Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-06-19
Committee Trying to Dispose
of $4OO, 900 Worth of Jobs
to 433 Representatives.
PRESENT HOUSE EMPLOYEES
CALLED MOST EFFICIENT
Legislative Machinery Would Be
Brought to Standstill if All
Were 0usted.

1t would not be surprising to many
congressman on the inside If the pat
| ronage committee appointed by the demo-
cratic caucus refused absolutely to slice
up the patronage of the House Of Rep
resentatives into SO many portions of
pie, just as restaurant keeper divides
his pastry. That committee from which
no secrets have leaked, Is hard at work
trying to find a solution to the question
of how to divide 100000 worth of jobs
into f33 equal parts-one part to each
representative, and it takes but little
thought to see that this is we'll nigh i'm
possible.
However, there is some possibility that
forty or fifty of the nine hundred dollar
jobs around the House of Representatives
will be shifted. and that a new deal will
be made in that department Of House
patronage.
The patronage committee is composed
of Representative Humphries of Missis-
sippi. Covington of Maryland and Dore-
mus of Michigan. Their task is to re-
port some scheme whereby the steel-riv-
eted government jobs around the House
of Representatives can be pried loose, so
that the new members can distribute
faVors. AT least, that Is what some of
the new members want them to do, but
on the other hand the committee is en-
powered to report a method whereby the
efficiency of the House force of employees
may be heightened. 1t is not surprising,
therefore. that there Is a sentiment grow
ing in the House to adopt some scheme
whereby the valued and expert employees
may be retained regardless of the stress
and storms of politics and administration
changes.
Wheels of Machinery Would Stop.
If the committee should report that
1t favored turning everybody out and
making new deal the House of
Representatives would stop short There
would be little or nothing done for a
time. The wheels inside of the machin-
cry would be made useless if some of the
big committee clerks and some of the
men who carry the lore and law of the
House of Representatives in their head
should be cast adrift. The new members
who cry so loudly for pie at present could
not find bill or an act or report for
some time to come If the expert employees
who handle those things go unerrtngly at
present We're dropped from the rolls
There are, Of course. men in positions
which require little no experience
and there is every chance that some of
these men Will be asked to retire.
Older Representatives admit they know
full well that IL the clerks to such COM
mittees as the appropriations, the naval
affairs, rivers and harbors. etc. were
changed the committees would founder
about like rudderless hulks. They know
also that if the document room should be
dismembered that no human being alive
could master its intricacies in less than
five years. They know that if the library
attached to the House of Representatives
should be handed to a new set of en-
ployes that no member would be able to
say with any certainty of getting it:
Bring me that volume of the Record
which shows what Speaker Cannon had
to say about appropriations for the XII
bosh Indians in lS9S." At present the
volume would come back post haste with
a marker showing the exact spot.
Cry for Spoils Not So Loud.
There is a reaction from the cry for
spoils which marked the beginning of the
extra session, and it all comes about
through the thought of the present eff
cheney of many of the House employees.
If there should be spoilsman's rule that
new deal should be handed around
every two years some advocate of this
rule might find it working against him
at home when he returned to run in the
primaries.
For these reasons it Is felt in the House
that the coming report of the patronage
committee will not be so drastic as was
expected when the committee was formed