Evening star., 1913-12-09
A Remnant of the Spoils System.

| Gen. Bixby makes a strong argument
for the repeal of the apportionment-of
offices law in order to promote the
efficiency of the public service,
Through the steady increase in the
cost of living during many years with
little or no general increase in the
salary scale the lower grade clerkships
| have lost attraction and desirability to
the men and women especially of the
| states distant from the capital, where
| in a comparatively new country the
opportunities for self-support are nu-
merous and tempting. The lower
grade clerkships are no longer valued
as prizes to be distributed as political
spoils among the states in accordance
with their population.
The temptation to retain this remnant
of the spoils system under the merit
system being thus removed. Gen. Bixby
reasons forcibly that the nation should
take advantage of the situation to free
itself from the self-imposed prohibition
against using to work for it the most fit
American for the particular job who can
be secured, and to be no longer limited to
the most fit or least unfit applicant from
Oregon or Nevada or some other far-away
state which has neglected to seize its
share of the Office spoils. Clearly in the
national interest this law should be re-
pealed.
Washington as well as the nation needs
to be relieved in justice from the cramp
ing limitations of this law Congress, un-
Intentionally, has largely deprived the
growing youth of Washington of the
means of local self-support and has thus
in many cases compelled migration and
exile. Congress has by legislation and
by refusal to legislate reduced to a mini
mum Washington's trade and business
enterprises, its commerce and manufac-
tories. which in the ordinary city furnish
the industries that employ and supply
means of livelihood to the city's youth.
For local factories and varying indus
tries of the usual kind Congress has
substituted in Washington factories
of a higher grade in the shape
of the government workshops. bureaus
and departments. Then under the appor-
tionment-of-offi law, which in viola
ton of the basic principle Of the merit
system. distributes federal offices like
bandits piunder among the several states
according to their strength, it practi-
cally shuts out the youth of Washington
from the classified service and thus in
effect bars the Washingtonian claiming
residence nowhere else from the only
great industries which it permits to exist
in the nations city. Elsewhere the son
is encouraged to work by the fathers
side and under the fathers eye to
the benefit Of both employer and en-
ployed. In the nations city the ma
tional industries are necessarily local
industries, and they are believed to
be the only local industries in the
whole world in which the employment of
local men instead of being encouraged is
practically prohibited. POO often the
Washingtonian must go abroad to be-
come eligible for employment at home.
One of the vital problems for the
Washingtonian today is: How may
our sons earn their living at home !?
Must they cease to he Washingtonians
in order TO live?'
For the sake Of our sons and our city
we must encourage here light and
clean manufacturing. like that of Paris
and Vienna. and the development of
Guiding not only local business, but
that with the sections of adjacent states
geographically and commercially sub
5ect to Washington. We must also
labor to secure repeal of the appor-
tionment-of- offices law. in the interest
both of the nation and the nation g
city.