there is dange of the race prop
lem in the government service. In tn
meantime the negroes are peacefully pre-
pairing for the examinations.
When It comes TO presidential appointee
the negroes certainly have no cause to re
proach the present administration. Roose
welt has adhered to a persistent policy G
appointing colored men to offices to whic
in his opinion their ability and service
entitled them. He has put them into tn
customs, into the immigration service
into the postal service.