Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1895 — TWO EXCELLENT FEATURES. [ARTICLE]

TWO EXCELLENT FEATURES.

There are Jtwo features in the republican caucus bill for the management of the State ‘ institutions which the Journal most heartily approves. One of these is the provision which requires trustees of all institutions to serve without compensation, exc,ept actual expenses, the same as does the State Board of Charities. Men of character and ability can be found in Indiana who will serve on such boards as in other states, and serve with efficiency, while Ahose to whom the small salary would be an incentive, and who, because it is so, are personally not competent to assist in the management of so large a business as a public institution is, will not be aspirants. But this much more important feature of the bill is that which puts the employment of superintendents and all subordinates on tlfe merit system. It is a long step toward the “better management of Indiana’s public institutions to require trustees to see that no faithful superintendent or employe shall be dismissed because of his party affiliation, It It is a great gain to have it declared in the statute that nothing but character, fitness and faithfulness shall obtain appointments in these institutions, and that hereafter no employe can count upon the influence of some person who has “a pull” to keep him in a place the duties of which he does not 'try or is not fitted to discharge. When such a rule shall be faithfully enforced the officers and employes in [the public institutions will be as faithful and efficient in the discharge of their duties as are the clerks in a railway postal service, where the merit system was in force long before the passage of the civil service law. The principle, however, has been urged for years by leading republicans in Indiana. As long ago as 1886 General Harrison advocated the adoption of the nonpartisan merit system for correctional and benevolent institutions of the state, and it has been in most of the party platforms.—lndianapolis Journal.