Snug Harbors

To the surprise of hardly anyone, Internal Revenue Commissioner John Bettes Dunlap last week sprinted out of Washington and holed up in a safer spot. He resigned his $15,000-a-year job as top tax collector, and took an appointment from Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder as the new $13,500-a-year district commissioner of internal revenue for Texas and Oklahoma, with headquarters in Dallas. Reason: the Washington job is subject to political appointment, the Dallas job (one of 17 created by this year's reorganization of the Bureau of Internal Revenue) is a lifetime assignment protected by civil service.

The switch brought quick reaction in Washington. Delaware's BIR-investigating Senator John James Williams promptly called it "utterly indefensible," and inquired whether this was part of a plan to use the civil service as "a haven of refuge for repudiated politicians."* Members of the House subcommittee investigating the BIR have charged that Dunlap "dishonored" a subpoena calling upon him to produce records that the subcommittee needed. He said he wouldn't have time to see the subcommittee until December, and denied that he had received a subpoena.

Whether or not the Dunlap retreat into civil service heralds a large-scale movement, the incident serves to illustrate one of Dwight Eisenhower's serious problems. After the new Administration takes over, many key positions in the Government will still be held by Democratic appointees protected by civil service or by term appointments. Many of them are certain to feel that it is not time for a change--of any kind. They may buck organizational changes designed to save money, and they may buck Administration efforts to modify or reverse Democratic policy. The enormous inertia of the civil service is a prime (and little recognized) factor of modern government. The victor nowadays is denied 99% of the spoils of office, but he still has 100% of the responsibility for decision and action. One of the biggest problems facing the new Administration will be how to overcome bureaucratic inertia and vested interest without destroying government-worker morale or essentially impairing the civil-service principle.

* Arguments about such havens have been going on for a long time. Just before President John Adams was succeeded by Thomas Jefferson in 1801, Adams appointed 16 new federal judges. Partisans of Jefferson called them the "midnight judges," claimed that Adams was merely providing lifetime jobs for political friends who would be thrown out by the new Administration. Most of them were; Jefferson's Congress legislated them out of office.

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