Evening star., 1938-10-05
Jobs
Continued From First Page.)

thority in his discretion to appoint
without regard to the civil service
law and rules. Under established deci-
sions, with such discretionary author
ity, the President could place the posi-
tions in the classified service by exec
utive order.
However, the 1898 Relief Appro-
priation Act made direct applopria-
tions to the Works Progress admins /.
traitor and to various departments and
establishments of the Government for
the purposes of the Work Relief Act.
Direct appropriations under ordinary
conditions carry with them the power
to appoint, and the question involved
under the 1893 act was whether such
appropriations without additional Ian
guage comforting upon the appointing
officers discretion to appoint without
regard to the civil service law and
rules could be held to carry over such
discretionary power to such officers
because it had in the past been
granted to the President
Precedent Held Established.
precedent has established, however,
that power Of appointing officers to
except from the civil service and rules
must be specifically expressed in the
statue, and the commission found that
there was no such expressed exception
in the 1888 Work Relief Act"
The commission said past opinions
OF both the Attorney General and the
controller general support its findings.
In this connection, it was said that
neither Federal nor State project en-
ployes of the W. P. A. will be affected.
This move by the commission, in
effect. disposes Of the positions about
which there is no question The bat
tie will come over the schedule A and
B exemptions, is the departments and
independent agencies for the most
part already have shown a decided
tendency to oppose bringing the hign-
er positions under civil service, &C
cording to well-informed sources.
These include the so-called conf
Dental positions, those in legal di-
visions and others in the top-pay
ranges.
Few Exclusions Favored.
In his order President Roosevelt
said the only places ultimately to re-
main outside of civil service are those
considered of q policy-forming ma
ture or requiring Senate confirmation
or which have some equally good
reason for exemption.
Both the President and the COM
mission are known to favor as few
exclusions as possible, contending that
II the Government service is to be
built up as career service, positions
at the top must Of necessity be left
open to competition.
The commission said today, how
ever, that before sending recon-
mendations to the President on these,
the affected agencies will have further
opportunity to argue in behalf of the
exemptions sought Where any A and
B schedule exemptions ultimately may
be granted in regular civil service
agencies, corresponding positions in the
groups brought under civil service to-
day logically would be affected also,
but the opinion was expressed that the
number Of these latter would be very
small.
While the commission order will
pave the way to civil service status for
thousands of workers here and else
where who came in as political ap-
pointees or otherwise, many of those
holding positions to be brought in
already have competitive status, hav-
ing been taken from civil service reg
listers by the employing agencies.