Evening star., 1946-07-03
Letters to The Star
Efficiency of the Government
In Relation to Apportionins

In Relation to Apportionins
To the Editor OF The Star:
The Civil Service Commission has
reinstated the "apportioning system"
whereby Federal positions in the classi-
fed departmental civil service must be
distributed among residents of the vari-
Gus States according to quota system
This means that many war-service
appointees who have become legal resi-
dents OF the District thus will be denied
the chance TO obtain permanent ap-
pointments when their war-service
terms expire tbecause the Districts
quota, for obvious reasons, always is
filed. In more brutal language, they
will lose their jobs because of this legal
technicality which has no bearing what
ever on their experience and fitness in
their work.
At time when the President himself
has complained that for various other
reasons it is becoming very difficult to
attract and hold capable people in the
Federal service, here is one more hin
drance to the retention of qualified
personnel. What is more, the ma jority
of employees who thus may lose their
jobs were not residents of the District
when they first accepted Federal en-
ployment, SO that ousting them as Dis
trlct residents must seem to them a
particularly bitter conspiracy of red
tapism. From double viewpoint, there
fore, the application Of the apportion-
ing system to these employees will be
maleficent.
7 suggest-and I hope that some
member of one of the congressional
civil service committees will read this
that the Congress enact special meas
ure to except present war-service ap-
pointees from the quota system in con-
sidering their eligibility for permanent
appointment. There may be some SEN
sible reason for apportioning Federal
positions among the States when the
rule affects only the choice of one
among several applicants, OF whom none
is already employed by the Government
lie, when all the applicants may be
deemed equally inexperienced and
equally deserving of consideration But
I submit that the criterion of fitness
for position should take precedence
over all other considerations in the
interest of efficient operation of the
Government; and the personal hard
ship TO uar-service appointee who
must lose his job after having uprooted
his former ties to some other Job and
community las evidenced by his as
sumption of legal residence in the Dis
trictp certainly must outrank the hard
ship-if 1t can be called that--to an
unsuccessful applicant from one of the
States, who more readily may find
other employment in his own commu-
nifty.
Unemployed veterans of course al
ready are given preference and even
nonVeterans who are not now Govern
ment employees may compete with the
War-service appointee for permanent
appointment to his position on the
basis Of merit. This is fair enough,
since the war-service jobs were tagged
as possibly temporary when they
were begging for some one to fill them.
Many of these positions Will be abolish
ed as unnecessary in peacetime, and
the employees who thus lose their jobs
can accept only this as an unavoidable
consequence OF conversion to q peace
time Government.
But on the other hand many jobs
taken by war-seryice people were known
to be of the kind which would not be
abolished after the war mo permanent
appointments were made after adop-
ton OF the war-service regulations,
even to positions of this permanent"
typel. and surely these people deserve
the chance to compete for permanent
appointment on the basis of their per-
sonal qualifications. The Government,
whose efficient operation concerns all
of us, deserves the chance to retain
the most capable of those who already
have gone through the costly process
Of obtaining experience in their particu-
lar jobs. L. V. B.