Douglas daily dispatch., 1927-10-26
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WAsHINGTON.-Most Washington

WASHINGTON.-M Washington
woodpiles harbor Senegambians.
Take the case of the prohibition
enforcement service. Millions of per-
sons are sleeping peacefully tonight,
serenely confident that enforcement
has now been taken out of politics
by putting the administrators, inspec-
tors and agents under civil service.
That was the idea, wasn't it? To
put everything on a basis of pure
merit and weed out all the grafters
who held their jobs by politics alone?
Somehow, it seemed too good to be
true. And so, apparently, it was.
The civil service does its part-it
weeds out the obvious imbeciles and
the known criminals from the appli-
cants. Then it presents a list of
eligibles consisting of those who have
passed the examinations. There are
always more eligibles than jobs
when the jobs. are sought after as
enforcement jobs are So the elig-
ible who has political pull gets the
lob, as enforcement heads can pass
over any number of other eligibles no
matter how much more brilliantly
they may have come through the
exams.
The way to get a government job
still is to vote right, pass the civil
service examination and stand in
with your congressman or local polit1-
cal boss If you want to be a post
master, for instance, and have. more
drag than any of your rivals but still
can't pass the examination, you can
probably get your congressman to
urge a re-examination on the ground
that the eligibles aren't satisfactory.
Having flunked one examination,
you'll have a good enough idea OF
what the re-examination will be like
and if you can. pass it you won't
have to worry about the five or six
fellows who passed with better marks.
If you can't pass the re-eXamlnatlon
you might as well try for job with
the city or get yourself elected to
the state legislature.
Most of the incumbent prohibition
agents entered the recent exams and
many of them pulled through. The
prohibition enforcement service will
not be such paradise for bungling
grafters so stupid as to get caught
at it., but it may continue to be
hunting ground for those who are
smart enough to get away with 1t.
And a smart CRATER can make more
than a dumb CRATER any day. Assist
ant Secretary Lowman, however, says
that the grafters are being chased
out in droves and if possible to re-
place them with honest men the sit
uation should improve
Speaking of prohibition, here's the
latest alibi for border rum-runnerS
A man and woman were caughC
with an automobile in Montana near
the Canadian line, driving an auto
mobile more or less loaded with liquor.
Placed on trial at Great Falls they
advanced the defense that they had
become lost in the dark and had wan
dered over into Montana by mistake.
They said they supposed they were
on Canadian soil until their arrest.
Whether their story was proved
true, whether they we're acquitted be-
cause it was such a good one or
whether they went to the hoosegoW
/ has not yet reached the ears OF your
correspondent. One may now expect
to hear captains of rum ships COM
plain that the compass fell overheard
and that they assumed they were IN
the Straits of Magellan when the
coast guard came along and captured
them within the 12-mile limit.