Telegram Herald

The Charges Preferred to the Civil Service Commission

A Washington correspondent writes as follows: The Board of Civil Service Commissioners today agreed upon a report in regard to a Michigan case which has received consideration at their hands for some time. The report will be submitted to the President when he returns to the city. When the members of the board were in Grand Rapids some time ago organizing a local board of examiners for the post-office there, charges were made to them affecting Postmaster Blair and Mr. Hudson, the chief clerk of the railway mail service of Grand Rapids. The charges were to the effect that those officials have been guilty of levying political assessments upon their subordinates, and were sustained in two or three affidavits presented the commissioners while they were in Grand Rapids.

After their return to Washington the commission received other affidavits to the same effect. In all eight such affidavits reached them. One of them was aimed especially at Postmaster Blair, and seven of them made the charge of levying contributions for campaign purposes against Mr. Hudson. Messrs. Hudson and Blair were afforded an opportunity to give their side of the case. They both denied emphatically the charges made against them. Mr. Hudson submitted copies of letters, written by two of his accusers, in which they retract what was contained in the affidavits. He also submitted documents to impeach the characters of others who had made affidavits against him. The commissioners were thus put in a position which rendered any action on their part, beyond making recommendations and reporting the case as it stands, impossible, because they have no power to send for persons and papers or to subpoena witnesses.

They accordingly drew up a report today setting forth the case as stated above, and will submit it to the President, recommending that the matter be referred to the Postmaster-General for his action. They also state in the report that, in their opinion, either one of the two courses ought to be pursued. Messrs. Blair and Hudson ought to be prosecuted by the United States District Attorney for violating the Civil Service law in levying contributions, or the people who made the charge ought to be brought to justice for engaging in an outrageous conspiracy against these officials.