The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-10-13

dete, Governor
 Landon, and
 the former
 Hearst news
 paper executive, Col. Knox, just
 can't wait to
 get elected to w r,t.p..r,or, make a ability '.w' Fit1fn'rick EFF and ability alone, the first quali- fication in 8 job holder. By inference, suggestion, and direct statement these crusaders for pur- ity in the peoples service try to convince the minimizing that all democrats, especially President Roosevelt and Chairman Farley, are committed to what is derisive- ly called "the spoils system" Republicans say they want civil service. They want it but with reservations. They don't want it NOW. They want it when, as, and if the Republican national and state tickets are elected. Then all Democratic office holders will be fired,-in accordance with tra- ditional republican practice,-the jobs will be filled with faithful members of the g. o. D., civil serv- ice will be enacted into law by federal and state statute, and re- pubIicans will be in for life. Not SpOOfing
 If you think I am Spoof1ng let me remind you of something. Dur ing the sessions of the last Con- gress MT. Roosevelt tried to get 8 bill passed which would have brought the postoffice department by law permanently under the merit system and civil service reg uIations. Administration leaders endeavored to get the measure passed the day before final ad- journment by suSpending the rules so that two-thirds majority vote could get it through. The demo- crats voted three to one for it. A majority of the republicans voted against 1t. President Roosevelt then issued an Executive Order that on and after date thirteen thousand postmasters of the first, second, and third grades would be appointed under the merit system and subject to the Civil Service Commissions regulations. (See By Way of No Harm" for July 31st.)
 Civil Service a Ia LandOn
 There is an old adage to the ef- feet that charity should begin at home. So should civil service. What has the Hearst nominee, Gov. Landon, done for civil serv- ice in his home state of Kansas?
 The following is the reprint of a dispatch wired from Topeka, September 20th, by a staff corre- spOndent of the New York Herald Tribune which hates President Rooseveltis guts. It speaks for it. self. Space limitations make 1t impossible to publish the dispatch in its entirety. The words and sentences in black faced type are my emphasis. So are the pa rentheSis mine.
 The statement of E., R. Sloan issued in Washington today that the Kansas civil service law has been a dead letter for fifteen years and that Governor Landon has made no effort to revive it is undisputed here.
 Governor Landon'S friends do dispute, however, the assertion that the absence of civil service in a formal or legal sense means that all jobs in the Kansas state government are treated as party patronage. They point to the fact that in certain branches of the state government and in certain offices in other branches a merit system has grown up and has been main tained by custom.
 MT. Sloan, who made the statement issued today by Labor's Non- Partisan League, is a prominent Democratic lawyer who served on the State Su- preme Court for 8 time as the appointee of Governor Harry H. Woodring, who is now Sec retary of War in the Roosevelt administration.
 The Kansas civil service law was passed twenty years ago under the administration of Arthur Capper, Republican, now United States Senator. It created an ex-oficio Civil Serv- ice Commission with broad but vague powers. Excepting clerk and a stenOgrapher or two, the commission never was given any money, and a real classified civil service system with com petitive examinations was never established. The law became 8 dead letter in a general reOrgan- izatiOn effective when Henry J. Allen (republican) was governor.
 
 Independent observers here assert that there never has been much of a demand for civil service in the state government. They attribute that to the fact that, by custom, large part of the ofdceholders are left unmo- tested when one Governor goes out and another comes in. This, in turn, is partly attributable to the fact that for more than twenty years Kansas has been governed by one party - the Republican party, as 1t happens except during two terms.
 Jonathan Davis, Democrat who served during 1923 and 1924, turned out of office many Republicans and injected pat ronage into the state educa- tional institutions and other sectors of the state government, which. by custom, had been tout of politics" for many years. The popular outcry against this was considered one of the chief causes of MT. DaviS'S defeat for