Vanishing Landmarks: The Trend Toward Bolshevism

by Leslie M. Shaw

You knew this must be the way but probably you had not stopped to analyze it. The Civil Service screen is so constructed as to catch the small fish and allow the large ones to escape. And there is no way known to man to change it without opening wide the door for favoritism, which the Civil Service system is supposed to close and effectively bar.

Nevertheless some of the clerks and employees selected in this way develop a good degree of efficiency and prove far better than anyone would expect from an inspection of the machinery by which they are secured. With scarcely an exception they are honest and conscientious toilers, with very little ambition. A few have ambition but these should, and usually do, soon resign.

I have in mind a business organization with several thousand on its payroll. Its operations extend from ocean to ocean and its employees include geologists, chemists, engineers of every kind, purchasing agents, salesmen, superintendents of both construction and transportation, clerks, clear down to unskilled laborers. Everyone connected with the organization is made to understand that any position is open to him provided he can show greater efficiency than the incumbent. While most of the force have grown up within the organization, not all have been started at the minimum salary nor promoted because of length of service. The former is insisted upon, and the latter urged, by all friends of Civil Service.

Imagine such a concern as I have described, depending upon an outside commission to examine and certify the people whom it might employ in its clerical and technical force, and being bound by its own by-laws not to employ anyone selected in any other way. No business concern could face competition and survive under such a system. Yet everyone recognizes that when applied to government affairs, Civil Service is not only the best but the only way. I am not criticising it. I am only showing the inevitable result if we change the purpose of government from the greatest liberty institution in the world to a corporation for the transaction of business.

During five years that I recruited the force of the Treasury Department from names certified by the Civil Service Commission, nothing occurred to engender ill feeling. The members of the Commission and the officers of the Treasury Department understood each other perfectly and sympathized. Every member of the Commission sought as best he could—subject, of course, to the restrictions and limitations of his office—to serve the Treasury Department, and the Secretary of the Treasury, believing in Civil Service, reciprocated. There were, however, some rather plain and expressive letters exchanged. Believing that letters that actually passed between departments are the best proof of conditions as they exist, I have inserted in the Appendix the material correspondence covering four distinct cases.

Some of the letters were answered by personal interviews but enough remains to show the cordial feeling that existed, as well as the nature of the contentions. It also reveals the earnestness with which the Secretary of the Treasury sought some relaxation in the rules which friends of the system, as well as the members of the Commission, insist must be rigidly enforced, and which were rigidly enforced.

The last case cited relates to a request for experienced lawyers for special agents of the Treasury Department. The necessity for these will be apparent to every experienced business man.

Many of the tariff rates are ad valorem, the duty being levied upon the foreign market value of the imported merchandise. Importers are required to enter their goods at the price at which such articles are usually bought and sold in the country of their origin. Undervaluation by unscrupulous importers is the most common way of defrauding the government. Cases of alleged undervaluation are tried by the Board of General Appraisers, at which the importers are represented by lawyers who make a specialty of this class of cases. They are not only men of experience but many of them possess great natural aptitude. Some, I suppose, make as high as fifty thousand dollars per annum. The government is represented by attorneys who receive, if I remember correctly, three thousand dollars per annum, and the cases are usually prepared by special agents, or special employees, who receive from fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars per annum. The government is at a tremendous disadvantage. I have heard it estimated that the Treasury loses two hundred million dollars per annum through undervaluations. I think this is excessive but unquestionably it runs into tens of millions.

I desired several country lawyers who had had actual experience in trying cases, and asked the Civil Service Commission to provide an eligible list. The need of capable men in this particular branch of the service is well illustrated by the following incidents.

Certain importers were entering their merchandise, which had been paid for in Indian rupees, as costing the bullion value of rupees, about twenty cents. England was maintaining the parity of the rupee at about fifty cents in our money. The Secretary of the Treasury certified that the rupee was worth fifty cents and directed that duties be collected accordingly. As was anticipated, the importers all paid under protest and one of them prosecuted an appeal. A decision against the government was rendered by the Board of General Appraisers and by all the courts including the Supreme Court of the United States. I ordered that another case be made and gave instructions how it should be prepared. Again, much to my surprise, the government was defeated. Investigation showed that the second case had been prepared exactly like the first. More detailed instructions were given and the government was successful, and more than one million dollars that had been paid by importers under protest, was saved to the government and at least two hundred thousand dollars per annum from then until now. Any country lawyer with a general practice would have known how to prepare and present the case in the first instance.