Byrd's Biggest

Virginia's Senator Harry F. Byrd, long the self-appointed primer of civil service's lush vine, suited his shears to the times. Noting that the vine had waxed during wartime until it bore 3,649,000 employes, he decided that it was too late for mere snipping. His proposal to the Senate: chop off all but 1,000,000 at a single slice, and send them back home.

For once economy-minded Harry Byrd's shears might prove effective--though not nearly so drastically as he hoped. A study in the Labor Department's Monthly Labor Review last February conceded that war's end would be followed by "a brief period in which curtailment of federal activity will cause total Government employment and payrolls to fall substantially." But after this period, the study solemnly predicted, "the general upward trend in public employment and payrolls . . . may be expected to reappear."

As any bureaucratic sub-chieftain could tell Senator Byrd without cracking a smile, the Government always needs more employes 1) in wartime to win the victory, 2) in peacetime to avoid war, 3) in depression to help the needy, 4) in prosperity to avoid depressions.

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