appointment of three civil service commissioners, whose duty it was to aid the President in the preparation of rules to carry the act into effect and to provide for open competitive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants for the public service. It was provided that the examinations were to be practical in character and in the main to relate to the fitness and capacity of applicants to discharge the duties of the service to which they sought appointment. The provisions of this act and the details as to its enforcement are adequately described in texts on American government.1

The close relation between the merit system and efficiency in the public service is so important that the question of reform of the civil service is one of the greatest issues in the line of improving the government service in the United States. Many obstacles stand in the way of the adoption of the merit system and its wide application in the government service in the United States. In the first place, there has been a failure to make distinct at times what is recognized in European countries, namely, that political offices such as Cabinet heads ought not to be and can not be placed under civil-service rules and requirements, but that administrative offices requiring technical training and experience ought to be permanent and should be brought under the merit system. The chief objection to the adoption of the merit system is the necessity of rewarding party workers-those who bear the brunt and responsibility of conducting party affairs. This large army of party workers, it is claimed, must be rewarded, and public offices constitute the only basis for reward. The spoils system has in large part been retained as a reward and incentive to keep going the elaborate party organization which began to develop in this country with the Democratic revolution from 1830 to 1840. But it is maintained that the cost of the system to the country in the incompetence, inefficiency, and corruption of the public service 1 Prepare an analysis of the Federal Civil Service Act.

is too great a price to pay for the assistance of the party worker, and that it would be even better for the government to give a large sum to each organization than to support its workers in public offices. It is the necessity of finding some adequate means of paying for party services that retards the progress of the merit system. Great as this handicap undoubtedly is, it is slowly being overcome by the growing desire of the people that the government be placed upon the same plane of thoroughness and efficiency as other business enterprises and by the developing belief that the public service should be placed on a basis of merit and ability rather than be regarded as a reward for participation in partisan politics.

PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM

But civil service reform in the United States has moved forward slowly, and at times it has actually retrograded. At first, Congress withheld the appropriation for the Civil Service Commission. Since the establishment of a permanent Civil Service Commission, every President has had to resist the pressure of spoilsmen and of the politicians.

Almost every year has seen riders to appropriation bills providing exemption from the classified civil service, promotion of temporary patronage appointees, transfers which violate the letter or spirit of the civil service law, illegal participation of civil servants in elections and enforced contributions to party funds, four-year tenure laws, dismissals for political reasons, appointments through senatorial courtesy, and a dozen other forms of patronage and retrogression. Not a single administration at Washington since the act of 1883 has an absolutely clean reform record; and in most cases this is no fault of the President and the Cabinet.1

It was found that, in order to check the power of the spoilsmen a great campaign of education was necessary. For this purpose the National Civil Service Reform Association was formed, with the following object:

1 Robert Moses, The Civil Service of Great Britain (Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law), vol. lvii, no. 1, p. 247.

To establish a system of appointment, promotion, and removal in the civil service founded upon the principle that public office is a public trust, admission to which should depend upon proved fitness. To this end the association will demand that appointments to subordinate executive offices, with such exceptions as may be expedient, not inconsistent with the principle already mentioned, be made from persons whose fitness has been ascertained by competitive examinations open to all applicants properly qualified, and that removals shall be made for legitimate cause only such as dishonesty, negligence, or inefficiency, but not for political opinion or refusal to render party service, and the Association will advocate all other appropriate measures for securing integrity, intelligence, efficiency, good order, and due discipline in the civil service.

State organizations and national societies joined in the educational campaign, but progress was extremely slow. The most important positions were still filled by patronage. Laws did not originally provide for promotions, and these were based almost entirely on personal considerations. It was easy to discover grounds for removal or transfer. Evasions of the provisions of the law against political activity were disregarded, and the refusal to obey the law was frequently encouraged by the appointing officers. "While in response to public demand the dominant parties incorporated the principle in their platforms, this was done with mental reservations. Being negative in operation, the civil service law for many years has acted chiefly as an unwelcome restraint and check upon officials, without respect to their partisan affiliations." Primarily, the civil service acts in the United States have been interpreted as applicable to the filling of minor and clerical positions; consequently all the important positions remained in the hands of party leaders to be used as spoils for political rewards.

The spoils system dies hard. With its related ideas of short term and rotation in office, it has become an ingrained conviction in the minds of the politicians, and of the public, too, that offices should be openly and flagrantly used to reward personal political friends and to punish enemies. Men became accustomed to what Senator Hoar

called the "shameless doctrine," "that the true way by which power should be gained in this republic is to bribe the people with offices created for their service and the true end for which it should be used when gained is the promotion of selfish ambition and the gratification of personal revenge.

The grip of the spoilsmen is evidenced in the slow and intermittent progress of civil service reform in the Federal government and the difficulties in introducing the merit system in the states. The somewhat discouraging results in the fight between the spoilsmen and those upholding the merit system are suggestively described by a committee in New York:

The history of civil service legislation and its enforcement in the last thirty years in the state of New York shows how far the state has failed to realize the ideals of civil service administration. During this period, continuous pressure from the outside to confer favors has operated as the motive for establishing many unnecessary positions and creating fictitious or excessive salary rates. To counteract this, other forces have sought to impose with respect to the several branches of the civil service restriction after restriction which were primarily designed to prevent malpractice and removals rather than to insure efficient service. . . . Promotion is still largely secured by accident or personal preference. Standards governing the amount, kind, or quality of personal service to be rendered by state employees have not been established. The welfare of an employee after he has obtained an appointment is not considered from the viewpoint of intelligent public service. As a result, an utter lack of what might be termed esprit de corps is noticeable in the state government.

The state of New York needs a constructive employment program for its governmental agencies, which looks toward the establishment of a permanent expert personnel. This means a fundamental reorganization of the present practice.2

The campaign for civil service reform, though a constant struggle, has gradually succeeded in reducing the number and the power of the spoilsmen and has given the merit

1 Quoted in Bulletin of Bureau of Municipal Research (New York), No. 67, November, 1915, p. 4.

2 Bulletin of Bureau of Municipal Research (New York), No. 76, August, 1916, p. 5.

system a wider application. The extension of the system to the higher positions of the Federal service and to many state municipal, and county officials is an indication of the growing acceptance of the merit principle.

Attempts to Secure Standardization of Positions and Salaries. The purpose of the first civil service acts in state and Federal governments and of the efforts of the first civil service commissions was primarily negative in character. Such acts were designed to place a limit upon the appointive power of the executive and to remove some of the gross abuses which accompanied the development of the spoils system. Little thought was given to a constructive program of public employment, which would improve the conditions surrounding public officials and would study the needs of civil servants with a view to supervising their welfare and attaining greater efficiency in the government service. The results of this negative policy are thus described by the New York Bureau of Municipal Research:

ence.

By the enactment of federal, state, and municipal civil service laws, the old methods of transacting the business of the government were not radically changed. Even as preventive measures they were in the nature of first steps. Important posts still remained the object of patronage. Promotion was still controlled by accident or personal preferDevices for removal or transfer were easily invented. Standards governing the amount, kind, or quality of service to be rendered were not formulated. Evasions of the civil service law against political activity were connived at, if not actually encouraged, by those in authority. The original tendency to multiply positions in order to keep intact a political machine continued and the commissions themselves were bipartisan, recognizing the fact that the administration of the civil service regulations had not been taken out of politics. The welfare of an employee after he had obtained an appointment was not considered, except as it was involved in measures to prevent his untimely removal.1

And despite noteworthy advances made through civil service acts in raising the requirements for entrance to the

"The Standardization of Public Employments," Bulletin of Bureau of Municipal Research (New York), No. 67, November, 1915, pp. 7–8.