The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-14

passed.
 For nearly 100 years prior to this, congress had stubbornly re- sisted efforts to curb its unsuitable appetite for pap and patronage. Only the martryrdom of a Presi- dent finally moved it to act. From that date there has been steady progress in curtailing the spells system.
 Under President Taft the first inroad was made on the giant postal service, always a lush source of political poodle, by put ting fourth-class postmasters on a merit basis. Last year this particular job was finished when Congress enacted the Ramspeck- OMahoney bill extending the civil service system to all postmasters.
 This was followed several months later by White House executive order blanketing into civil service all government em- ployes not specifically exempted by Congress. When this order becomes effective on February l over 625,000 federal workers will be under the merit system.
 But while the legislative and executive branches of govern
 ment have slowly denuded the
 spells counter, the Civil Ser vice Commission, created to ad- minister the reforms, has sunk deeper and deeper into the mire of bureaucracy until to- day it is one of the most bar nacle-ridden and inefficient agencies in the U. s. govern
 ment.
 Unless reorganized, it will kill the very reform which it seeks to protect. So strong is the dis gust with it that last year both the House and Senate in separate votes, approved the provision in the later defeated government reorganization bill to house-clean the commission from top to bot tom.
 CLOCK WATCHERS
 What most people outside gov- ernment circles do not realize about Civil Service is the abso- lute, appalling inertia of the or ganization. Once in Civil Ser vice, you are there for life. You can't be fired except for serious cause. So the average civil work CT stops work at 4:25 p. m., leaves his desk promptly at 4:28, is at the front door of his building at 4:30 and nothing short of earth quake or hurricane can change his routine.
 Ride down Pennsylvania ave- nue in the evening and watch the. lights in the government buildings. It is the New Deal buildings, where Civil Service is not yet firmly entrenched, in which the lights burn until midnight. THE BOSSES
 The fostering sore in the Civil Service Commission is a power full bureaucracy of career em- ployes. As in most cliques of this kind, it is not the appointed executives at the top who are the machine. It is the veterans of many years in many Adminis- trationS who, through their strategic position, have been able to fasten their tentacles on the CSC and to extend their power into practically every branch of the government.
 Chief of the red-tape tycOOns is James G. Yaden, enthrOned . in the important position of chief of the Civil Service In- vestigation Division. For many years he was head of the Ex- amining Division which, in ef- feet, gave him power of life and death oyer all applicants for jobs. But last summer, af- ter Congress had made it clear what it thought of the commits sion, Yaden was switched to the less powerful Investigations job.
 But he is still a high mogul of Civil Service. For he is presi- dent of the District of Columbia Department of the American Federation of Government Em- ployes, which gives control over tens of thousands of clerks, sten- ographers and secretaries.
 Other big shots in the machine are Cecil E. Custer, assistant budget officer of the CSC and treasurer of the union: James B. .Baugh, Jr, chief of the Applica- tions Division and also union