The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1936-01-30
THE GREAT
GAME OF
POLITICS
Copyright by the Baltimore Sun and
reprinted in The Republican by
special permission.
Facts About Federal Jobs
By FRANK r. KENT,

avs GAOOuk Il NNOA al OOO0
Washington, Jan. %.
This Administration, which parades
its ideals" pirates of its purity and
denounces political reactionaries, actu-
ally has reverted to a type of spoils-
manship in the Federal patronage
which compares unfavorably with that
practiced thirty years ago. 1t ought to
shock the country.
#**
The fact, known to every posted OBJ
server, is unfortunately obscured to
the public gaze by the NewDeal prop
uganda and the vehement insistence of
its spokesman that everything it does
is inherently virtuous and in the public
interest. There was never a falser pre-
tense, more complete piece of hum
buggery. Talk about forward looking
men,! Under the New Deal back
ward step, unprecedently long, has
been taken into the mire of partisan
politics, from which far more than
a generation the Federal machine has
been slowly but steadily emerging.
49,
Under Mr.. Roosevelt the merit sys-
tenn has terrifcally degenerated and
hard-won Civil Service ctatus is no
longer regarded as security against the
job makers of the New Deal. The
really shocking situation is made plain
in striking article in the current
Atlantic Monthly by Mr.. Lawrence Sui
livan. Among the facts presented by
Mr.. Sullivan are that, while the New
Deal has added 235,000 persons to the
direct full-time Federal payroll, only
one in 107 among the new personnel is
under Civil Service. The rest are chos-
en- under the political clearance" plan
of Mr.. Farley, which means on purely
political basis.
In 1884, Mr.. Sullivan points out, only
10.5 per cent of those in the Govern
ment Civil Service were under statu-
tory merit regulation. By 1904 this had
increased to 51.2; Woodrow Wilson in
creased it to 67.2; Coolidge to 74.8, and
Hoover to 80.8. In 1928 the Civil Ser
vice Commission happily reported that
every President since the Civil Ser
vice law was enacted has extended it's
scope by executive ORDER" This "march
of merit" Mr.. Sullivan says, was I'M
broken for half century, but since
Mr.. Roosevelt came in the percentage
of competitive places has slipped back
to 81. We are where we were in the
period of 1906-19O8.
*&*
But this is by no means all of the
story. Mr.. Sullivan gives convincing de-
tails of the intrigue against Civil Ser
vice employees, points out the wholesale
wedding out for the politicians. He
charges that the morale of the whole
Federal personnel has been broken and
the sense of safety among the sup
posedly protected employees destroyed.
Including displacements, Mr.. Sullivan
asserts that $4,000 jobs, to date, have
been made available to the Farley sys-
tenn and that this figure takes no ac-
count of the 428,438 engaged on
wholly Federal construction or the 49,
1853 CCC enrollees. Nor, he might have
added, the 10000 AAA SIS per diem
county committeeman, for whose re-
tention the Administration is now
striving.
The assertion is made that Mr.. Far
ley believes each job worth an average
of forty votes. Thus the total voting
strength of the Federal employees
would be 100000, which is, of
course, nonsense. How Mr.. Farley ar
rives at his average of forty votes to a
job-holder no one knows. Perhaps by
the well-known cheating at solitaire"
method used in calculating his Post
office Surplus" but any precinct ex-
ecutive of any party will tell him he
is wrong. There may be jobholders
worth forty or even fifty votes, but the
experienced precinct politician esti-
mates jobholder worth on an average
of five votes. However, the Farley es-
innate of forty explains his apparent
confidence in the reelection of Mr..
Roosevelt in face of the obvious ebbing
Of the tide.
While Mr.. Roosevelt gibly talks of
ideals and progressive policies, and his
hard-boiled political general renounces
"banker bandits" and "Old Guard Re-
publicans" there has been built up an
unprecedentedly vast Federal ma
chine on a purely spoils basis. The
truth is the New Deal piety is hypo-
critical pretense; the New Deal poll
tics is ruthless and reactionary; the
New Deals reliance for reelection is
upon the influence of the Federal pat
ronage and the votes Of the millions to
whom Federal funds are distributed. /