The Wilmington morning star., 1940-10-02
WASHINGTON
DAYBOOK
BY JACK STINNETT

WASHINGTON, Oct 1.-When a law puts
more than a million people on the spot, it's
worth digging into.
If you know a hundred persons, the odds
are you know someone who is affected by the
Hatch act. Those affected are, for the first
time really, finding themselves definitely on
the spot.
In the national defense melee you may have
missed all the hullabaloo about the Hatch act
and its amendments. 1t is the statute which
forbids, on pain of instant dismissal, any gov
eminent employe or the employe of any state
or local project financed in part or in whole
by government funds from participating in al
most any way in party politics.
Border Cases Must Wait
That includes SO many people that the Civil
Service Commission, which is charged with
administering the act and prosecuting it in so
far as civil service employees are concerned
(something like $50, 00O can't begin to enum-
crate the borderline cases. These won't be
classified probably until the courts Con appeal
from hearings) have had a whack at inter
preting the law.
There are borderline violations, too, which
hardly can be imagined until court precedence
is established, but it won't take that to prove
that the Hatch act has teeth. It has fangs in
rows, and they are SO sharp that any fedora,
worker who gets over the years without get
ting his hide ripped off on them will have to
pick his political way with caution.
The amended Hatch act Cts only a little
more than two months old not only made
political activity verboten but provided for the
Civil Service Commission to define political
activity" It was no dictionary job, you can
bet, and it is just now that Chairman Harry
B. Mitchell of the commission has gotten
around to pointing out to the federal thousands
just where some Of these big, bad teeth are.
Can't Talk About 1t
For instance, any government worker caught
on the job even discussing whether Wendell
Willkie or F.D.R. will be the next President
may find himself in the army of the unem-
ployed forthwith. Under the Constitution, Con-
gress can't take way the right of frs speech
off the job, but on the job-that's different.
A Hatch acter's free speech, even off the
job, doesn't include making political speeches,
seconding motions in political assemblies, say
ing yea or nay in political conventions, or
otherwise talking out of turn about anything
that has to do with party politics.
Election bets are out and to such an extent
that even wagering a marshmallow flip on
whether the sheriff will get in again might
turn out to be ones cause of departure.
There'n be no more flute-tooting at political
rallies either-that is, unless the worker is a
member of a band that plays for hire and
the politicians hire 1t in the regular manner.
If government workers love a parade and the
parade is political, they'll have to take it
from the sidewalk not from the reviewing
stand or the line of march. They can't wear
or distribute buttons or badges, pass out cam
paign literature, fiddle with campaign funds.
Can't Work At Polls
They can't serve at polls or give voting
Johnnies a lift in the old jaloppy. They can't
write letters to the editor or articles either
not even if they sign them simply Loyal
American"
This is only a handful of the Hatch acter's
don'ts, but even these should serve to show
why a million-odd federal workers are on a
spot this election year they never were on
before. q