The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1921-07-15
DEMOCRATIC PAPER HAS A
GAUZY ALIBI

In an attempt to detract from the
damning arraignment of Democratic
incompetency, to which the Courier
called attention in referring editor
tally to the Urbanowitz defalcation in
the forestry service at Missoula, the
Helena Independent say that the
Democrats are not to blame, it is the
civil service which is at fault. The
esteemed Democratic apologist goes
further and says in effect, that the
responsible appointees may have been
appointed by the Roosevelt or Taft
administrations; that they may
have won out in an appointment from
Wilson on merit through the competi-
tive civil service examination. But
anyway no one is responsible but the
civil service through a defective book
keeping system.
While this attitude of the Indepen-
dent is novel and somewhat astound-
ing, as an alibi it's good, in the accept
ed sense. In fact it is about the only
plausible position the Democrats can
take; the only other alternative is to
plead guilty. This alibi will come in
handy all up and down the line, the
postal employees and not Burleson
will be held responsible for the rotten
postal service; the army organization
and not the secretary of wal should
be blamed with the extravaganza and
incompetency of the war ~administra-
ton; graft, favoritism and depraved
administration of the other war boards
must all be charged to the men lower
down and not to those higher up;
Palmer's bad breaks as attorney gem
eral We're faults of the secret service.
In fact if the alibi is good the general
breakdown in all of Wilson's beautiful
plans for world rule are due to those
who were his clerks and stenographers
during his European royal progress.
But it wont do. Since this govern
ment began the party in power is en-
tirely responsible to the people for
the administration. The Democrats
had eight years in which to attend to
all departments of the government,
to make the forestry service better
and more efficient in respect to book
keeping and in all other matters. 1t
is a bureau of a department and the
department head, and the bureau head,
were democratic appointees, made so
because they were deserving demo-
Gratis, it is true, but nevertheless the
officers who are responsible to the
administration and the people for the
efficiency and honesty of their sub
ordinates.
But in attention to government de-.
tail, and in most other respects the
democratic administration was the
most colossal failure of all history;
it has left the country's business a
nightmare ridden wreck. The indus
trial and governmental visions of false
prophets, have proven misleading
dreams, VI
; The present administration is barely
commencing, in four more months it
will make its efficiency felt in all of
the departments, the civil service in
cluded.
Because an office holder is a civil
service mar does not render him i'm
mune. The fact is that under the
kindly fostering care, that the Wilson
administration gave to bureaucracy,
the civil service has become to some
extent ~entrenched, and office holders
think themselves exempt from ordin-
airy business liabilities; they feel that
they have a life job, and proceed to
make that job easy, safe and secure
from interruption by those higher up.
The Democrats having control of the
higher up places for eight years, are
responsible for loose conditions in the
civil service as they now exist.
The Republicans will put the civil
service and all other branches of pub
he service back where they belong, on
an economical and efficient basis, just
as fast as it can undo te vast harm
that has been done by the neglest and
i~neffciensy of the eight years of DEM
ocratic misnanagement that have jast
ended.
In the meantime, as in the past, the
American people will not stand for