tained a thorough discussion of the existing service, careful summaries of the systems employed in China, Prussia, France, and especially England, and to it there was appended a bill intended to adapt the best points in these systems to American conditions." Despite this thorough report, Congress refused to act. But agitation increased, particularly as a result of the devotion to the cause of such men as George William Curtis and Carl Schurz. President Grant was finally led to favor reform, and in his second message to Congress recommended a law which was to govern not only the tenure, but also the manner of making all appointments. Congress was, however, recalcitrant, and refused to accede to the President's wishes, with the exception of attaching a rider to the appropriation bill with the idea of leaving the matter entirely in the hands of the President. The President immediately appointed an advisory board, with Curtis as chairman, to report on the measures to be adopted. The first report was presented in December, 1871. In 1872 the rules formulated by this board were applied to the departments at Washington and to the Federal offices in New York. President Grant, however, refused to give the new movement his unqualified support, and Curtis soon resigned. In the next decade little progress was made, but the agitation was continued through civil-service-reform organizations and particularly through a national league which was launched in 1881 with Curtis as president. State societies were formed and a nation-wide campaign was inaugurated. The death of Garfield at the hands of a disappointed office-seeker finally brought the matter to a head, and a civil-service-reform bill drawn by Dorman B. Eaton was presented to Congress and finally passed. The bill was enacted in 1883, and the first commission appointed under the act at once began to enforce its provisions.

The civil service act of January, 1883, provided for the 1C. R. Fish, op. cit., p. 211.

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 ariny 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:

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.

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