A Clever Bit Of Strategy

A CLEVER BIT OF STRATEGY

In the passing of the permanent census bill the cause of civil service reform and the administration won a great victory over the spoilsmen of congress. The bill had been fixed up to take care of an army of the faithful. For months the members of congress had been filling the hundreds of places with men from their respective districts who had the pull, butt who lacked most of the other qualifications for their places. It was their intention to saddle these men upon the census bureau permanently to the exclusion of the men who had passed examinations and thus got on the eligible list. It was well known that the spoils system would command a majority of congress. Senator Lodge, the close personal friend of the president, made an effort in the senate to have the objectionable clause which provided for the faithful with a pull stricken out, but all to no purpose. The forces in favor of the spoils system were too strong. Finally the bill went to a conference committee and when it came back the section which had been framed to take care of the clerks holding places outside of civil service examinations had been changed and the census bureau was under civil service reform methods. This fact was not discovered and the bill was passed as recommended to pass by the conference committee. President Roosevelt promptly signed the bill and the change was not discovered by congress until the president put principles of the law into operation. Great was the wrath of the spoilsmen in congress when they discovered that all their well laid plans had been brought to naught by their carelessness in not closely observing the changes made in the bill by the comerence committee. They are now threatening to pass another law repealing the objectionable statute, but, of course, this means nothing. There is much private criticism of the president in the matter, but there seems no good reason for this. He is known as a civil service reformer and there is no evidence that he had anything to do with the trick by which congress was outwitted. At any rate, it is the duty of congress to know what the provisions of laws are that it is passing. It illy becomes congress, after being caught sleeping, as in the present instance, to whine. The country can afford to laugh at the wrath of the outgeneraled lawmakers.