San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-02-28
POST OFFICE
DEPARTMENT
CHANGE URGED
Work, Retiring, Would
Give Department APP
pointive Power.
WITH POLITICS
Would Take Congressmen's
Political Privilege
Away.
WITH POLITICS

Washington, ID. C., Feb. 2S.-Post-
master General Herbert Work recon-
mended to President Harding today
that selection of postmasters should
no longer be considered a political
prerequisite of senators and represen-
tatives, but should be vested in the
POstoffice Department alone. e..
At the same time, the postmaster
general, who retires from his present
position on March I, to become sec
rotary of the interior, recommended
that present regulations requiring ex-
animation of candidates for pOstmas-
ter by the Civil Service Commission
also be abandoned.
The Postoffice Department is a
strictly business organization, said
DR.. Work, land it ought to be aided
in putting the right man in the right
place, as any private concern would
endeavOr to do for its own advance
ment, and not be handicapped either
by political consideration or by the
restrictions entailcd in the present
plan requiring examination by the
Civil Service Commission, which does
not even give civil service status"
Office Should Seek Man.
DR.. Work pointed out that the pres
ent rule limits the Presidents choice
in each case TO three civil service can
didateS, none of whom may have had
any READ business ability, though they
might be rated as good fellows" by
their neighbors.
He suggested that men trained and
experienced in really big business
could be secured for postmasters only
by reversing the method of appoint
ment. Instead of having the candi-
date seek the office, he said, the Of
flee should seek the man and keep on
seeking until it finds the right man,
to be retained in office as long as
the service is successfully conducted
under his management.
There should be no more term APP
pointmentS" and no partisan politics,
national or local. in the appointments
of postmasters, DR.. Work added. He
wanted it understood, he explained,
that he was not in favor of relaxa-
ton of the civil service regulations
as now applied to employees of the
Postoffice Department generally, but
felt that the proposed change in the
appointive method of postmaSterS
would enable the department to give
genuine practical effect TO the basic
civil service theory by making possible
the selection of qualified, business
men.
No Partisanship Charge Possible.
After two years experience" the
postmaster general said, lin connec-
ton with the appointment of presi-
Dental postmasters, / am convoinced
that the procedure and policy is not
only impracticable in form, but I'M
buSinesslike in principle. / can say
this now, without charge of being in
fluenced by official or partisan con-
sidcration. The great bulk of the
presidential appointments has already
been made. OF the approximately A.
600 presidential pOstmasters, about
10000 have been appointed, and this
includes the more important ones Of
the country. The $4,000 fourth class
postmasters were put under civil SER
vice by President Taft.
The plan by which the Civil Ser
vice Commission selects three names
for postmaster appointment by the
President entirely ignores the prac-
teal business principles of expert and
intelligent selection