166 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (OIVIL-SEKVICE REFORM.) 



league rose in his place and admitted the gen- 

 eral truth of the statement and defended the 

 system as being necessary for the proper ad- 

 ministration of the Treasury Department. 



" Mr. President, we see in this statement 

 whence comes that immense body of public 

 officials, inspectors, detectives, deputies, ex- 

 aminers, from the Treasury Department who 

 have for years past been sent over the States 

 for the purpose of managing presidential con- 

 ventions and securing presidential elections at 

 the public expense. 



" I hold in rny hand a statement made be- 

 fore the committee which reported this bill, 

 showing that in one of the divisions of the 

 Treasury Department at Washington, where 

 more than nine hundred persons were em- 

 ployed, men and w^omen, five hundred and 

 more of them were entirely useless, and were 

 discharged without in any degree affecting the 

 efficiency of the bureau. I do not intend to 

 misstate any fact to-day if I can avoid it, and 

 therefore 1 read from the testimony taken be- 

 fore the committee. Every gentleman can find 

 it if he has not it already on his table. The 

 statement to which I refer I read from page 

 121 of report of committee No. 576 : 



" The extravagance of the present system was well 

 shown in the examination of the Bureau of Engraving 

 and Printing by a committee of which 1 was chair- 

 man. Of a force of 958 persons, 539, with annual sal- 

 aries amounting to $390.000, were found to be super- 

 fluous and were discharged. The committee reported 

 that for years the force in some branches had been 

 twice and even three times as great as the work re- 

 quired. In one division a sort of platform had been 

 built underneath the iron roof, about seven feet above 

 the floor, to accommodate the surplus counters. It 

 appeared that the room was of ample size without this 

 contrivance for all the persons really needed. In an- 

 other division were found twenty messengers doing 

 work which it was found could be done by one. The 

 committee reported that the system of patronage was 

 chiefly responsible for the extravagance and irregu- 

 larities which had marked the administration of the 

 bureau, and declared that it had cost the people mil- 

 lions of dollars in that branch of the service alone. 

 Under this system the office had been made to sub- 

 serve the purpose of an almshouse or asylum. 



" In consequence of this report the annual appropria- 

 tion for the Printing Bureau was reduced from $800,- 

 000 to $200.000, and out of the first year's savings was 

 built the fine building now occupied by that bureau. 



" And again, on page 126, this same gentle- 

 man says : , 



" My observation teaches me that there is more press- 

 ure and importunity for these places [that is, the 

 $900 clerkships], and that more time is consumed 

 by heads of departments, and these haying the ap- 

 pointing power, in listening to applications for that 

 grade than for all the other places in the departments 

 combined ; and that when it is diwcretionart with a 

 department to appoint a man or a woman, the choice 

 is usually exercised in favor of the woman. I know 

 a recent case in the Treasury Department where a va- 

 cancy occurred which the head of the bureau deemed 

 it important to fill with a man. It was a position 

 where a man's services were almost indispensable : 

 but the importunity was so great that he was com- 

 pelled to accent a woman, although her services were 

 not required. In consequence of this importunity 

 for places for women a practice has grown up in the 

 Treasury Department of allowing the salaries of the 



higher grades of clerkships to lapse when vacancies 

 occur, and of dividing up the amount among clerks, 

 usually women, at lower salaries. In the place of a 

 male clerk at $1,800 a year, for instance, three women 

 may be employed at $600. Often the services of a 

 man are required in its higher grade, while the wom- 

 en are not needed at all ; but as the man can not 

 be employed without discharging the women, he can 

 not be had. The persons employed in this way are 

 said to be ' on the lapse.' Out of this grew the prac- 

 tice known in departmental language as ' anticipating 

 the lapse.' 



" In the endeavor to satisfy the pressure for place 

 more people are appointed on this roll than the sala- 

 ries then lapsing will warrant, in the hope that enough 

 more will lapse before the end of the fiscal year "to 

 provide funds for their payment. But the funds al- 

 most always run short before the end of the year, and 

 then either the ' lapse ' appointees must be dropped 

 or clerks discharged from the regular roll to make 

 place for them. In some instances, in former admin- 

 istrations, the employes on the regular roll were com- 

 pelled, under terror of dismissal, to ask for leaves of 

 absence, without pay, for a sufficient time to make 

 up the deficiency caused by the appointment of un- 

 necessary employes ' on the lapse.' Another bad 

 feature is that these ' lapse ' employe's being appoint- 

 ed without regard to the necessities of the work, for 

 short periods and usually without regard to their quali- 

 fications, are of little service, while their employment 

 prevents the filling of vacancies on the regular roll, 

 and demoralizes the service. 



" In one case thirty -five persons were put on the 

 ' lapse fund ' of the Treasurer's office for eight days 

 at the end of a fiscal year, to sop up some money 

 which was in danger of being saved and returned to 

 the Treasury. 



" Says this gentleman further : 



" I have no doubt that under a rigid application of 

 this proposed system the work of the Treasury De- 

 partment could be performed with two thirds the 

 number of clerks now employed, and that is a moder- 

 ate estimate of the saving. 



"Mr. President, a Senator who is now pres- 

 ent in the chamber and who will recognize 

 the statement when I make it, though I shall 

 not indicate his name, told me that the Secre- 

 tary of one of the departments of the Govern- 

 ment said to him, perhaps to the Committee on 

 Appropriations, at the last session, that there 

 were seventeen clerks in his department for 

 whom he could find no employment ; that he 

 did need one competent clerk of a higher grade, 

 and if the appropriation were made for that 

 one clerk, at the proper amount, according to 

 the gradations of the service, and the appropria- 

 tion for the seventeen were left out, he could, 

 without impairing the efficiency of his depart- 

 ment, leave those seventeen clerks off the roll ; 

 but if the appropriation should be made, the 

 personal, social, and political pressure was so 

 great that he would be obliged to employ and 

 pay them, though he could find no employ- 

 ment for them. 



" Need I prove, Mr. President, that which is 

 known to all men, that a systematic pressure 

 has been brought upon the clerks in the de- 

 partments of the Government this year to ex- 

 tort from them a portion of the salary that is 

 paid to them under a system which the Presi- 

 dent himself scouts as being voluntary, and 

 that they are led to believe and fairly led to 

 believe that they have bought an<l paid for the 



