Show CIVIL SERVICE REFORM As Applied to Salt Lakes Free Delivery System A Carriers Brief Career The Postoffice Department under President Arthurs administration seems to have interpreted the civil service ser-vice act in a most peculiarly peculiar manner and placed a characteristically Republican construction upon it judging from the course taken by the Washington Washing-ton officials in the appointment of some of the mail carriers for this city When a date was finally fixed upon at which the free delivery system would go into effect a number of persons applied for positions a carriers Among them was a colored man by the name of Davis Davis had come to this city with letters from influential officials in Washington who requested Postmaster Lynch to give him some kind of employment Mr Lynch could find no vacancy for him until carriers car-riers were wanted when Davis sent in an application for appointment and this application ap-plication was forwarded with six others to Washington Mr Lynch subsequently received instructions from the First Assistant As-sistant PostmasterGeneral to substitute the name of a Mr Sholes in the place of any of the applicants except one That one was Davis and as Mr Lynch had before this become convinced that Davis was wholly incompetent he would have substituted Sholes for the colored man had it not been for the arbitrary nature of his instructions Davis is a very estimable estim-able fellow in his line but it would be difficult to tell just what great public service ser-vice he had done to entitle him to appointment ap-pointment t a public position that he was wholly incompetent to fill It may be that he fought bled and died in the army mule service or it may have been a bid of the Posmaster General for the colored vote a large proportion pro-portion of which the Democratic party i likely to capture However this may be instructions were duly carried out and Davis with his brass buttons gay uniform and limited chirographical knowledge know-ledge sallied forth last Monday morning to distribute his quota of letters But his return was not a triumphant one in every respect He did not reappear at the postoffice until 1 oclock at night and then brought back about half the letters let-ters he started with having been unable to decipher the superscriptions He has since been removed by postmaster Lynch and his place supplied by one more competent to fill the position His career was less remarkable for its brilliancy bril-liancy than for an example of Republican can application of civil service reform |