Evening star., 1937-04-11


~ reform was in progress here
A about the time the Seventy
fifth Congress was assembling.
"Reform-my eye!" said one of the
curbstone conferees up on the Hill
this session you're going to have
fellows who haven't got any Jobs in
the past two or four years and are
plenty sore about it; the new men
coming in are going to want their
cut, and those who already have been
pretty we'll taken care of will be look
ing around to see how much more
good they can do for themselves.
Think you can get anything by a
lineup like that? Try and do it,"
Up to now. that prediction has been
about 100 per cent correct.
In the face of (a) a definite plat
form pledge by both parties, though
there is not much sense in talking
about Republican pledges now; (b)
a declaration by President Roosevelt
in his reorganization message that
civil service should be extended up
ward Z. outward downward"
and (c) the expenditure of hundreds
of thousands of dollars by the Civil
Service Commission to set up new
registers, Congress has gone blithely
along, not only ignoring the civil
service act but resorting to the SUBJ
terfuges that have become so fanil-
lar in the past four years, with new
variations on an old theme, to give a
tinge OF respectability to the pro-
cedure. Further, in this process, there
has been at least one instance-coal
control-where model civil service
statute has been junked for one that
could we'll be classified under help
wanted" only the lowest positions
being subject to competition under
the new measure.
Dramatics Of 1888 Missing.
The current patronage onslaught
has not been attended by the dra-
matics of 1888, when old-line civil
service workers were hitting the
economy toboggan while the emer-
gency was used to justify catch-as-
catch-can employment of a new crop
and job hunters stormed every portal
that offered hope
1t has not, however, been any the
less effective.
Two flood-disaster relief measures
and one for crop loans have wended
their way to enactment with job-dis-
pensing provisos; the new Guffey coal
bill, doing likewise, is in the final
stages OF enactment; the Senate also
has passed crop-insurance legisla-
ton that cuts out civil service
appointments; there are pending
about 10 bills and resolutions for crea-
ton OF agencies Of one sort or another
carrying specific ban against civil
service, and the number Of proposals
for other establishments and functions,
under which experts, attorneys and
professional groups would be exempt,
runs above hundred
Ever so often, some one-generally q
minority member-puts in a bill un-
der which employment would be from
civil service registers and pay would
be fixed according to the classification
act. But this has by no means become
habit.
In some instances the exemption
from civil service Is inconseQuential
and in accordance with recognized
practice-for instance, the law setting
up machinery for the United States to
participate in the International Expo
sition in Paris this year. But these
cases are isolated,
Principle Highly Important.
The new non-civil service food re-
lief and crop loan laws are not Of
Themselves particularly important.
But the principle involved is highly
important. The farm-aid legislation
is an annual affair and is admins
tered through the Farm Credit Ad-
ministration, which Is only partly civil
service anyway
One of the flood measures sets up
the Disaster Loan Corp, with .
$20,000,000 fund, as an offshoot of
the Reconstruction Finance Corp, and
logically may be considered the legiti-
mate child Of its non-civil service
parent. The other dood aid legisla.
ton furnishes q remarkable demons
tration Of the extreme to which It y