ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

From the standpoint of post-office employees, we are certain that they in turn will in a short time benefit from such a change. Their present civil-service standing will not be done away with. They are now subject to removal under the Ramspeck Act only because of incompetence or malfeasance, and so forth. As we understand the new proposal under plan 2, the Senators and Congressmen would no longer be called on to review or pass judgment on postmaster appointments. Selections would be made by the Post Office Department from the top three qualified applicants without delay.

At present such appointments, based on classified superiority, can be and are frequently prevented from going into effect by Members of Congress merely asking that the permanent appointment be postponed, and by asking for the retention of the temporary appointee in service indefinitely. Thus civil-service performance is effectively defeated. Plan No. 2 will avoid this by simply giving the Post Office Department complete authority to select postmasters within the limitation set by civil-service classification.

The plan calls for a gradual transition to the new appointments of postmasters as the offices are, or may hereafter become, vacant. Its effect will be, therefore, to stop all political apppointments and to fill all present and future appointments with those who qualify with highest grades under the civil service, as, in due course, postmasterships may become vacant. In other words, there will be no sudden, but only a gradual, shift over to the new appointive system.

Under such security and under such a merit system, the postal service can be made a worth-while career. It can be made to offer pay based solely on qualifications of training and experience for the job. The postal system could then offer to its employees fair and equitable promotion opportunities, security, and ultimate retirement based on honest and meritorious service.

All these assurances doubtless will bring about a system of selection and promotion based on merit much more than has been the case in the past. We believe that this will soon mean a more efficient postal service at a significantly reduced cost per unit of service rendered.

Mr. Chairman, I did have here a statement approving plan 3, but in view of what has been said by the preceding witnesses which I had not previously known about, I would like to strike out our approval of plan 3.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. You may strike it out. It will be stricken in the record and not go in the record.

Mr. SANDERS. Finally, plan No. 4, before your committee, effects the same results for United States marshals as plan No. 2 does for postal employees.

We therefore favor the adoption and putting into effect at the earliest practical date of plan 2 and plan 4, which in essentials follow the recommendations of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. I want to ask you one question.

Under this proposed change and new system of appointments, if you get a bad appointee in your community, what are you going to do. about it?

Mr. SANDERS. If we get a bad one?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. If you get a bad one in your community, what are you going to do?

Mr. SANDERS. Well, the only thing I would say that you could do about that, Mr. Chairman, is what you do in the Federal Government at the present time.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean to write your Congressman and Senator to do something about it? That is what you would do, is it not? Mr. SANDERS. Well, to a certain extent, that is true.

The CHAIRMAN.. The Congressman or Senator is not competent to help you select a postmaster, but when you get into trouble under this system you are going to go to him and ask him to help you?

Mr. SANDERS. I did not say that you would write your Congressman or Senator. I do not think that is what is done in the Department of Commerce, we shall say, for example, or in the Department of Agriculture. If you get a poor person under you, you do your best to get rid of him.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know of civil-service employees in any department who do not write letters to us themselves, and who expect their Congressman or Senator to help them do something about such a situation.

Mr. SANDERS. You would be relieved of that responsibility.

The CHAIRMAN. We never will be. We are not now. You would take the responsibility away from us, but you would still put the blame on us. Now we have the responsibility and you have the right to blame your Congressman or Senator if he gives you a bad postmaster.

Mr. SANDERS. It seems to me, Mr. Senator, that we have this system exactly in the Department of Agriculture and it works very well. The appointments under the Secretary of Agriculture are not made politically. I have known of many of them where the Department did not have the least notion of what their politics were.

The CHAIRMAN. I know of many of them who were appointed strictly on the basis of politics.

Mr. SANDERS. Well, possibly so.

The CHAIRMAN. And you probably do, too.

Mr. SANDERS. Not so very many.

The CHAIRMAN. There may be a degree of difference here and there. Thank you very much.

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Watson. Come forward, please, sir.

I understand Mr. Kelley is not here?

STATEMENT OF JAMES R. WATSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CIVIL SERVICE LEAGUE

REORGANIZATION PLANS NOS. 2, 3, and 4 of 1952

Mr. WATSON. Mr. Chairman, I have here Mr. Kelley's statement which I will present for the record.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be printed in the record.

I note that Mr. Kelley is president of the National Civil Service League. His statement may be printed in the record at the conclusion of your remarks.

Mr. WATSON. I would like to point out that Mr. Kelley is a very distinguished lawyer and businessman and that he did appear here last Thursday. He made a special trip for the meeting and, of course, due to unavoidable circumstances, you were not able to hear him. The CHAIRMAN. The Chair regrets very much that we were compelled to postpone that hearing.

Mr. WATSON. Mr. Kelley had business matters to attend to of the Chrysler Corp., which prevented him from being here this morning. I would like in this regard to mention two things emphasizing the general character of Mr. Kelley's testimony which does represent the complete point of view of the National Civil Service League.

Our approval and our endorsement of these three plans are based on two general grounds. One is the broadest possible concept of career development in the public service.

We feel that in any of these agencies where there has been a group of positions through the middle, that is, regional directors or collectors of internal revenue or postmasters, subject to political control, it puts a lid or puts a roof over what can be considered the career system. That is, the people below are, for the most part, placed permanently in a mediocre or a subservice. They have very little hope or opportunity of being able to progress on the basis of merit to these higher positions.

We feel that that type of barrier through the middle of a service constitutes an important impediment to the fullest development of an efficient career service. That is one of the basic reasons why we are opposed to these plans.

The CHAIRMAN. So you want to give absolute preference to anyone who makes a career out of the Government?

Mr. WATSON. Not absolute preference, no. We do not believe in promotions solely on the basis of seniority. But we do believe in rewarding meritorious service where it deserves rewarding.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not say on the basis of seniority. I said that you are in favor of appointing them all from the career service. That is what you mean.

Mr. WATSON. We believe that the Government service will be more efficient

The CHAIRMAN. And a citizen who has demonstrated his ability outside of the Government service may not be considered. We are making a kind of second-class citizen out of him. He is a taxpayer. You do not want to give the right to anyone who is not a career man in the Government.

Mr. WATSON. Only to make him a better career man but not because he has any inherent right.

The CHAIRMAN. But to the exclusion of other citizens who are also taxpayers.

Mr. WATSON. Not any more than Mr. Kelley says about the Chrysler Corp. giving more attention to people who have worked for Chrysler because their talents are known.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is private enterprise.

Mr. WATSON. The Government does not have to be any different from private enterprise in building an efficient career service.

The CHAIRMAN. The private citizen on the outside who is footing the bill for the Government should not be discriminated against simply because he did not start in Government when he was young.

Mr. WATSON. Well, I would like to go back to what I said before. The taxpayer has a complete right to efficient public service, and that is the most important right that he has.

We believe that the public service should be a democratic public service, but we do not believe that a man, because he has been a successful businessman, has necessarily any right to be a postmaster other than to compete for it on the basis of his ability.

The CHAIRMAN. That is exactly what we are talking about.

Mr. WATSON. That is right, and he can compete right alongside of the career man.

The CHAIRMAN. He cannot if you are going to set up a system of promoting them all from within the service.

Mr. WATSON. I did not say all. I think primarily, yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Please understand that I am not opposed to promoting them from within the service. I have done that myself. But I do not think that we ought to put such emphasis on this that we are going to discriminate against a good citizen who has perhaps made his contribution to the Government in other ways than by actually being an employee of the Government.

Mr. WATSON. I do not think we would disagree along that point. I believe that these particular agencies know the value of career development which is unimpeded.

But our main point is that the value that can come from career development is impeded by this particular type of appointment.

The other point is that, with all due respect to the personal attention which I am sure you give to these positions when you can, we do not believe that Nation-wide the Senators or the Congressmen are equipped on their staffs or with their investigating facilities to do the job which it is contemplated should be done. In many places, not all, of course, the pattern of confirmation is approval by local selfish political machines which do not dignify your position or the position of the United States Senate.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, on that theory then, everybody who is elected to Congress is elected by a machine.

Mr. WATSON. No, I didn't say that. I said that in many cases that

is true.

The CHAIRMAN. But that is not the fault of the postal system.

Mr. WATSON. The postal system at present in some places supports that kind of machine.

The CHAIRMAN. It probably always will.

Mr. WATSON. I don't agree with you there.

The CHAIRMAN. When people get into power up here, they want to stay in power. What do they use the postmasters general here for-leaders of the political party.

Mr. WATSON. Why?

The CHAIRMAN. Because that is politics.

Mr. WATSON. No, sir. They have not had a political power in the Secretary of Agriculture.

The CHAIRMAN. You had them in this very position you have been talking about.

Mr. WATSON. That is right, but you have not had them in the Department of Agriculture and in the Department of Defense, because those are career services. Yet you have 21,000 patronage positions in the postal service.

The CHAIRMAN. How many employees do you have in the Department of Agriculture-about $0,000?

Mr. Watson. About 80,000, but they are under a complete career system.

The CHAIRMAN. I know that some of them are not selected on the basis of merit.

Mr. WATSON. I don't want to keep you here a long time. There is one point on which I disagree completely with Senator Dworshak and to some extent with you. I don't believe that our Federal career system is nearly as partisan as some people think it is.

The CHAIRMAN, I think it is only natural and wholly justified for a Republican to think that it is more partisan than I do.

Mr. WATSON. That is right, but I do believe that our Federal career system is a lot better than much of the public thinks it is. We would like to keep the public knowing more about those places where it is good. The more the public knows about the good in it, the more it will scrutinize it and the better it will become.

The CHAIRMAN. I think we all want to improve it.

Mr. WATSON. Those are the two points of view I wished to express. The CHAIRMAN. I honestly do not think that this legislation will bring that about.

Mr. WATSON. It will not automatically, of course; but we just think it will allow certain things to be developed in the career system that will help improve it.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Watson. (The statement of Mr. Kelley is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS KELLEY, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CIVIL SERVICE LEAGUE

My name is Nicholas Kelley. I am president of the National Civil Service League at 120 East Twenty-ninth Street, New York. I have been president of the league since 1942. I am a member of the New York law firm of Kelley, Drye, Newhall & Maginness. I am also a vice president and general counsel of Chrysler Corp., a director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, a trustee of the Carnegie Corp. of New York, and of several colleges, and a dairy farmer. I am actively interested in civic and educational affairs. From July 1918, to April 1921, I was a member of the war loan staff, and finally an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

THE NATIONAL CIVIL SERVICE LEAGUE

The National Civil Service league has been interested in the stability, efficiency, and integrity of the Federal career system for 70 years. It had much to do with obtaining passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, the original Federal civil-service law. We have been referred to as the watchdog of the merit system. Our organization is nonprofit, independent, and nonpartisan. Our sole interest is a civil service that will serve the public in the most efficient and democratic manner possible.

I appear before the committee strongly in favor of plans Nos. 2, 3, and 4. I have found in having a part in running a downtown New York law office with about 130 people in it, a dairy farm with 8, an automobile company with over 100,000, a philanthropic foundation, college faculties, a leading life-insurance company, and an old original and great department of the Government, that everything depends upon your people. If you choose your people well, train them well, lead them well, inspire them with the importance of what they are doing, and with your sincere interest in that and in them, you will be able to get good people when you need them, to keep them, and to have them do good work willingly, economically, and well. Many executives tend to hesitate about dealing with their people for fear that they will upset them. My experience and what I have seen make me believe that if in dealing with

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »