The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1929-02-01
On This
Occasion
lust few thoughts by the Editor on things
Material and Immaterial

Right on the heels Of the Road
Commission" plan for st. Louis Coun-
ty comes another scheme Tor Clvii
Service Commission" for the county.
Both of these are punk ideas &C
cording to our notion. should all
these several forms OF commissions
proposed become operative, it viii be
entirely unnecessary to have Board
of County Commissioners. The road
commission would dominate the road
building and the civil service bunch
would dominate the employees OF the
county. This would leave the county
board nothing whatever TO do but 10
paw the bills contracted by the sew
eral commissions and draw their own
salaries, first devising some scheme
for securing the money to do this In
this they would run up against
the Taxpayers League and thus an
other highly important part OF the
work would be taken from the should
ers of the board. II all the measures
proposed by the "watchdogs of the
county" we're put into practice, there
absolutely would be no use for the
County Board.
This civil service idea propa-
ganda at the present time, puts us IN
mind of what Vice President Charlie
Dawes said and did right after the
war when he cleaned out about 5000
employees from the several depart
ments at Washington. He found that
every senator and representative had
made appointments of relatives, con-
stituents and friends in the depart
ments whose sole duties, as he said
were ito go out to lunch. Under the
civil service ruling none could be
fired" except for cause and he furn-
ished the cause and fired" them.
There were countless others in the
overloaded departments he could not
reach because of congressional and
senatorial influences and to this day
there are many whose sole duties seem
to be ito go out to lunch"
This is not saying that st. Louis
County would face the same cond1-
tons but there is chance. The coun-
ty commissioners would have moth
ing to say in the hiring and firing OF
employees and would only have the
worry of meeting the payrolls. It looks
to us very much as if this civil ser
vice stuff should be given the KO.
Private industries employing large
forces would also probably put this IN
effect if it could be done with any
degree of satisfaction. The county is
no different from these private cor
porations. How would civil service
act in the several commissioner dis
tricts and especially on road work?
The court house employees are not all
there is to a county employe situa-
ton.
These same court house employees,
county garage and road workers, en-
gineers and others, will probably say
we are a crab. However, it has
frequently occurred that the civil ser
vice provisions have been abused and
that employees have taken advantage
of the situation which prohibited the
boss from cutting them of the pay
roll for ineficiency simply because
the civil service did not allow it or
because they were closely related to
some high official. We further say
that an employe should be worthy of
his hire and the salary paid him.
This is not the fellow that wants
CIVIL VIC SbdOC tAA0I
the man who pays the salary should
have some voice in the matter, be
he county commissioner or superin-
tendent of a mine or other institution.
With all this tax talk going around
1t is but fitting and proper to show
Just how this county fares in the dis
tribution of the taxes collected.
st. Louis county paid the state a
greater sum in taxes for November
over the amount received as state aid
than any county in the state accord
ing to the showing in a statement OF
the settlement for the month just
made by State Treasurer j. A. Sch
nahl. All but nine counties received
more than they paid. st. Louis coun-
ty paid in S315, SAG more than it re-
eeived, the largest excess of any. Hen
nepin county was second with 1854,
74e, while Ramsey county was third
with s164 ,166. A grand total Of S.
714,541 was received from and $780,
728 paid to the counties for special