Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1912 — Page 2 Advertisements Column 4 [ADVERTISEMENT]

overhaul their government and constant authority to spur it or check it. The recall and the initiative and referendum establish these recourses. With such restraints a long tenure regulated in its operations by civil service laws not only is without power to harra but has the power to work vast good to the people. Under the long tenure the city will develop its own experts in all branches of administrative service. From year to year excellence will increase, economies will grow and the satisfaction of the people will mount higher. From first to last the entire machinery of government will have unity, with all energies driven to do well what is done. There will develop scientific precision of effort, scientific efficiency of means, scientific exactness of results. Without long tenure based upon a non-partisan form, a popular control and a merit system of employment these things cannot be; with long tenure so instituted they are not only possible but assured. The Business System of Government will establish these conditions. Under it will develop as distinctive a type and as high a degree of honorable and useful professionalism as any other pursuit which attracts the ambitions and enlists the energies of men.

Civil Service.

Civil Service regulations control appointments under the Business System of Government for Indiana Cities, A Civil Service Commission of three members, chosen by the Board of Councilors, has charge of appointments. The regulations apply to all in the service of the 'city save the Board of Councilors, the Board of Administration, the Election Board, the Civil Service feoard, the City Judge and the City Attorney and his assistants. None otherwise is exempt. From the technical experts to the ordinary grades of employes the men in every department will have to show their fitness to be appointed, will have to prove their efficiency to be retained, w’ill have to establish their merit to be advanced. This will procure a better grade of service to begin with and will guarantee increase of efficiency. Then will cease the practice of making sweeping Changes in the employment lists following each election. The spoils game will be played out. The city will begin to train its own men for long service and high efficiency. It will be better served at lower cost. So long as the public service in cities is treated as spoils and city employment is bestowed, hot with a view to good service but to pay political debts and keep “the organization” well fed, the city business will be badly taken care of and the city work poorly done. There is nothing but folly of a costly sort in the practice of dealing with public office and public employment as loot for the party workers. It is a prolific source of immorality in politics and incapacity in government. To abolish the spoils system will be to cleanse politics. To establish the merit system will be to institute efficiency. Under civil service regulations job-giving to and job-hunting by organization workers w’ill come to an end. The man who enters the city employ will do so on his merits tested in a competitive examination. He w’ill not need the consent or endorsement of a boss. The city employe will not be put in by threats of his backers nor can the applicant be kept out by the hostility of a gang or its leaders. The slovenliness, waste and corruption in city government for which the American people have had a long-suffering tolerance, will cease. The Business System of Government for Indiana Cities requires that all employes of the city be examined; that an eligibility list be kept from which appointments shall be made; that appointment be first for a probationary term; that advancement be on a basis of merit, experience and record. Such an operation of the civil service of the city will develop that efficiency without which there can be neither economy nor progress.

Marking on Wood.

If any one In your home has a pyrograph outfit, use it for marking your boy’s hockey sticks, baseball bats, tennis rackets and all such wooden things. Painted names can wear or be scratched off, but when burned in. deeply the identification is there to stay.

Overiooked.

“Very few mosquitoes taste anything but the juice of tender plants,” remarked the naturalist. “Is that so!” exclaimed Farmer Corntossel. “It kind o’ looks as if human beings hadn’t been properly advertised as mosquito food.”

Useful Instrument in Farm House. Every farm house should have a harness needle In it. One of the many uses to which the needle can be put is to sew rips In shoes that may save an extra trip to the cobbler’s.—Home Department, National Magazine.

Corrected.

Gentleman (engaging groom)—’'Are you married?” Groom—“No, sir. I was thrown agin a barbed wire fwet and got my face scratched.”—London Tatlar.