170 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (CIVIL-SEKVICE REFOEM.) 



" Mr. Graves, whose testimony I read before, 

 has stated as the result of the efforts which 

 were made by Gen. Grant during the period 

 that he was allowed any funds for the purpose 

 of putting this scheme into operation, that the 

 expenses of the departments here can be re- 

 duced at least one third. 



"I have heard it said that this system of ex- 

 amination proposes to present only a scholastic 

 test; that it proposes only to give advantage 

 to those who are college-bred, and have had 

 the advantage in early life of superior educa- 

 tion. The committee investigated that subject 

 to some extent, and I have here the result in 

 the city of New York. Says Mr. Hurt : 



" Taking seven hundred and thirty- one persons ex- 

 amined, 60 per cent, of the appointees selected from 

 them had been educated simply in the common 

 schools of the country ; 33| per cent, had received 

 what they call academic or high-school education ; 

 and 6i per cent, a collegiate education. In all the 

 statistics in regard to common-school education there 

 is one little weakness resulting from the fact that we 

 have to throw in that class men who have had hardly 

 any education, men who will say. ' I went to school 

 until I was eleven years old,' or ' I went to school in 

 the winter,' or something of that kind. We have to 

 throw them in that class, and it rather reduces the 

 average standing in that category. As to the matter 

 of age, we have very thoroughly exploded that objec- 

 tion. There have been some young men of twenty- 

 one and twenty-two who have come in, but the aver- 

 age has been above thirty, and it is astonishing that 

 it is the men above thirty who make the best time on 

 examination, who show a facility to get through work 

 quickly. 



" He goes on to say : 



" Yet about two thirds of the appointees had a com- 

 mon-school education ; had not even an academic ed- 

 ucation. 



" Of course these examinations must be 

 proper; of course they must be regulated 

 upon common- sense principle^ ; of course they 

 must be conducted to test the fitness of the 

 men who are to be appointed to particular of- 

 fices. You have tests everywhere. To-day 

 the law requires that there shall be a test of 

 examination in the various departments here 

 in Washington. They are pass examinations ; 

 they are imperfect ; they are insufficient ; they 

 are not thorough. Mr. Graves himself says 

 that the only examination in his case was that 

 the superior in the department looked over 

 his shoulder while he was writing and said, 

 4 1 think you will pass.' That was when he 

 entered the service twenty-odd years ago. 



''If you have examinations, why not have 

 competitive examinations? If you have pri- 

 vate pass examinations, why not have open ex- 

 aminations ? If examinations are to be made 

 in the departments by subordinates of the de- 

 partments, why not have them made by re- 

 sponsible examiners amenable to the authority 

 of the President under a system devised by the 

 best intelligence that can be supplied ? 



" I hear the system of competitive examina- 

 tion spoken of as if it were something extraor- 

 dinary. Within the last fifteen years it has 

 gotten to be a custom that I might almost say 



is universal that when a member of Congress 

 has the right to appoint a cadet to West Point 

 or to the Naval Academy he asks his constitu- 

 ents to compete for it. Formerly it was never 

 done ; it was looked on as the mere perquisite 

 of a member of Congress. I appointed a gen- 

 tleman to West Point who graduated at the 

 head of his class, and now is an active and vig- 

 orous spirit of the Military Academy. I ap- 

 pointed him simply upon my own personal 

 examination and knowledge. It would not be 

 done now ; it could not be done now ; the pub- 

 lic sentiment is against it. The public senti- 

 ment of the district that I then represented 

 would not permit it; but open competitive 

 examinations are demanded, and everybody 

 having the requisite qualifications of age and 

 health and vigor can compete for the appoint- 

 ment. 



" Why not apply that system to the Execu- 

 tive Departments of this Government ? What 

 earthly reason can there be why when you de- 

 sire to appoint the best and fittest man for the 

 place that is vacant he should not subject him- 

 self to the competition of other people who 

 desire to have that place ? Of course, as I said 

 before, this all goes upon the basis that there 

 shall be reasonable examination and reasonable 

 competition." 



Mr. Hawley, of Connecticut, followed in the 

 same strain. He said : " This is ' a bill to' reg- 

 ulate and improve the civil service of the 

 United States. 1 It is not a new subject, nor is 

 the bill itself, in its essential particulars, new 

 to the Senate or to the public. Something is 

 to be done upon this subject. Beyond all 

 manner of question there is something to be 

 done. The experience of this country as to 

 the evils of the existing system, the experience 

 of other countries in the trial of improved sys- 

 tems and aside from any evils that exist among 

 us, the extraordinary growth of this country, 

 render the continuance of the present system 

 utterly impossible. All these things combined, 

 with a stronger and stronger manifestation of 

 puhlic sentiment from year to year, show, as I 

 said, that something is to be done. 



" When our country began with what I may 

 call the present system, which is a lack of sys- 

 tem, there were 350,000 square miles of terri- 

 tory; there are now 4,000,000 square miles. 

 There were 3,000,000 of people ; there are now 

 55,000,000 of people, or will be by next June, 

 and there has been an addition of 25 States. 

 In 1801 there were 906 post-offices; there are 

 now 44,848. There were 69 custom-houses; 

 there are now 135. The revenues were less 

 than $3,000,000; now they are $400,000,000. 

 Our ministers to foreign countries were 4 ; they 

 are now 33. Our consuls were 63 ; they are 

 now 728. A thousand men then administered 

 the Government; it now requires more than 

 100,000. 



"In many offices, I might say in every one 

 of the departments and bureaus of the Govern- 

 ment, the chief might, origirally, well be re- 



