Evening star., 1936-12-05
AZ. c. {. HEAD HITS
CRITIC OF SERVICE
StengIe Denies Emergency
Workers Were More Eff.
cient Than Regulars.

Defending the efficiency and loyalty
Of the average civil service employe.
Charles I. Stengle, president of the
American Federation of Government
Employees, today issued formal re-
ply to a syndicated article by Jay
Franklin attacking the civil service
and civil service employees.
Although taking sharp issue with
most OF Franklin's charges of in
efficiency among the ranks of regular
Government workers. Stengle agreed
with him that top jobs" in the Gov
ernment service are underpaid and
that they must be better paid to offer
D real career service.
jay Franklin characterizes the
civil service as q bureaucratic strait
Jacket and asserts that the emer-
gency employe did q better job than
the 'rank-and-file bureaucrats,' as he
designates the civil service appointees,"
said Stengle. He continues that
the emergency employees worked late
and hard, they used imagination and
initiative and he intimates that civil
service standards lead to extravaganza
and inefficiency. Finally. he attacks
former Comptroller General McCarl.
Lauds Civil Service.
II have no desire to disparage the
emergency employees and I am quite
willing to admit that a good many Of
them did very we'll, indeed. On
the other hand, perhaps Mr.. Franklin
IL not aware that large number of
the emergency employees had civil
service status, and l recall very dis
tinctly an article by two other col
umnists in which civil service en-
ployes in the A. A. A. were compared
very fsvorably to the non-civil service
group there, and in which the state
ment was made that the civil service
people took a rather cantankerous
pride in their work a pride which
the others apparently did not feel.
1T can hardly be contended that
the civil service is perfect. and 1
know from my own experience with
emergency employees, many of whom
are organized in our federation, that
they are able, hard-working. and fully
capable of Imagination and initia-
tive. AS matter of fact. that
description is measurably true of most
Government employees, whether civil
service or not. But not even Mr..
Franklin would deny. I think. that
some extraordinary specimens came
into the emergency agencies through
political influence, or that there was
In most of these agencies an approxi-
nation, at least, to the merit system,
and that the closer this approxima-
ton was. the better the agencies
functioned.
1T is true that the emergency peo-
pie worked hard and long We had
to stop a good deal of that-notably
the working of young girls 96 hours
q week in one unit of the N. r. A.
The fault for the long hours was due
largely to the ineficiency and inca
pacity of the so-called executives
brought into the government from pri-
vate business. They came here with
slave -driver complexes, and had to be
educated out of them. They may
have thought they were saving the
Nation. but if the Nation is saved it
had better be on humane basis.
McCarl Activities Upheld.
The same so-caIled executives were
The ones who ran afoul of Controller
General McCarl. They wanted to take
short cuts that the law did not per-
NIT. and he brought them up sharply.
There was nothing else he could do,
If he were worth his salt either as
lawyer or as controller general. AS
. matter of fact, Mr.. McCarl is an
excellent lawyer, and was a very good
controller general Furthermore, he
WAS humane in his attitude toward
Government employees. in so far as the
Law gave him the opportunity to be.
"On one point can agree thor
eughly with Mr.. Franklin-the point
that top jobs in the Government serv-
ice are underpaid, and that they must
be better paid to offer a real career
service. I do not admit that the en-
ployes in the lower grades are over
paid. In fact. we know that is not
so. and can afford him ample proof
Ii he cares to examine it.
'Mr. Franklin also attacks the Civil
Service Commission, but 1 feel that
the commission is quite able to take |
care Of itself and might with pro-
priety reply to the criticism in the last |
sentAnce of his article"