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members of Congress, some State and Federal officials, and many small politicians, none of whom have any such knowledge or responsibility, and whose participation in appointments has always been a simple intermeddling and usurpation. In other words, those on whom the Constitution imposes the duty of securing good administration have been the friends of reform, while those who have most invaded and usurped executive functions have been its enemies. It was the PresidentsGrant, Hayes, Arthur, Garfield-and the best men of their cabinets, together with the postmaster and some of the customs officers at the great offices at New York City, who, before this administration, stood for a reform policy against legislative officers and politicians who upheld the old system for the sake of the spoils it gave them.

It should not be doubted that the opposition to a reform policy, which still exists among the people at large, is in the main sincere and honest. But when we consider how persistently that policy has been misrepresented by the politician class, to whose political theories and chances of gain it is fatal, and when we see how it has been supported through a whole decade by those whose means of information are the best, may we not well believe that nearly the whole opposition on the part of the people now springs from a lack of information and from misconception of the facts, which the discussion of the subject now going on over the whole country will very soon remove?

OFFICE-SEEKING DIMINISHED.

Among the useful results of the new system, pointed out by nearly every postmaster and customs officer in their statements published in the last two reports of the Commission, was the less and less number of seekers for office by whom their time was taxed.

NOTE.—It has been explained in this report why the mere saving of the time of officers is but the smallest part of this evil.

The Commission found that, after three or four of the earlier months of its work until near March last, this evil continually diminished. But it increased rapidly near this date, owing to a belief that sweeping changes would be made by the new administration. There was a short time when it was very great indeed in the Departments and offices under the rules, but now it is reduced to moderate proportions and is steadily diminishing.

There were five or six months after the examinations commenced during which more persons came to the Commission in any single week to press for office or try to use influence to get in than there have been in the last eight weeks together. Similar statements might be made concerning the Departments and the post-offices and customs offices in the great cities. Members of Congress are decided in their declarations of the great extent to which they are relieved of importunity for places. At the post-office at New York City, where the merit system has been

longest enforced, and where, it is believed, an unequaled business efficiency has been reached, many days together are passed without a person coming to solicit office, all the requests made being for application blanks for being examined. There is comparatively little office-begging now at the New York customs offices. It is such facts which show how readily the people acquiesce in a system founded on justice and having supreme regard for character and capacity. Nearly all opposition on the part of partisan managers has ceased wherever the new methods have had a trial. A system which allows every citizen an equal chance to win an office for himself on his own merits appeals irresistibly to the sense of justice and fair dealing among the people.*

PARTISAN ACTIVITY ON THE PART OF OFFICERS.

It is well known that before the Civil Service law was passed the officials in the Departments and great offices were organized for collecting assessments and for work for the dominant party. What was done and paid by each was generally well known by the party leaders, and fully scored up against the day of removals and promotions.

There is reason to think that the selection for appointment of those who excel in the examinations, rather than of those who have excelled in partisan zeal and persistent pushing for places, has done much to arrest the despotism and proscriptive party spirit in which those organizations had their origin. So far as they survive, they are understood to be either in a very sickly condition, or to have very appropriately turned their activities to social, literary, or benevolent objects. It will be well for their members, and for the public generally, if all party tests shall be rejected. When appointments are given for personal merit, and not for partisan zeal, those who enter the service are likely to be satisfied with a quiet exercise of their rights as citizens, without feeling much need or taste for organizations, either in self-defense or for selfish advancement. When adherents of both parties, selected irrespective of either, have been doing the same public work side by side, year after year, they are very likely to see the absurdity of organizing themselves, as officials, into bands of political tax extorters and campaign workers for either party. To do so is both to violate the spirit of the reform which gave them their places, and to challenge a removal for their obtrusive partisanship.

The right of such officials to vote and freely express their opinions no one will question; but, in the degree that they become proscriptive partisans, they forget the proprieties of their position and are likely to become poor public servants. It may hereafter, perhaps, become a practice among them to pair off with each other, and thus save the expense of going half way across the Union to vote.

Many members of Congress have adopted competitive examinations to determine their recommendation of applicants for West Point and Annapolis.

THE MERIT SYSTEM DEFEATS BUREAUCRACY.

The means by which, as we have seen, competitive examinations are surely breaking up the class monopoly of patronage are equally certain to prevent the growth of a bureaucracy in the public service. Under free competition, no officer can award places to his favorites; no party can either make its platform a test for office holding or exclude from the service the adherents of the other party.

The political opinions, the social standing, the occupations, the sympathies and theories, therefore, of those who enter the classified service will be as varied as the character, the pursuits, and the feelings of that vast citizenship from which applicants now spontaneously seek the examinations and win their way to the offices. Once in office, they will be free, by reason of the manner in which it was secured, to discharge their political duties and to co-operate in manly and honest ways, within their party, as becomes every citizen of a republic. These conditions are fatal to a bureaucracy, which, from its very nature, implies some sort of a monopoly or special privilege-in other words, the limiting of office holding to a particular class or portion of the people.

It was the old system which had established a monopoly, and strongly tended to a bureaucracy in office holding.

It is a curious fact that those who suffer most from fears that competitive examinations will create a bureaucracy or a monopoly on the part of a particular class are the very persons who would, in selecting for appointment, exclude (1) all but members of their own party; (2) all of their own party who do not belong to their own faction; (3) all of their own faction who will not vote for their own candidate or for themselves, and (4) all who will not pay political assessments and work servilely to keep the party in power and its favorites in place. This sort of proscription seems to be the only way possible of creating a bureaucratic monopoly of office holders in a republic. Competitive examinations would bring in every worthy person from each of these four rejected and ostracized classes; in other words, these examinations would reject and eliminate the very condition on which alone it is possible to found a bureaucracy in this country. How can a public service. become bureaucratic of which any man, by his own unaided efforts, may make himself a member, and from which he may be at any time removed?

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PUBLIC ESTIMATE OF OFFICIAL LIFE.

It has been one of the consequences of allowing so many thousands of offices to be filled on the basis of influence and official favoritism that, in the candid thought of the people, by which that method has never been approved, the officers thus selected have not generally been held in high estimation. There has been a feeling, in most cases quite

unjust, that our subordinate officers have not as a whole been worthy of our people and institutions. It was not unnatural that a just con. demnation of the system upon which they were selected should reach beyond the system itself and strongly tend to bring under some dis. trust even the worthy persons whom it brought into the public service. All-even the most meritorious-were more or less prejudiced by the subserviency, the discreditable partis in work, and the unmanly and unwomanly solicitation through which not a few have gained and held their places.

There are not wanting indications that the enforcement of a system which enables good character and superior capacity to work their own way into the service by free, public, self-respecting methods will before long change this old estimate of official life. When, on every hand, in a great department or public office we shall see men and women whom we know to have won their way by superior merit against all competitors holding their places, not by virtue of some secret influence behind, but openly in their own right, it will be inevitable that they, and the general service, of which they are a part, will stand high in public estimation. There is already being disclosed in the classified service a natural and honorable desire on the part of not a few to be examined, in order to make it clear that they could have won their places by methods which test both character and capacity. Nothing is more common than the declaration, on the part of those officials, that they would be ashamed to have an office if they felt they could not have won it in a competition of merit. In such facts we may find good reason for be. lieving that not long hence, under the new system, a position in the subordinate civil service will everywhere command the social consideration-now accorded to those in the military and naval service-which is due to demonstrated worth engaged in the honorable service of the nation.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND THE MERIT SYSTEM.

One other indirect effect of enforcing the new system deserves a brief notice here-its bearing upon the cause of common school education. In no other way can a nation do more to advance the dignity and success of the public schools of the people than by making excellence in the good character they develop, and in the studies they teach, as far as possible, the tests for enjoying its official honors and salaries. The youth of the country will be quick to see that good character, and excellence in their studies, which gives a high place on the register for appointment, and not vicious activity in party factions or unmanly subserviency in politics, are most effective for appointments. It is not inappropriate to reproduce here this language from the first report of the Commission:

"Thoughtful men are noticing the tendency of the new system to aid

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and honor the public schools. Governor Cleveland, of New York, for example, after stating in his last message that New York leads the States in the inauguration of a comprehensive system of civil service,' declares that the children of our citizens are educated and trained in schools maintained at the common expense, and the people as a whole have a right to demand the selection for the public service of those whose natural aptitudes have been improved by the educational facilities furnished by the State.""

Two years' additional experience of the merit system in New York since that message was written has further developed its friendly relations with the admirable public school system of the State—a view which finds expression in the last message of its governor, in which, after commending the merit system on other grounds, Governor Hill says: "It is, besides, a constant stimulus to the better education and training of the people, and a recognition of the utility of our common schools sustained at the public expense, and an incentive for the best men to seek the public service."

The third annual report of the New York State Civil Service Commission, just published, shows that, with only very limited exceptions, the attainments required are such only as may be gained in the public schools of the State. For example, in the city of Brooklyn, of the 445 found eligible for appointment, during the last year, 391 had had only a common school education, and only 23 had received an academic education. Of the whole number examined in the State, neary 72 per cent. had been educated only in her public schools.

The first annual report of the State Civil Service Commission of Massachusetts, just published, shows 1,292 examined during the year, of whom 1,267, or 98 per cent., had received only a common school education, and that only 25 applicants had received a college education. In the national service, of all those examined in the year from January 16, 1885, to January 16, 1886, more than 82 per cent. had received only a public school education.

Of the 1,277 applicants who passed the general or limited-that is, the clerkship-examinations during that year, 854 received their edu cation in the public schools, except that a small number of them, not possible to state with exactness, had attended academies some of which may not be properly included under the public school system. Of these 854 thus educated, 552, or over 64 per cent., were successful, having passed above the minimum grade which shows competency for appointment; while of the 345 examined for this clerkship service who had been for a longer or shorter time in college, 217, or less than 63 per cent., were successful.

It seems clear, therefore, that the college educated applicants have no real advantage over those who have not been in college. Such subjects have been selected and the questions have been so framed and marked as to make, in a practical sense, the public school education of 12435 C S- -5

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