Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/182

In few if any of the larger organizations of the national government is the problem of personnel more difficult or more important than in the Indian Service.

The inherent difficulties lie in the diversity of the positions to be filled; the remoteness and isolation of many of the stations, not only rendering them unattractive to persons desiring normal social contacts but also resulting in the existence of many positions which cannot be closely supervised or directed; the unusual importance of those two factors so hard to measure in civil service procedure, character, and personality; and the obstacles in working with a more or less primitive people of another race having different culture and speaking a different language. These are handicaps enough without adding to them administratively.

A Low Salary Scale. The overwhelming administrative difficulty has arisen from the effort to operate the Service upon an exceptionally low salary scale. In order to fill positions, when the salary scale is low, resort is almost invariably taken to the device of low entrance qualifications. The law of supply and demand operates in hiring employees as it does in any other economic field. If one is not willing to pay the prevailing market rates for goods of standard quality, one must, as a rule, take seconds or an inferior grade. By lowering specifications and standards it is generally possible to get goods at a low price. Not infrequently more competition can be secured for supplying sub-standard articles than for furnishing goods of standard quality. This condition exists in the market for services. By lowering standards, the number of eligibles can ordinarily be greatly increased. To this device the Indian Service has had to resort in order to operate on its existing salary scale.^[1]

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