May 2, 1952
Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
It gives me great pleasure to be here with you this evening. I have a deep appreciation and admiration for the loyal, hardworking, and able men and women who make up our civil service. I have worked in all kinds of government--in fact I know government from precinct to President. I know it in the county, I know it in Federal and State legislative and executive--but I have never known a better group of people than the civil service employees of the Federal Government of the United States.
I have been interested in public service for over 30 years. In fact, on the 3d day of next January 1 will have been in elective public office exactly 30 years. Ever since I was first elected a judge of a county court in Jackson County, Missouri, I have been interested in government. Now don't get the idea that a judge of a county court of
Missouri knows anything about law. He doesn't. It's an administrative office.
Let me tell you something I have learned in my 30 years of public office: Good government is good politics; and the best politics is what is best for all the people.
Of course, there are very important differences between being an elective official and serving in the civil service. Our elective officials are politically responsible; they must answer to the people. And they must make the major policy decisions. The role of our civil servant is to carry out these policy decisions and sometimes we have a terrible time to get them to do it. But there is the great bond of public service holding both groups together. Both are working together for the good of all the people of this great country.
The people are entitled to the most efficient public service we can devise. The way to provide such service is to make sure that all Government employees, except those in top policy jobs, are under the merit system. It has consistently been my goal to bring this about. I am happy to report that the goal is now in sight.
We have made great progress since 1881, when the National Civil Service League was organized. Then there was virtually no civil service. By the turn of the century 50 percent of Federal employees were under civil service.
And now, over 93 percent of all Federal employees in the United States are under the competitive civil service. This is the highest percentage in the history of our Government. That is a remarkable achievement, but it is by no means the whole story. In addition to our regular civil service, special merit systems have been set up for various agencies, such as the Atomic Energy Commission, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. When those are taken into account, the number of employees covered by the merit system comes to 99 percent of the total.
I am proud that during my term of office we have extended the merit system to cover virtually all Federal positions.
Our career civil service is still a long way from perfect; but it is in better shape than it has ever been before in the history of the country. We are going forward with our plans to eliminate the last remnants of the patronage system. But these efforts meet with the same kind of resistance, the same kind of hypocritical opposition, that has greeted every effort to make the Federal Service better. The patronage seekers are still on the prowl.
Just a few weeks ago, for example, I sent to Congress my plan to reorganize the Bureau of Internal Revenue. The purpose of this plan is to place under the Civil Service all the positions in the Bureau, with the sole exception of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. In short, this plan takes all our tax collectors out of partisan politics. Of course it also takes that much patronage away from the Members of the Senate. You know I was in the Senate 10 years; I know how they feel.
And what a howl of anguish went up from the patronage boys. Just as you might expect, those who cried the loudest were the very ones who had been making the most noise about the misdeeds of political employees. If you want to know who these gentlemen are, just get the Congressional Record and read the list of those who voted against the plan. Well, we fought them and we beat them, and we won a major victory for the merit system.
On April 10th I sent three more reorganization plans to the Congress. Reorganization Plan 2 would take postmasters out of partisan politics by abolishing the requirement that they be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Under Reorganization Plan 3 all political offices in the Bureau of Customs would be eliminated and the work would be carried on by qualified civil service appointees. Reorganization Plan 4 would place the positions of U.S. marshals under Civil Service. You will hear a bigger roar about that than you did about the collectors of internal revenue.
When these three reorganization plans are approved, only a handful of positions will remain outside the merit system. But that doesn't mean the job of the National Civil Service League is finished--far from it. We have created a career public service throughout the Federal Government--now we must fight to protect it and keep it. There is a new attack on the civil service-an attack which holds more dangers than the spoilsman. This new attack is an attempt to gain political ends by the shameful method of defaming and degrading the people who work for the Government of the United States.
To understand exactly what we are up against calls for another lesson in politics.
In the normal operation of our democratic system, every administration is held to account every 4 years for its policies, its programs, and its conduct of the Government. That is as it should be. In recent years the programs and the policies of the administration in office have been upheld, time after time, by the popular verdict. Today the time for another accounting is approaching, and the opposition is becoming rather frantic.
They know that they cannot persuade the people to give up the gains of the last 20 years. But they think they can undermine those gains by attacking the men and women who have the job of carrying out the programs of the Government. And so they have launched a campaign to make people think that the Government service as a whole is lazy, inefficient, corrupt, and even disloyal.
Now, these confusers do not for a moment believe their own charges. The Government servant is not the real target of their attack. They are engaged in a ruthless, cynical attempt to put over a gigantic hoax and fraud on the American people. They say, "Let's make the public think that the Government service is full of crooks and thieves. Let's create the impression that all public servants are bad. Let's tell the people that the Government servants are Reds. Let's confuse innuendo with fact, rumor with evidence, charge with guilt. If the real people get mad enough and confused enough, we won't have to take a position on any of the great public policy issues; we can sneak into office by the back door."
Now that is what they think they can do, but I'll tell you right now they are not going to be able to do it. They tried it in 1948 much to their sorrow.
There is only one effective way to deal with this attack and that is to wage a campaign of truth. Chairman Ramspeck has courageously started such a campaign, but he needs the help of all of us. He needs the help of every Government employee in order to let the people know that the Government employees are honest men and good workers. It is time to blast the rumors, the false inferences and innuendoes, the downright lies about the public service.
Take the charge that most Federal employees are unnecessary. This is completely untrue. It is just as false as it can be.
fifty percent of our civilian employees are in the Defense Department--engaged directly in military activities of the Army, Navy, and Air force. They man our arsenals, shipyards, supply depots, and weapons laboratories. Most of them are mechanics, steelworkers, riveters, electricians, and other artisans.
In addition to that, another 28 percent of the total are in the Post Office Department and the Veterans Administration.
That adds up to 78 percent in just three agencies.
The remaining 22 percent perform all the other functions of the Government--staffing such vital agencies as the FBI, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Soil Conservation Service and Reclamation, the Employment Service and Public Health. This 22 percent covers a great many peacetime activities of the Government, as well as all the national security activities outside the Department of Defense. Except for these national security emergency activities, employment in the normal peacetime operations of the Government has been cut back since Korea. Now you never hear that--you won't see that in the papers--and unless you listen to me over the radio you will never find out that that is true.
The people who carry on these operations are not useless bureaucrats. If they are, so am I. They are performing necessary services for the good of the American people-for their protection and welfare. They are performing services which the American people have demanded and the Congress has authorized by law. And they are performing them well and efficiently.
But the detractors are not satisfied with attacking the Federal Service as a whole. They have launched a personal campaign against the Government worker himself. He is pictured as mediocre, shiftless, lazy, nonproductive, a feeder at the public trough who couldn't get a job anywhere else. At one moment he is berated as a low-salaried nonentity with no standing in his field, and in the next breath he is called a high-salaried drain on the public purse.
What are the facts ? Government workers are like any other American citizens throughout the country. Only 10 percent are employed in Washington, D.C.; the remainder are in every State of our Union. California has more Federal employees than the Nation's Capital. Get that now. California has more Federal employees than the Nation's Capital.
More than 850,000 of all Federal employees, one-third of the total, are artisans and skilled craftsmen. The others include scientists, doctors, nurses--people in almost every trade and profession.
Are these people mediocre, shiftless, lazy, nonproductive ?
Not at all. Of course they are not. Government workers come out at the top in nearly every contest for efficiency and ingenuity. In 1950 a business efficiency organization sponsored a contest "for the best productive ideas." Government employees took the top honors. Their proven ingenuity and initiative had saved the taxpayers $22,000,000 in 1 year alone.
There are hundreds of examples of outstanding public service in the records of Federal employees. I am going to cite some of them.
Last year for example, Dr. Thomas L. McMeekin, a chemist in the Agriculture Department, won top honors from the American Chemical Society for his outstanding work on the chemistry of milk proteins.
An employee of the Maritime Administration, Clarence Mercer, has invented a water blast method of removing scale from ships, which will save the Government over $1 million a year. An employee of the Air force, Irving Gordy, has carried on research in the electronics field that makes it possible to use a simple mechanism costing $30 in place of a machine costing $6,000. And all these inventions belong to the Government of the United States and these men do not profit a penny by having brought them to light.
In engineering, in medicine, in the field of ordnance, the scientific and technical advances made by Federal employees are saving the Government millions and millions of dollars. Literally thousands of Government employees have achieved high recognition in their special fields, and are using their skills and abilities for the good of us all. They are patriotic citizens and if you don't think they can do better in private industry you are just as mistaken as you can be. But they like Government service and they want to do something for the Government and the people--they stay there and do it.
The demagogues say that Government employees are responsible for high taxes. That is a good one and one that goes into every campaign. You hear it time and again. The fact is that only 13 percent of our budget is for wages and salaries. Our budget is large and our taxes are high because of the threat of Soviet imperialism. We have to build strong defenses. This is an expensive business, and lots of people grumble about it.
But it is a costly and destructive luxury to take our feelings out on our public servants. Berating our public servants doesn't help our defense, it weakens us. In this time of crisis, we should try to improve our public service--not tear it down.
Now let me take up one other kind of charge against our public servants--and this is the most vicious and insidious of all. I say with all the emphasis at my command, that there is no more cancerous, no more corrosive, no more subversive attack upon the great task of our Government today, than that which seeks to undermine confidence in Government by irresponsible charges against the loyalty and integrity of Government employees.
There is no room in the Government service for anyone who is not true to his public trust. We have had a few bad people turn up in Government, just as they turn up in business and industry. They are not in the Government now, and we are prosecuting all those who have violated the criminal statutes. If we turn up any more, they can expect the same treatment--and if there are any more we will turn them up, kick them out, and prosecute them if they need to be prosecuted.
But I will not tolerate the smearing and slandering of Government employees as a group. We have every right to protest and to raise the roof against the deliberate creation-for private political purposes--of these unjust charges--of an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust against public employees. I am just not going to stand for it. I am starting now and I am giving warning that the people that are going to slander the Government employees are going to have trouble with me--starting now until November--and the best part about it is I am not running for anything. We have a right to protest against the creation of an atmosphere in which any charge is a conviction in the public mind, despite the lack of evidence. We are not defending evildoers when we demand that the whole truth be stated--that the other side of the ledger be examined.
The truth is that the Government service, in the light of its tremendous size and scope, has a remarkable record of honesty and integrity. I firmly believe that its ethical standards are as high as those of any Government in the history of the world. I firmly believe that its ethical standards are higher than those prevailing in the American business community, and the Senate's own Committee on Ethics in Government agrees with me wholeheartedly. You read the report they made on the subject.
It is a curious fact that those in the business world who shout the loudest about corruption in Government are those who most often approach the Government with their hands out. It is a tragic fact that those in the political world who shout the loudest about corruption in Government are motivated by such a lust for power that they are willing to wreck the lives and the careers of innocent public servants.
Of course, the worst kind of an attack upon Government employees has been the attack on their loyalty. Here, the technique of the attackers is the same; innuendo and smear and just plain common, ordinary, everyday lies. And the motivation is the same; they want to get votes.
The truth is that we can be more confident of the unswerving loyalty of employees in the executive branch of our Government than of any other group of people in the Nation. They are the only large group of employees in the Nation, public or private, subjected to such systematic and thoroughgoing investigation. And the record is one of which they can well be proud. Every employee in the executive branch is checked by the FBI. Only 384 employees, or nine one-thousandths of 1 percent of all those checked, had to be discharged on loyalty grounds--think of that.
This is the real picture, based on hard fact. It is a shameful and degrading thing to try to mislead the American people into thinking it is otherwise.
We must always be vigilant in guarding the public service against the infiltration of disloyal elements.
But we must be just as vigilant in protecting employees against unjust accusations.
The loyalty program was designed to protect innocent employees as well as the Government. When I set it up, I intended it to expose the guilty and at the same time to safeguard the rights and the reputations of those who were innocent. But I have become increasingly concerned in recent months by attempts to use the loyalty pro-program as a club with which to beat Government employees over the head. Political gangsters are attempting to pervert the program into an instrument of intimidation and blackmail, to coerce or destroy any who dare to oppose them. These men and those who abet them have besmirched the reputations of decent, loyal public servants. They have not hesitated to lie, under cover of congressional immunity, of course, and to repeat the lies again and again.
This is a matter for great concern. It is a matter of great concern to me. These tactics contain the seeds of tyranny. Can we be sure that people who employ such tactics are really loyal to our form of Government, with its Bill of Rights and its tradition of individual liberty? The fact is that they are breaking these things down. They are undermining the foundation stones of our Constitution. I believe such men betray our country and all it stands for. I believe they are as grave a menace as the Communists. In fact, I think they are worse than Communists and I think they are partners with them.
It is not your job to take sides in partisan political controversy. But it is your duty and the duty of all citizens to demand the truth about the Government service and to reject the smear campaign at the base, and call it the immoral evil that it is.
In particular, it is your job to fight the attempt to reduce the civil servant to the status of a second-class citizen. This can be done, without taking sides in politics, by placing the facts about the civil service before the people. It can be done, without partisanship, in the name of ordinary decency and fair play.
The history of the National Civil Service League shows that it is well equipped to deal with the problem before us.
You can count on me, in office or out, to keep on fighting to uphold the Government service. I am confident that I can count on you as well.
Thank you very much.
NOTE: The President spoke at 9:30 p.m. at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. His opening words "Mr. Chairman" referred to Nicholas Kelley, president of the National Civil Service League and vice president and general counsel of the Chrysler Corp. The address was broadcast.
For the President's messages to Congress transmitting the first four reorganization plans of 1952, see Items 11, 84-87.
Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
It gives me great pleasure to be here with you this evening. I have a deep appreciation and admiration for the loyal, hardworking, and able men and women who make up our civil service. I have worked in all kinds of government--in fact I know government from precinct to President. I know it in the county, I know it in Federal and State legislative and executive--but I have never known a better group of people than the civil service employees of the Federal Government of the United States.
I have been interested in public service for over 30 years. In fact, on the 3d day of next January 1 will have been in elective public office exactly 30 years. Ever since I was first elected a judge of a county court in Jackson County, Missouri, I have been interested in government. Now don't get the idea that a judge of a county court of
Missouri knows anything about law. He doesn't. It's an administrative office.
Let me tell you something I have learned in my 30 years of public office: Good government is good politics; and the best politics is what is best for all the people.
Of course, there are very important differences between being an elective official and serving in the civil service. Our elective officials are politically responsible; they must answer to the people. And they must make the major policy decisions. The role of our civil servant is to carry out these policy decisions and sometimes we have a terrible time to get them to do it. But there is the great bond of public service holding both groups together. Both are working together for the good of all the people of this great country.
The people are entitled to the most efficient public service we can devise. The way to provide such service is to make sure that all Government employees, except those in top policy jobs, are under the merit system. It has consistently been my goal to bring this about. I am happy to report that the goal is now in sight.
We have made great progress since 1881, when the National Civil Service League was organized. Then there was virtually no civil service. By the turn of the century 50 percent of Federal employees were under civil service.
And now, over 93 percent of all Federal employees in the United States are under the competitive civil service. This is the highest percentage in the history of our Government. That is a remarkable achievement, but it is by no means the whole story. In addition to our regular civil service, special merit systems have been set up for various agencies, such as the Atomic Energy Commission, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. When those are taken into account, the number of employees covered by the merit system comes to 99 percent of the total.
I am proud that during my term of office we have extended the merit system to cover virtually all Federal positions.
Our career civil service is still a long way from perfect; but it is in better shape than it has ever been before in the history of the country. We are going forward with our plans to eliminate the last remnants of the patronage system. But these efforts meet with the same kind of resistance, the same kind of hypocritical opposition, that has greeted every effort to make the Federal Service better. The patronage seekers are still on the prowl.
Just a few weeks ago, for example, I sent to Congress my plan to reorganize the Bureau of Internal Revenue. The purpose of this plan is to place under the Civil Service all the positions in the Bureau, with the sole exception of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. In short, this plan takes all our tax collectors out of partisan politics. Of course it also takes that much patronage away from the Members of the Senate. You know I was in the Senate 10 years; I know how they feel.
And what a howl of anguish went up from the patronage boys. Just as you might expect, those who cried the loudest were the very ones who had been making the most noise about the misdeeds of political employees. If you want to know who these gentlemen are, just get the Congressional Record and read the list of those who voted against the plan. Well, we fought them and we beat them, and we won a major victory for the merit system.
On April 10th I sent three more reorganization plans to the Congress. Reorganization Plan 2 would take postmasters out of partisan politics by abolishing the requirement that they be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Under Reorganization Plan 3 all political offices in the Bureau of Customs would be eliminated and the work would be carried on by qualified civil service appointees. Reorganization Plan 4 would place the positions of U.S. marshals under Civil Service. You will hear a bigger roar about that than you did about the collectors of internal revenue.
When these three reorganization plans are approved, only a handful of positions will remain outside the merit system. But that doesn't mean the job of the National Civil Service League is finished--far from it. We have created a career public service throughout the Federal Government--now we must fight to protect it and keep it. There is a new attack on the civil service-an attack which holds more dangers than the spoilsman. This new attack is an attempt to gain political ends by the shameful method of defaming and degrading the people who work for the Government of the United States.
To understand exactly what we are up against calls for another lesson in politics.
In the normal operation of our democratic system, every administration is held to account every 4 years for its policies, its programs, and its conduct of the Government. That is as it should be. In recent years the programs and the policies of the administration in office have been upheld, time after time, by the popular verdict. Today the time for another accounting is approaching, and the opposition is becoming rather frantic.
They know that they cannot persuade the people to give up the gains of the last 20 years. But they think they can undermine those gains by attacking the men and women who have the job of carrying out the programs of the Government. And so they have launched a campaign to make people think that the Government service as a whole is lazy, inefficient, corrupt, and even disloyal.
Now, these confusers do not for a moment believe their own charges. The Government servant is not the real target of their attack. They are engaged in a ruthless, cynical attempt to put over a gigantic hoax and fraud on the American people. They say, "Let's make the public think that the Government service is full of crooks and thieves. Let's create the impression that all public servants are bad. Let's tell the people that the Government servants are Reds. Let's confuse innuendo with fact, rumor with evidence, charge with guilt. If the real people get mad enough and confused enough, we won't have to take a position on any of the great public policy issues; we can sneak into office by the back door."
Now that is what they think they can do, but I'll tell you right now they are not going to be able to do it. They tried it in 1948 much to their sorrow.
There is only one effective way to deal with this attack and that is to wage a campaign of truth. Chairman Ramspeck has courageously started such a campaign, but he needs the help of all of us. He needs the help of every Government employee in order to let the people know that the Government employees are honest men and good workers. It is time to blast the rumors, the false inferences and innuendoes, the downright lies about the public service.
Take the charge that most Federal employees are unnecessary. This is completely untrue. It is just as false as it can be.
fifty percent of our civilian employees are in the Defense Department--engaged directly in military activities of the Army, Navy, and Air force. They man our arsenals, shipyards, supply depots, and weapons laboratories. Most of them are mechanics, steelworkers, riveters, electricians, and other artisans.
In addition to that, another 28 percent of the total are in the Post Office Department and the Veterans Administration.
That adds up to 78 percent in just three agencies.
The remaining 22 percent perform all the other functions of the Government--staffing such vital agencies as the FBI, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Soil Conservation Service and Reclamation, the Employment Service and Public Health. This 22 percent covers a great many peacetime activities of the Government, as well as all the national security activities outside the Department of Defense. Except for these national security emergency activities, employment in the normal peacetime operations of the Government has been cut back since Korea. Now you never hear that--you won't see that in the papers--and unless you listen to me over the radio you will never find out that that is true.
The people who carry on these operations are not useless bureaucrats. If they are, so am I. They are performing necessary services for the good of the American people-for their protection and welfare. They are performing services which the American people have demanded and the Congress has authorized by law. And they are performing them well and efficiently.
But the detractors are not satisfied with attacking the Federal Service as a whole. They have launched a personal campaign against the Government worker himself. He is pictured as mediocre, shiftless, lazy, nonproductive, a feeder at the public trough who couldn't get a job anywhere else. At one moment he is berated as a low-salaried nonentity with no standing in his field, and in the next breath he is called a high-salaried drain on the public purse.
What are the facts ? Government workers are like any other American citizens throughout the country. Only 10 percent are employed in Washington, D.C.; the remainder are in every State of our Union. California has more Federal employees than the Nation's Capital. Get that now. California has more Federal employees than the Nation's Capital.
More than 850,000 of all Federal employees, one-third of the total, are artisans and skilled craftsmen. The others include scientists, doctors, nurses--people in almost every trade and profession.
Are these people mediocre, shiftless, lazy, nonproductive ?
Not at all. Of course they are not. Government workers come out at the top in nearly every contest for efficiency and ingenuity. In 1950 a business efficiency organization sponsored a contest "for the best productive ideas." Government employees took the top honors. Their proven ingenuity and initiative had saved the taxpayers $22,000,000 in 1 year alone.
There are hundreds of examples of outstanding public service in the records of Federal employees. I am going to cite some of them.
Last year for example, Dr. Thomas L. McMeekin, a chemist in the Agriculture Department, won top honors from the American Chemical Society for his outstanding work on the chemistry of milk proteins.
An employee of the Maritime Administration, Clarence Mercer, has invented a water blast method of removing scale from ships, which will save the Government over $1 million a year. An employee of the Air force, Irving Gordy, has carried on research in the electronics field that makes it possible to use a simple mechanism costing $30 in place of a machine costing $6,000. And all these inventions belong to the Government of the United States and these men do not profit a penny by having brought them to light.
In engineering, in medicine, in the field of ordnance, the scientific and technical advances made by Federal employees are saving the Government millions and millions of dollars. Literally thousands of Government employees have achieved high recognition in their special fields, and are using their skills and abilities for the good of us all. They are patriotic citizens and if you don't think they can do better in private industry you are just as mistaken as you can be. But they like Government service and they want to do something for the Government and the people--they stay there and do it.
The demagogues say that Government employees are responsible for high taxes. That is a good one and one that goes into every campaign. You hear it time and again. The fact is that only 13 percent of our budget is for wages and salaries. Our budget is large and our taxes are high because of the threat of Soviet imperialism. We have to build strong defenses. This is an expensive business, and lots of people grumble about it.
But it is a costly and destructive luxury to take our feelings out on our public servants. Berating our public servants doesn't help our defense, it weakens us. In this time of crisis, we should try to improve our public service--not tear it down.
Now let me take up one other kind of charge against our public servants--and this is the most vicious and insidious of all. I say with all the emphasis at my command, that there is no more cancerous, no more corrosive, no more subversive attack upon the great task of our Government today, than that which seeks to undermine confidence in Government by irresponsible charges against the loyalty and integrity of Government employees.
There is no room in the Government service for anyone who is not true to his public trust. We have had a few bad people turn up in Government, just as they turn up in business and industry. They are not in the Government now, and we are prosecuting all those who have violated the criminal statutes. If we turn up any more, they can expect the same treatment--and if there are any more we will turn them up, kick them out, and prosecute them if they need to be prosecuted.
But I will not tolerate the smearing and slandering of Government employees as a group. We have every right to protest and to raise the roof against the deliberate creation-for private political purposes--of these unjust charges--of an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust against public employees. I am just not going to stand for it. I am starting now and I am giving warning that the people that are going to slander the Government employees are going to have trouble with me--starting now until November--and the best part about it is I am not running for anything. We have a right to protest against the creation of an atmosphere in which any charge is a conviction in the public mind, despite the lack of evidence. We are not defending evildoers when we demand that the whole truth be stated--that the other side of the ledger be examined.
The truth is that the Government service, in the light of its tremendous size and scope, has a remarkable record of honesty and integrity. I firmly believe that its ethical standards are as high as those of any Government in the history of the world. I firmly believe that its ethical standards are higher than those prevailing in the American business community, and the Senate's own Committee on Ethics in Government agrees with me wholeheartedly. You read the report they made on the subject.
It is a curious fact that those in the business world who shout the loudest about corruption in Government are those who most often approach the Government with their hands out. It is a tragic fact that those in the political world who shout the loudest about corruption in Government are motivated by such a lust for power that they are willing to wreck the lives and the careers of innocent public servants.
Of course, the worst kind of an attack upon Government employees has been the attack on their loyalty. Here, the technique of the attackers is the same; innuendo and smear and just plain common, ordinary, everyday lies. And the motivation is the same; they want to get votes.
The truth is that we can be more confident of the unswerving loyalty of employees in the executive branch of our Government than of any other group of people in the Nation. They are the only large group of employees in the Nation, public or private, subjected to such systematic and thoroughgoing investigation. And the record is one of which they can well be proud. Every employee in the executive branch is checked by the FBI. Only 384 employees, or nine one-thousandths of 1 percent of all those checked, had to be discharged on loyalty grounds--think of that.
This is the real picture, based on hard fact. It is a shameful and degrading thing to try to mislead the American people into thinking it is otherwise.
We must always be vigilant in guarding the public service against the infiltration of disloyal elements.
But we must be just as vigilant in protecting employees against unjust accusations.
The loyalty program was designed to protect innocent employees as well as the Government. When I set it up, I intended it to expose the guilty and at the same time to safeguard the rights and the reputations of those who were innocent. But I have become increasingly concerned in recent months by attempts to use the loyalty pro-program as a club with which to beat Government employees over the head. Political gangsters are attempting to pervert the program into an instrument of intimidation and blackmail, to coerce or destroy any who dare to oppose them. These men and those who abet them have besmirched the reputations of decent, loyal public servants. They have not hesitated to lie, under cover of congressional immunity, of course, and to repeat the lies again and again.
This is a matter for great concern. It is a matter of great concern to me. These tactics contain the seeds of tyranny. Can we be sure that people who employ such tactics are really loyal to our form of Government, with its Bill of Rights and its tradition of individual liberty? The fact is that they are breaking these things down. They are undermining the foundation stones of our Constitution. I believe such men betray our country and all it stands for. I believe they are as grave a menace as the Communists. In fact, I think they are worse than Communists and I think they are partners with them.
It is not your job to take sides in partisan political controversy. But it is your duty and the duty of all citizens to demand the truth about the Government service and to reject the smear campaign at the base, and call it the immoral evil that it is.
In particular, it is your job to fight the attempt to reduce the civil servant to the status of a second-class citizen. This can be done, without taking sides in politics, by placing the facts about the civil service before the people. It can be done, without partisanship, in the name of ordinary decency and fair play.
The history of the National Civil Service League shows that it is well equipped to deal with the problem before us.
You can count on me, in office or out, to keep on fighting to uphold the Government service. I am confident that I can count on you as well.
Thank you very much.
NOTE: The President spoke at 9:30 p.m. at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. His opening words "Mr. Chairman" referred to Nicholas Kelley, president of the National Civil Service League and vice president and general counsel of the Chrysler Corp. The address was broadcast.
For the President's messages to Congress transmitting the first four reorganization plans of 1952, see Items 11, 84-87.