CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (CIVIL-SEEVIOE REFORM.) 



169 



tive functions, the presidency of the country, 

 if it shall last in name BO long, will be put up 

 for sale to the highest bidder, even as in Rome 

 the imperial crown was put up to those who 

 could raise the largest fund. 



" I beg gentlemen to believe that whatever I 

 may have said as to the relations of parties I do 

 not approach the question of the reform of the 

 civil service in any mere partisan spirit. It was 

 because I thought I saw this danger, because I 

 believed that it was imminent, because I be- 

 lieved then as I do now that it is destructive 

 of republicanism and will end in the downfall 

 of republican government, that I felt it my 

 duty to devote whatever ability I had to the 

 consideration of this subject. It was that 

 which induced me a year or two ago to intro- 

 duce a bill which after the best reflection, the 

 best study, the best assistance that I could get 

 I did introduce in the Senate, and which, in 

 some degree modified, has come back from the 

 Committee on Civil Service Reform, and is 

 now pending before this body. 



" Mr. President, it is because 1 believe the 

 4 spoils system ' to be a great crime, because I 

 believe it to be fraught with danger, because 

 I believe that the highest duty of patriotism is 

 to prevent the crime and to avoid the danger, 

 that I advocate this or a better bill if it can be 

 found for the improvement of the civil service. 



" I am told, and I am sure that I am not far 

 out of the way, if I am not exactly accurate, 

 that the number of such offices does not exceed 

 thirty or perhaps thirty-five, and that the num- 

 ber of persons who are employed in them, to- 

 gether with those in the departments here, 

 will not exceed 10,000. 



" I said that this was a tentative effort ; that 

 it was intended to be an experiment, and it is 

 because it is tentative, because it is intended 

 to be an experiment, that the committee 

 thought it advisable in its initial stages to 

 limit it, as they have limited it, in the bill. 

 The bill does not apply to elective officers of 

 course, nor to officers appointed by the Presi- 

 dent by and with the advice and consent of 

 the Senate, nor to the military, nor to the 

 naval, nor to the judicial establishment. It 

 applies simply now to those officials who are 

 employed in the departments here and in the 

 large offices of the Government elsewhere, 

 first, because as an experiment it was thought 

 that it gave scope enough to test its value and 

 labor enough to employ all those who are en- 

 gaged in putting it in operation until its merits 

 shall be fairly tried and it shall commend it- 

 self either to the approval or the condemna- 

 tion of the American people. 



" There was another reason. The heads of 

 offices and bureaus, where the number of em- 

 ployes is small, can themselves personally 

 judge of the fitness of persons who are appli- 

 cants for appointment, knowing as they do 

 more or less in their narrow communities 

 their antecedents, their habits, and their modes 

 of life. 



"The bill does not touch the question of 

 tenure of office or of removal from office. I 

 see it stated by those who do not know that it 

 provides for a seven years' tenure of office. 

 There is nothing like it in the bill. I see it 

 stated that it provides against removals from 

 office. There is nothing like it in the bill. 

 Whether or not it would be advisable to fix 

 the tenure of office, whether or not it would 

 be advisable to limit removals, are questions 

 about which men will differ ; but the bill as it 

 is and as we invoke the judgment of the Sen- 

 ate upon it contains no provisions either as to 

 tenure of office or removals from office. It 

 leaves those questions exactly where the law 

 now finds them. It concerns itself only with 

 admission to the public service; it concerns 

 itself only with discovering in certain proper 

 ways or in certain ways gentlemen may differ 

 as to whether they are proper or not the fit- 

 ness of the persons who shall be appointed. It 

 takes cognizance of the fact that it is impos- 

 sible for the head of a department or a large 

 office personally to know all the applicants, and 

 therefore it provides a method by which, when 

 a vacancy occurs by death, by resignation, by 

 the unlimited power of removal, a suitable 

 person may be designated to fill the vacancy. 

 It says in effect that when a vacancy occurs 

 in the civil service of the lowest grade, every- 

 body who desires entrance shall have the right 

 to apply. Everybody, humble, poor, without 

 patronage, without influence, whatever inay be 

 his condition in life, shall have the right to go 

 before the parties charged with an examination 

 of his fitness and there be subjected to the test 

 of open, regulated, fair, impartial examination. 



"Now, Mr. President, recurring to what I 

 have said as to the scope of this bill, to the 

 officers who are embraced in it, to the avoid- 

 ance of the question of removal and tenure, I 

 have only to say that the machinery of the bill 

 is that the President shall call to his aid the 

 very best assistance, with or without the con- 

 currence of the Senate for that is a matter 

 about which gentlemen perhaps would differ, 

 and upon it I have no very fixed opinion that 

 the President shall, with the concurrence of 

 the best advice which he can obtain, form a 

 plan, a scheme of examination free for all, open 

 to all, which shall secure the very best talent 

 and the very best capacity attainable for the 

 civil offices of the Government. The -method 

 adopted in the bill is by competitive examina- 

 tion. That method has been imperfectly tried 

 throughout the country. I have here the state- 

 ment of the Postmaster of New York who ha& 

 given much attention and has had great expe- 

 rience in this matter. I have here his state- 

 ment that the business of his office increased 

 150 per cent, within a certain number of years, 

 and the expenses increased only 2 per cent. 



"Says Mr. Pearson, 'To be specific, while 

 the increase in the volume of matter has been 

 from 150 to 300 per cent., the increase in cost 

 has only been about 2 per cent.' 



