The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-18


 vocated in the beginning by the Re publican machine
 Before long we had an exhibition of the spells system, it is pointed out, in the higher offices of the state which was still further calculated to restrain the feeling of self-satisfac- ton which Connecticut republicans
 might otherwise have enjoyed. The legislature, before adjoining, created a state commission to revise the stat utes, providing a salary of $6,00O for each commissioner. It also created offices, the offices of commissioner of labor and factory inspection with a salary of s$S,0O0. Three members of the legislature were thereupon ap- pointed to the commission for revising the statutes and a fourth one was ap- made this act especially significant is the fact that of these men appointed to offices which they themselves had voted to create, one was the leader of the senate, and the author of the bill amending the civil service law i; two were respectively, the speaker of the house and the leader of the house, both active supporters of the amend ment; three of them were members of the judiciary committee, which re- ported the civil service bill, while all four were members of the republican
 
 delicate task of revising the statutes was but a few years ago removed by a republican governor from office and it may be said without any disparage- nent of the talents of the gentleman, that not one of them would have been selected for the position to which he was appointed had it, not been for his political activity.
 As a result of the optional feature three of the elected officials, the con- troIIer and secretary of state promptly and the treasurer on August S0s pro- ceeded to unclassify themselves on declaration of their policy, but the att torney general had not down to the time of preparing the report exercised his option
 E The report points out regarding the changes made in these departments that .the men appointed to office are, as far as we have been able to ascer- tain, members of the republican party
 Regarding the exemption of offices under the commissioner of labor and factory inspection, the report says: @Connecticut is great industrial state. Over 23S,00O of it's population were engaged in manufacturing at the last census.
 1"This kind of work requires above all an iTnpartiality which will command the confidence of employers and en- p1oyes; it also requires a familiarity with labor legislation, with economic principles, with statistical method, such as can only be obtained as the result of good deal of study. If the heads of the bureau cannot command in his own person all of these quail hcations. he should at least know enough of them and sufficiently re- a1ize his responsibilities to select none but experts as his subordinates. Tn <-1 federal department of labor these po- sitions are filled on the principle of merit
 ..Let us see how Commissioner Hyde understands his responsibilities. He first claimed that his offices under the terms of the law which created it fs.ad which he himself had a hand in put ting through, was not subject to the civil service rules at all When he failed to make good this contention, he applied to the commission for the exemption of certain offices. Among these were the positions of superin- tendent of the employment bureaus Of the state Before the torpedo oing of the law, a, vacancy had been filled in the Hartford bureau, under the rules of the commission, bya conn peutive examination and the quaIifi- cations of the appointee, Edward P. Clarke, were so high, that even Com missioner Hyde himself does not ques- ton them. Nevertheless. he appeared before the commission and argued that the office of superintendent of the free employment bureau could not be advantageoI1sIy filled, under the competitive system and secured ex- emption. He thereupon began to fill these offices according to his own con- captions of the situation.
 Tn spite of these and other exemp- lions a considerable number of state offices are still operating under the civils >ervice law. Prominent among these are the five sanatoria for tu- berculosis, with 200 employees, Sthe of- nee Of highway commissioner with lzl, the state prison with 51, Fitch's Home for Soldiers with 52, the Train ing School for the Feeble Minded with 4Ss the board of education with 59 the offices of the insurance commits sioner with 20, and the tax commits sioner. No one can tell how soon any of these may apply for exemp- ton, but it is welr understood that many of our public officials are we'll satisfied with the operation of tha merit systena-and some of the com rnlssioners which have asked to be ex- empted from the compulsory features or the law, have made use of the lists or feligibles as a convenience. This is Lhe case, for example, in the state re- formatory at Cheshire. The signif1- cant fact, which cannot be too strong 1y emphasized. is that the objections to the original law have come, not from those who had. found by expert ence that it workeC badly but from those who feared that it would ham per their actions. On the other hand those heads of departments who had been able to test the practical work ing of the law of 1918 are the very ones who have not asked to be ex- empted. We refer particularly to the insurance commissioner, the highway commissioner and the tax commits sioner. The reappointment of these gentlemen by the governor was in it. self an application of the merit sys- tenn.
 ''This somewhat detailed account of the situation" says the report shows that those who oorn ov1