"Bureaucrats"

In the recent mayoral election here in Colorado Springs, though it was supposed to be non-partisan, everyone knew who was the Democrat and who was the Republican. In the last days before the election the candidate favored by the GOP ran television commercials attacking his opponent as a "tax and spender" who even wanted to give pay raises to "bureaucrats."

It's an old hobby horse, but he rode it right into the mayor's office. "Bureaucrats" are the people we love to hate - sipping coffee through the day in cubicles while they thwart every effort to improve society or turn an honest dollar, quoting and enforcing obscure laws and regulations that defy common sense, then leaving at five o'clock on the dot to make use of the tax dollars we pay them.

The ads got me thinking about government employees. When they refer to "bureaucrats" just who do they really mean? Police officers are bureaucrats, at least in the sense that they are government employees. Who would begrudge a raise for a cop? The same thing applies to firefighters and paramedics. In a city like ours, where the hospital is city owned (though for how much longer is questionable - our new mayor might very well sell it) the nurses and orderlies are bureaucrats.

Teachers - the people we entrust our children to - are bureaucrats. One hardly imagines teachers sipping coffee all day and so forth, but they do work in socialized institutions, our public schools. Is there anyone who doubts that teachers work long hours? Is there anyone who would deny that teachers often buy school supplies with their own money? And yet they're vilified as "bureaucrats," more of those anonymous faceless parasites living off the fat of the land.

I just finished reading Timothy Egan's "The Big Burn" a history of the great wildfire that swept through parts or Idaho and Montana in August 1910. About 3.2 million acres were charred, an area the same size as Connecticut, and 87 people were killed, of whom 78 were firefighters. Much of the land was National Forest, created just a few years earlier by President Theodore Roosevelt over the opposition of many western congressmen. These members of Congress, mostly from Roosevelt's own Republican party, unable to prevent TR from declaring public lands would now be protected from reckless consumptive use, tried to "starve the beast" by cutting appropriations for the new agency. Forest rangers were paid poorly and often lacked the equipment they needed. They were treated badly by the local people near national forests who believed the rangers were obstructing development - that is, keeping them from using up forest resources to get rich.

In the aftermath of the fire - well I'll write a lengthy quote from Egan to illustrate the point.

"So once again the rangers felt obligated to cover the cost of what had been placed in their stewardship, the human and the natural world. A hollowed-out Forest Service had lived with the daily humiliations, but this was a new low. Hospital bills mounted, upward of $5000 for the injured in Wallace (Idaho) alone. The Red Cross raised $1000, leaving the rest of the debt to the (rangers). Just as congressmen had shortchanged the rangers of shovels, axes and trail-building funds, charging them for the cost of horses and mules, and. . . essentially forcing them to pay firefighters out of their own pockets, they stiffed the rangers again on medical costs. All these men, their fingernails melted off, skin raised and infected, lungs permanently compromised by smoke, joints strained and bones broken, muscles torn and hair lost, were left to fend for themselves. Give the enemies of the Forest Service credit, a few rangers noted - their antipathy was consistent." (page 225)

"Bureaucrats," the people we hate to love.

By the way, Egan's book is recommended for any Roosevelt scholars out there.