Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-03
CIVIL SERVICE HIT
BY SENATORS FIRE
Demand for Enforcement
Personnel Change Seen
Upset for Achievement.
BY WILLIAM HARD.

The recen5S senatorial attacks upon
the prohibition enforcement personnel
of the Federal Government are regard
ed here in some circles as being In
reality, although not in intention, at
tackS upon the Civil Service system.
It happens that the work of trcns-
ferring the personnel OF the Bureau OF
Prohibition from the spoils system to
the Civil Service system, under the law
of March 3. 1927, is just now in the
period of final accomplishment. Put
ting it broadly, the staff Of the bureau
is now, for the first time, becoming q
truly completely Civil Service staff, and
in quarters favorable to Civil Service
principles great Indignation is expressed
that attacks should be leveled upon the
staff when 1t is just assuming its new
Civil Service form and before it has
had any time to show what in that
form it can achieve.
A considerable proportion OF the old
staff of the Bureau OF Prohibition mas
been wholly cleared out through the
tests applied by the Civil Service Com
mission. In fact. it is calculated by
some Of the experts Of the Civil Serv-
ice Commission that SO per cent OF the
old spoils part of the staff will have
failed to survive these tests and will
have been dropped from the Bureau OF
Prohibition pay roll. Almost all OF the
dropped employees were originally put in
their Jobs by political influence or with
political sanction. Their successors
have been chosen through tests from
which political influence and sanction
have been so drastically excluded as to
call forth numerous loud circumstances
from legislative political sources.
Three Points of Test.
These tests have included the fol-
lowing:
/. An inquiry into previous practical
experience.
and education.
8. An inquiry into character.
The last of these inquiries has pro-
duced some startling results. For in
stance: In the latest examination given
by the Civil Service Commission for the
position of prohibition agent there were
1850 applicants who managed to get
by the experience test and the mental
test and who arrived at the hurdle OF
the character test. OF these applicants
the character test eliminated lbs.
Further, among these 1,185 thus elm
mated there were $50 whose records
for acts of moral turpitude, such as
embezzlement and robbery and bride
taking and fraud and other important
violations of law, were so atrociouS that
these $50 applicants were visited either
with outright cancellations Of their ap-
plicationS or even with complete de-
barment from all civil service exan1i-
nations thereafter.
At one time in the course of such
endeavors the Civil Service Commission
had more than rs trained character
country inquiring into the characters
and into the records Of applicants in
their home vicinities.
Justice Department Aid.
Additional help in this matter was
given to the Civil Service Commission
by the Bureau Of Investigation Of the
Department Of Justice. The moment
has arrived now when shortly it will be
possible to say that not one employe in
the whole Bureau Of Prohibition Is
holding Office without having passed the
severest possible scrutiny into his past
life from the point Of view Of moral
behavior.
The total number Of jobs to be shift
ed from the spoilS system to the civil
service system In the Bureau Of Prohi-
bition Is approximately $500. The Civil
Service Commission has now sent to the
Bureau of Prohibition the names of
certified eligibleS for all Of those $500
positions. It still has to hear from the
Bureau of Prohibition as to its actual
selections from among the certified
eligibles for some 700 positions. All the
other positions have been finally filled
with civil service appointees. The re-
manning 700 will soon be so filled. Then
the spoils system will have been eradi-
Gated from the Bureau of Prohibition,
and its new civil service era will have
begun.
What the civil service reformers in
public and in private life now fear is
that senatorial demands for a change
In prohibition enforcement personnel
from top to bottom" may tend to upset
the work accomplished by the Civil
Service Commission and to reintroduce
the system of appointment by favor.
Copyright, 1900