The Topeka state journal., 1919-12-25
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC J. HAsKIN, Director.
Washington, d. c..
WOMEN AND THE CIVIL SERVICE

washington II. L., DeC. Sz.-
Women will have an equal chance
with men in the government service if
bill urged by Senator Mclean, of
Connecticut, becomes a law. Now
that SO many American women have
the right to vote, the question of their
rights in industry and in business is
attracting the serious attention of
politicians.
The policy of the government as re-
CARDS its women employees has always
been anything but uniform. Each de-
partment head has authority to accept
| women for positions or not, as he
chooses. Some cabinet officers have
admitted them in large numbers,
while others have most often stipu-
lated men only in requesting the
civil service commission to furnish
various types of employees.
The result of this irregular system
is that women are barred from the
greater number of positions under
civil service. Since the war, more
women than men are employed by the
government at Washington, but the
thousands of women who invaded the
capital during the war were almost
all clerks, stenographers and typists.
Women were excluded from so per
cent of the positions for which ex-
aminations were held in the first six
months of 1919. This fact was
by the labor department in Septem-
Der. and since then the cause of equal
rights for women in government serv-
ice has been pushed vigorously by the
Woman's Trade Union league, the
women of the government service, and
by the Republicans as political is
sue.
The original cause of all this activ-
ity in behalf of woman workers is a
little paragraph in the Revised Stat
utes to the effect that:
women may, in the discretion of
the head of any department, be ap-
pointed to any of the clerkships there
in authorized by law, upon the same
requisites and conditions, and with the
same compensation as are prescribed
for men"
This statute was enacted ten years
before the civil service law of 1880.
but nothing in the law conflicted with
it, and it is still effective.
AS it has been interpreted, this law
has allowed women even less chance
of appointment than it was evidently
intended to give them. The secretary
of war, perhaps. would ask the civil
service commission for ten craftsmen
men only. Tho examination, closed
to women, would be held, a register
of all who qualified would be made
up, and the ten highest appointed.
Then. when the secretary of the navy
or some other department head called
for craftsmen, either>sex, a new exam
ination was not given. but eligibles
were taken from the list so long as it
lasted.
In this way women were barred
from many positions for which they
were considered eligible by the de-
partmental appointing officers.
This method of applying the law
was done away with in November by
a ruling of the civil service commits
sion that women shall be admitted to
all examinations whether the position
to be filled is open to them or not.
While it is a step toward equal
rights for men and women in civil
service, this decision does not in any
way affect the power of the depart
ment heads. This power. however,
would be curtailed by the Mclean bill.
shall not specify sex, unless sex is a
physical barrier to the proper per-
formance of the duties of the position
to be filled. This bill Senator Nc
Lean expects 20 push strenuously, and
he considers tlat it is fairly certain to
pass.
The attitude OF the different cabi-
net officers toward the bill is not yet
announced Most of them are asking
for and employing a larger percentage
of women clerks than ever before.
The war made it necessary to place
filled by men, and the government
has found them satisfactory. For this
reason, and for political reasons, it is
supposed that the cabinet will not put
up stiff fight against the attack on
their appointing powers.
In fields outside of government en-
ploy, women are engaged in prac-
tically every occupation. Twenty
years ago, the census showed that one
or more women were engaged in ev-
eryone of the 303 occupations listed
for the United States except nine.
These nine occupations included SOL
diers, sailors, marines and firemen.
Since women entered industry and
business in the last half century, they
have been accepted far more rapidly
by private employers than by the gov
crnment, tho the government was
among the first to take in women
clerks
The government accepted women
employees as early as 1858, when Clara
Barton, said to be the first woman
government clerk, entered the patent
office. So unprecedented was the
situation that the men employees tried
to frighten her away by lining them
selves along the corridors and staring
as she passed.
Even after the Civil war, the scat
tered appointments Of women to gov
ernment clerkships were regarded as
RASH experiments ana as temporary
expendientS. The attitude of the pub
lie toward women workers at that
time was still influenced by mid-Vic-
tor1an primness. Some writers lauded
the ladies' in government offices by
solemnly praising their estimable
characters and the air of court and
salon" which clung to them in spite
of contact with dusty files and other
office equipment.
Culture and grace crop out in the
pauses of official routine" says one
Observation-Disclosures