Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-24
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS

Mr.. Hoover has ended the anxieties
of the members of the Radio Commits
sion as to their future tenure in Office
by reappointing the entire commission.
Senate confirmation seems certain,
though little is certain in the Senate
with having desired to make some
changes in the personnel of the COM
mission, but decided not to risk the
Senate row, which was threatened If he
dropped MesSrs. Robinson and Sykes
and retained Commissioners Starbuck,
Lafount and Saltzman. Mr.. Hoover made
virtue of expediency when assured that
the Senate was disposed to reapprove
the present board en- bloc. The COM
mission had evolved and put into effect
brief history on q permanent footing,
and has already set up its augmented
legal staff. and will soon name a new
engineering staff. When Congress first
legiSlated for a Radio Commission 1t
had been assumed that once the COM
mission had evolved and put into effect
a co-ordinated plan of wave-length as
signments, station power and ALLEGATION
of time to end the chaos of the air,
there would be little left for it to do,
certainly not enough to engage the full
time attention of a permanent COM
mission. Instead the volume of admin
istrative detail, as well as new problems
to be solved and new decisions to be
made, Is on the increase all the time.
X X X X
The only museum on Capitol Hill is
in the office of Representative Clyde
Kelly of Pennsylvania, who has been
collecting interesting curios from all
over the world for the past is years.
His exhibit ranges from relics of the
World War to curioS from the South
Sea Islands and the early settlements of
the North American Indians. His latest
addition is tortoise shell medicine rat
tie from the Omaha Winnebago In
dams, of which tribe he is honorary
chief. His most highly esteemed me-
mento, however, is the set OF highly
polished horseshoes with which Rep
resentative Kelly won the "barnyard
golf" congressional championship last
Summer.
Uncle Sam is the greatest employer
of labor in the world. If you do not
believe it you may examine the new
United States Offlcial Register, which
lists 587,667 employees under civil service
status now on the pay roll in the execu-
tive branches of the Government This
takes no account of the legislative
branch, or of the tens of thousands Of
employees in the judicial department,
nor those in the military service. OF the
civil service total SO .904 are employed in
Washington, and 523, 761 in the field.
Women far outnumber the men in
Washington bureaus, but in the field 1t
is the other way round. The total for
the women Is 82,501. The Post once
Department accounts for more than
one-half of the grand total, its figure
being 314,795.
Despite alleged dissatisfaction of
naval officers over their salary and al
lowances, designations from the service
have decreased SO materially that there
is a serious possibility that commissions
may be withheld from 80 or 40 members
of the 1880 class at the Naval Academy.
This situation has brought the quite
unprecedented step of notice to the
naval ensigns of the 1923 and 1929
classes that the requirement OF two
year sea duty will be waived as TO any
who may wish to resign from the serv-
ice. The Navy Department has also
asked Congress to raise from to 6 per
cent the permitted ratio of officers to
enlisted men. Present authorized naval
officer personnel is set at 5,499. The
pendency of measures In Congress to
raise pay and allowances of naval Of
fieers approximately 40 per cent is said
to explain the decline in designations.
Offlcers are waiting to see II the pay
increase bill goes through.