174 



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



substantially. He has it, I might say, generally 

 and without reference to any particular statute, 

 from the fact of his being the Chief Executive, 

 from the general provisions of the Constitution. 

 And we put into the statute-book in 1871 (see 

 section 1753) these words : 



" The President is authorized to prescribe such regu- 

 lations for the admission of persons into the civil ser- 

 vice of the United States as may best promote the 

 efficiency thereof, and ascertain the fitness of each 

 candidate in respect to age, health, character, knowl- 

 edge, and ability for the branch of service into which 

 he seeks to enter ; and for this purpose he may em- 

 ploy suitable persons to conduct such inquiries, and 

 may prescribe their duties, and establish^ regulations 

 for the conduct of persons who may receive appoint- 

 ments in the civil service. 



" Under that provision the President might, 

 perhaps, do nearly all that one can here require 

 or expect the executive department to do ; but 

 the difficulty is that it is almost impossible to 

 do these things with the tacit and yet actual 

 opposition of the leading body of political men 

 in the country, and without the cordial sanction 

 of Congress. For two years Congress gave Gen. 

 Grant the money necessary to conduct a reform 

 iu the civil service, to pay his commission, etc., 

 and then he asked for it in vain three years 

 in succession. He abandoned the effort, saying 

 frankly to Congress that if this work was not 

 sanctioned by the vote of the legislative body, 

 if the country really did not demand it, he 

 should be obliged to surrender his efforts. And 

 yet in the report made in that very year by the 

 able civil-service commission these points are 

 considered as established by their two or three 

 years' practice. I have no doubt they were, 

 because here in my hand is the volume of tes- 

 timony (Report 576) given before the committee 

 of which I have the honor to be chairman, dur- 

 ing the last session, largely from the custom- 

 houses of New York, Boston, and Baltimore, 

 and the post-office of New York, and it shows 

 that similar results are attained to-day. These 

 are the results the civil-service commission 

 claimed to have reached, and in Gen. Grant's 

 message of April 18, 1874, the statements were 

 ad opted with the specific approval of the Cabi- 

 net, as the message asserts : 



" 1. They have, on an average, where examinations 

 apply, given persons of superior capacity and char- 

 acter to the service of the Government, and have 

 tended to exclude unworthy applicants. 



" 2. They have developed more energy in the dis- 

 charge of duty, and more ambition to acquire informa- 

 tion connected with official functions on the part of 

 those in the service. 



'_' 3. They have diminished the unreasonable solici- 

 tation and pressure which numerous applicants and 

 their friends, competing for appointments, have before 

 brought to bear upon the departments in the direction 

 of favoritism. 



" 4. They have, especially where competition ap- 

 plies, relieved the heads of departments and of bureaus, 

 to a large extent, of the necessity of devoting to persons 

 soliciting places for themselves or for others time 

 which was needed for official duties. 



" 5. They have made it more practicable to dismiss 

 from the service those who came in under the civil- 

 service examinations, when not found worthy, than it 

 was or is to dismiss the like unworthy persons who 



had been introduced into the service through favor or 

 dictation. 



" 6. They have diminished the intrigue and pres- 

 sure, before too frequent, for causing the removal of 

 worthy persons for the mere purpose of bringing 

 other, perhaps inferior, persons into the service. 



'For these reasons the committee on this 

 subject has reported in favor of continuing it. 

 I have indicated our reasons for proposing a 

 bill to vindicate and strengthen the Executive 

 in carrying this reform into practical effect. 

 And here is the bill." 



Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, also advocated 

 the passage of the bill. He said : 



"Unless I much mistake the signs of the 

 time, the country and Congress are now agreed 

 in support of this measure. We are to be con- 

 gratulated even upon some of the events which 

 have taken place recently, much as we may 

 have originally disapproved them, in so far as 

 they have tended to bring about so much una- 

 nimity between the different political parties 

 upon this question. From the necessity of the 

 case, no reform in the civil-service administra- 

 tion of the country which takes it out from the 

 domain of politics can ever be permanently ac- 

 complished to which both of the great parties 

 in the country are not committed. From the 

 necessity of the case, the party which has been 

 in the minority, and whose opponents have 

 possessed the administration, must, when these 

 measures are accomplished, entitle itself to the 

 respect and confidence of the country by a con- 

 siderable act of immediate self-denial. 



" Under the present system the civil service 

 of the country is made up, and always will be 

 made up, largely of the adherents of a single 

 political party, and if the opponents of that 

 party are so short-sighted as to admit that the 

 principal object of their existence is to displace 

 their political opponents and to gain those of- 

 fices for themselves, by resistance to any well- 

 considered scheme of reform in this particular, 

 the evil will never be overcome. One half, or 

 nearly one half, the American people are asked 

 to indicate and emphasize their patriotism and 

 their fitness for the administration of the coun- 

 try by denying and disdaining the use of a weap- 

 on of which they have felt the edge and the 

 weight for many years. There is no doubt of 

 it. It has got to be met ; and unless there be 

 statesmanship enough, and confidence in the 

 capacity of the American people to recognize 

 and to reward statesmanship enough, to waive 

 that objection, the evils which now exist and 

 prevail must be taken to be incurable. 



"I think we are to be congratulated upon 

 the indication of so far substantial unanimity 

 in the passage of this measure, that the gentle- 

 man whose name is connected with it is an 

 honored and distinguished leader of one side, 

 that the chairman of the committee which re- 

 ports it is an honored and distinguished leader 

 on the other side, and that a President of the 

 United States not identified heretofore special- 

 ly in the public mind with this reform, prom- 

 ises in advance to give his signature and his 



