Evening star., 1936-08-04

Z post Offices under
1T will require
four-year term of office and eliminate
the requirement of confirmation by
the Senate.
IS. Will this plan actually take
politics out of the appointment of
postmaSters?
This question is answered under
question S.
"7 What will be the chances of
present postmasters being reappointed
under the new plan? Will their
chances of continuing in office be bet
ter than under the old system? Will
they be given any preference?
The power of appointment remains
In the President of the United States
with recommendation to him by the
Postmaster General, subject. of course,
to non-competitive examination by the
Civil Service Commission. These
questions, therefore, can be answered
only by the Postmaster General. eX-
cept that the order does not give any
preference to incumbent postmasters."
Virtually Assures ReappOintments.
But while the order may not give
any preference, it goes without saying
that an incumbent postmaster will be
a candidate for reappointment and he
can be reappointed for another four
year term without having to compete
with anybody else in an examination.
The non competitive" examination
will be made up presumably of ques-
tions with which his four years of
work should make him familiar. but
he does not need to stack up against
any competitor who might, on merit. be
more efficient. The new executive
order is virtually an assurance to the
Democratic postmasters that they will
keep their jobs if Mr.. Roosevelt is
elected.
What has happened is this: There
are about $4,000 first, second and third
class postmasters appointed by the
President as distinguished from the
fourth-class postmasterships which
have been under civil service and do
not require Senate confirmation.
OF the $4,000 postmaSterS, all but
about 500 have been appointed by
President Roosevelt and they all be-
come eligible for reappointment some
time in the next four years. If Mr..
Roosevelt Is reelected the postmas-
ters can be reappointed without COM
petitive examination. Nor did they
have to take competitive examina-
ton to get their original appoint
ments.
If Landon is elected, he will face the
problem of revoking the executive order
or continuing in office the Roosevelt
Farley postmasters who were ap-
pointed very largely as a matter of
party politics.
Could Gust All.
What Landon could do is to issue
an executive order declaring all the
postmastershipS vacant and requiring
a competitive examination for every
body and permit the incumbent post
master to take the examination, too.
This would really insure start of
the merit system.
Under the recent executive order
tions when vacancies occur, but it is
not likely that many Of the $4,000
Democratic postmasterS will resign.
Also, even If a vacancy occurs and
the successful candidate in a competi-
tive examination is eligible for ap-
pointment, this is not saying that the
Senator from his State will accept
him for confirmation. In other words,
the Spolls system is as deeply en-
trenched as ever and the Congress is
just as much responsible for this as
Is the President.
Mr.. RooSevelt's record on civil serv-
ice undoubtedly will be much dis
cussed during the campaign. 1t de-
velops that in no less than Is in
stances laws were passed by Congress
disregarding civil service requirements
and there is no record that Mr.. Roose-
welt threatened to veto the bills be-
cause they specifically excluded the
appointments from civil service rules
Indeed Mr.. Roosevelt signed every one
of the Is measures.
Time for Clearance.
The usual argument made by the
New Dealers is that most of these
were emergency" agencies. There
are. on the other hand, many agencies
that have become and will become
permanent If there wasn't time for
civil service examinations in many
of the bureaus, the argument Is being
made that there happened to be plen-
tv of time for all the red tape OF
clearance" through Democratic po-
litical committees before most of the
appointments were made.
Latest figures show that on March
4, 1888, there were 578,23l Federal
employees outside the Army and Navy.
OF this number, 11.070, or about 10
per cent, were not in the civil service
category.
On June 80, 1885, the spoils system
appointments had gone up from 19
to So per cent The total number of
employees was 719, ,440 and the number
not subject to civil service was 264,176.
On June 80, 1886, the latest official
figures available, there is a total of
824,259 Federal employees and as yet
Il has not been disclosed what per-
centage are outside the civil service.
Using the So per cent figure of 1885.
It would mean that there are about
272,733 jobs in the Federal service that
can be obtained for the most part
through political influence.
Landon Outpromises Roosevelt.
One of the commonest excuses for
ignoring the civil service is that
technical" help or experts" cannot
be obtained through civil service
methods. But a personnel system
that picks even the experts" on
merit basis and without political in
dorsements can be devised overnight
II there Is a real inclination to do so.
Gov. Landon has promised that all