536 ROSA: REORGANIZED CIVIL SERVICE 



(2) Unequal salaries in different serv^ices for a given kind of work 

 and degree of responsibility. 



(3) The legal prohibition of transfer and promotion from a position 

 in one department to a lump-fund position in another at a higher 

 salary, no matter how much such promotion is merited or how strongly 

 it is recommended by the administrative officers concerned. 



(4) The legal restriction requiring three years' service before trans- 

 fer from one department to another in Washington. 



(5) The apportionment system which often makes it impossible to 

 appoint the most competent eligibles, and sometimes rules out all the 

 applicants from several states. 



(6) The entire lack, until very recently, of a retirement system for 

 aged or disabled employees, which made it necessar}' to retain thou- 

 sands who under other conditions would have been retired to the 

 advantage of the ser\dce. 



4. STANDARDIZED CIVIL SERVICE 



If the classification of the Civil Service as proposed by the Con- 

 gressional Commission is effected, so that there will be a stand- 

 ardized system of positions and titles, with systematic specifica- 

 tions of qualifications and duties, and salaries that are uniform 

 throughout the service for comparable duties and respon- 

 sibilities, then it would be possible to dispense with the present 

 inflexible statutory positions and the unrestricted and unstand- 

 ardized lump-fund positions and replace both by the new stand- 

 ardized and classified system of positions, which would be defined 

 and authorized by law. This would do away with the first two 

 of the above-named legal limitations, and remove the reason for 

 the third and fourth, which could then be repealed. 



The fifth difficulty probably cannot be entirely removed, al- 

 though more active recruiting of eligibles from States below 

 their quota would furnish better material and so satisfy the 

 apportionment law without lowering the standards of the serv- 

 ice, at least not as much as would otherwise be inevitable. The 

 tendency of the apportionment system is necessarily to lower 

 the service in Washington, because very often the best men in 

 distant States cannot afford to come to Washington at consider- 

 able expense, in view of the inadequate salaries paid by the gov- 

 ernment. The result often is that inferior men who need a job 

 are certified from distant States and are appointed ahead of 

 abler men from nearby States that have their full quota. 



