Captain William S. Orthman

[Crabtree]

Awesome pictures and history lesson.

I was curious about the patronage appointments. I found this quote online purported to be from the Oxford Guide to US Government regarding patronage assignments by congress.

Assigning jobs on Capitol Hill

Even after establishing a civil service system for the executive branch, Congress continued to assign most of its own jobs according to patronage. At first this was because Congress met for only half the year and hired a small staff for only those months. Only a few committees, such as Finance, Ways and Means, Printing, and Claims, which received correspondence and other documents even after Congress had adjourned, were authorized to employ a year-round staff. Members of the House and Senate appointed their own office staffs. Sometimes members appointed their wives, children, and other relatives as their secretaries, messengers, or committee clerks. New ethics laws eventually outlawed nepotism, but members continued to appoint their campaign supporters to posts in their own offices and committees and to other jobs around the Capitol. Both parties had patronage committees to assign clerks, elevator operators, and Capitol police to their members for patronage appointments.

Patronage began to decline after World War II, as Congress began to meet on a year-round basis and as the growth in members' personal staffs relieved the pressure of making patronage appointments elsewhere. But outside of members' own offices (where staffs generally reflect the member's political leaning), the trend in the general operations of Congress has continued toward a permanent, professional, and nonpartisan staff.

Although the quote indicates these assignments declined after WWII, I found an additional news story regarding the patronage appointments.

If you google "Capitol Police Need Beef Up, Nixon Declares" you will find an article written by Dick Barnes of The Day newspaper in March 1971. Partial quotes from that article

"The 575 man force...includes scores of college students put to work with two weeks training." "...about 45% of the Capitol Police Force jobs are patronage....and about 1/3 of the patronage jobs are filled by college students."

I think it's possible his high school teacher might have known someone or worked on a political campaign.

Again, great pictures and research...I just don't think he was trolling your thread.

 

[pace40]

Not questioning patronage appointments at all. Fact of life in Washington. I'm saying that by 1960, an armed federal agency tasked with protecting the house of elected leaders of the country, did not just hand out a gun to a guy with no training requirements, however minimal they might have been. In this case, the program length was twelve weeks with 10 of those interspersed with duty assignments. But they were trained, albeit lightly by todays standards.

I did remove the troll remark but I still see no reason for the post in the first place.