JOURNAL 



OF THE 



WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Vol. io November 19, 1920 No. 19 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.— A reorganized Civil Service. Ed- 

 ward B. Rosa, Bureau of Standards.^ 



I. INTRODUCTION 



The United States Government may be likened to a great 

 business organization of which Congress is the Board of Direc- 

 tors and the taxpayers are the stockholders. The various 

 departments, bureaus, and other branches of the government 

 are managed by secretaries, directors, division chiefs and various 

 assistants, the chief executive officer over all being the Presi- 

 dent. There are altogether several thousand men in responsible 

 administrative positions in the government's complex organiza- 

 tion who are concerned with probleihs of administration and 

 business management, and who at the present time are specially 

 interested in the employment policy of the government. There 

 are several hundred thousand employees of the government who 

 are not only interested in this question, but vitally concerned, 

 and are calUng the attention of Congress and the public to the 

 fact that the government's employment policy needs revision 

 and bringing up to date. The administrative officers of the 

 government, like the managers of a business, represent the em- 

 ployer, and think first of the question from the standpoint of 

 the management, not, however, overlooking the interests and 

 the rights of the employees. The representatives of the em- 

 ployees properly think first of the interests of the employees, 

 but they should not and do not overlook the interests of the 

 government, and they are rendering a great service at the present 

 time in publicly discussing the questions at issue. 



^ An address delivered before the Washington Academy of Sciences on October 

 23, 1920. 



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