ROSA: REORGANIZED CIVIL SERVICE 535 



throughout the government service is not what it should be, 

 the quantity and quaHty of work done in many cases is unsatis- 

 factory, experienced and competent men and women are leaving 

 the service in large numbers, and their places are being taken 

 by others, on the average less experienced and less competent. 

 Owing to an inadequate and irrational salary scale, many branches 

 of the government serAdce are so unremunerative and unattrac- 

 tive that their administrative officers have much difficulty in 

 keeping positions filled. Under such circumstances it is impos- 

 sible to maintain proper discipline or a high standard of efficiency, 

 and the consequences of a lowered morale are plainly evident. 

 The situation is far more serious than it was eighteen months 

 ago when Congress appointed a special commission to study and 

 report upon it. 



3. LEGAL DIFFICULTIES 



The merit system presupposes an honest, unbiased, and com- 

 petent administration of the personnel; appointments without 

 favor, promotions when earned, security of teniu-e, opportunity 

 to make good, recognition of work well done. The government 

 should be a just and reasonable employer, if not indeed a model 

 employer, and the administrative officers of the government 

 should not only be authorized and required to deal justly and equi- 

 tably by the employees under their supervision, but they should 

 be empowered to do so. In general, this is far from being real- 

 ized, and the greatest handicap to good administration is not in 

 the faults and frailties of administrative officers (serious as they 

 may be in some cases) but in the laws and limitations imposed 

 upon the administrators, which tie their hands and make good 

 administration exceedingly difficult; and in the lack of adequate 

 personnel in the Civil Service Commission, which makes it im- 

 possible for it to cooperate with administrators as effectively as 

 it should, or to exercise the supervision over appointments and 

 promotions which the law contemplates and which administrators 

 would welcome. 



The most serious of these legal difficulties are the following : 



(i) The system of statutory positions with inflexible and generally 

 inadequate salaries, which often make appointments and promotions 

 difficult or impossible. 



