Beachhead

One of the toughest tasks Dwight Eisenhower has faced as President of the U.S. is the job of capturing control of the Government. After 70 years of ups & downs, the civil service had spread its patriarchal protection over 95% of all 2,500,000 federal employees. Ike had trouble getting a toe hold on 900 top policymaking jobs in Washington for his own appointees. Last week, however, the Administration won a sizable beachhead in its battle with the burrowed bureaucrats.

In a test case, Washington's U.S. District Judge Richmond Keech, a Democrat, ruled that the Department of Justice had a right to dismiss Attorney Leo A. Roth from his $10,800-a-year job. Roth, who was fired last June, insisted that he had unassailable civil-service status. Judge Keech held that the President has unlimited power to decide which jobs "shall be excluded or excepted from the classified civil service."

The court victory should provide some small comfort for Republican National Chairman Len Hall, who has the unhappy task of finding jobs for patronage-hungry Republicans. Last week Hall telephoned Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Hobby to ask: "Oveta, have you got a social-security program yet that will give a 53-year-old man $500 a week for the rest of his life?"

"No, Len," said Mrs. Hobby, "but why?" Replied Hall: "Because if you have, I'm quitting this blasted job." Hall and other Republican politicians complain that the Eisenhower Administration ignores their patronage demands. It will probably continue to do so. Ike and his top advisers are much less interested in jobs for Republicans than they are in removing those Democratic bureaucrats who, actively or passively, resist Administration policies.

Although the Roth decision affects some 350,000 federal employees, it does not mean 350,000 new jobs for Republicans. "It should not bring alarm to career employees and those in the competitive civil service," said Civil Service Commissioner George Moore. He had a warning for some workers, however: "I have been told of many examples of how federal employees are . . . sabotaging the aims and purposes of the Administration. I do not believe . . . the civil-service system [should] be used as a device for protecting those who seek to destroy the policies and programs of President Eisenhower."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.