THE LIBRARY OF THE NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002646937 THE FEDERAL SERVICE PUBLICATIONS OF THE INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH STUDIES IN ADMINISTRATION The System of Financial Administration of Great Britain By W. F. Willoughby, W. W. Willoughby and S. M. Lindsay The Budget By Rene Stourm T. Plazinski. Translator. W. F. McCaleb. Editor The Canadian Budgetary System By H. G. Villard and W. W. Willoughby The Problem of a National Budget By W. F. Willoughby The Movement for Budgetary Reform in the States By W. F. Willoughby Teachers' Pension Systems in the United States , By Paul Studensky Organized Efforts for the Improvement of Methods of Ad- ministration in the United States By Gustavua A. Weber The Federal Service: A Study of the System of Personnel Administration of the United States Government By Lewis Mayers The System of Financial Administration of the United States (In preparation) PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATION Principles Governing the Retirement of Public Employees By Lewis Meriam Principles of Government Purchasing By A. G. Thomas Principles of Government Accounting and Reporting By Francis Oakey, C.P.A. Principles of Public Personnel Administration By Arthur W. Procter SERVICE MONOGRAPHS OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT The United States Geological Survey The Reclamation Service The Bureau of Mines (In preparation) The Public Health Service (In preparation) The Bureau of War Risk Insurance (In preparation) D. APPLETON AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK I STUDIES tN ADMINISTRATION THE INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH THE FEDERAL SERVICE A Study of the System of Personnel Administration of the United States Government BY LEWIS MAYERS, Ph.D., LL.B. MEMBER OF STAFF, INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH ( PROPERTY OF LIBRARY NEW WK rnii SO'JOOL imUSTi^L A'"0 L'« RELATIONS CORNELL UNIVERSITY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1922 5. 'I- COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH Printed in the United States of America il^J THE INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH Washington, D. C. The Institute for Government Research is an association of citizens for cooperating with public officials in the scientific study of govern- ment with a view to promoting efficiency and economy in its operations and advancing the science of administration. It aims to bring into existence such information and materials as will aid in the formation of public opinion and will assist officials, particularly those of the national government, in their efforts to put the public administration upon a more efficient basis. To this end, it seeks by the thoroughgoing study and examination of the best administrative practice, public and private, American and foreign, to formulate those principles which lie at the basis of all sound administration, and to determine their proper adaptation to the specific needs of our public administration. The accomplishment of specific reforms the Institute recognizes to be the task of those who are charged with the responsibility of legis- lation and administration ; but it seeks to assist, by scientific study and research, in laying a solid foundation of information and experience upon which such reforms may be successfully built. While some of the Institute's studies find application only in the form of practical cooperation with the administrative officers directly concerned, many are of interest to other administrators and of general educational value. The results of such studies the Institute purposes to publish in such form as will insure for them the widest possible utilization. Robert S. Brookings, Chairman Edwin A. Alderman Robert S. Brookings James F. Curtis R. Fulton Cutting Frederic A. Delano George Eastman Raymond B. Fosdick Felix Frankfurter Officers Frank J. Goodnow, Vice-Chairman James F. Curtis, Secretary Trustees Edwin F. Gay Frank J. Goodnow Jerome D. Greene Arthur T. Hadley Herbert C. Hoover A. Lawrence Lowell Samuel Mather R. B. Mellon Director W. F. Willoughby Frederick Strauss, Treasurer Charles D. Norton Martin A. Ryerson Frederick Strauss Silas H. Strawn William H. Taft Ray Lyman Wilbur Robert S. Woodward \ PROPERTY OF LIBRARY NEW YORX STAJF. $ni!WL DUSTRIAL AI-:0 LACCfi BEL/ CORNELL UNIVERSITY 8579 PREFACE Among the fundamental factors determining efficiency of public administration that of the system employed in securing, compensating, directing and controlling the personnel required for the conduct of governmental operations will always occupy first rank. No amount of care in determining how a govern- ment shall be organized for the performance of its work, the manner in which the funds necessary for its support shall be raised and expended, and the particular practices and pro- cedure that shall be employed in carrying on its activities, will give even a measurable approach to efficiency in the actual administration of public affiairs unless a technically competent and loyal personnel can be secured and retained in the service and a system devised whereby this personnel may be effiectively directed and controlled. In view of the importance of the subject it is little short of remarkable the slight attention that this problem has received as a problem. There is in existence a large body of literature dealing with what is known as civil service reform. This literature, however, scarcely touches more than one or two phases of the problem of personnel administration as a whole. Primarily it is concerned with the two related questions of entrance into the government service and the legal status, from the standpoint of tenure of office, of employees after entrance. Even in respect of these matters the interest of promoters of reform has been primarily in securing what may be termed political, as distinguished from administrative, reform. They have sought to purify our political life by the abolition of the spoils system and the prevention of undue partisan activities on the part of public employees. Only in comparatively re- cent years have persons either inside or outside of the govern- vii Vlll PREFACE ment begun to concern themselves with other phases of per- sonnel administration. As soon as studies of this latter character began to be attempted it was at once seen that the personnel problem was an exceedingly complicated and difficult one. It involved such elements as the determination of the positions to be filled and the qualifications required of their incumbents; the classifica- tion of these positions to the end that appropriate rates of compensation might be fixed and the line of advancement clearly indicated; the fixing of the tenure of office; the deter- mination of the method of recruitment of new employees and the machinery and methods to be employed in securing such employees; the adoption of systems for testing effi- ciency and of rules to govern promotions, transfers, demo- tions and separations from the service; and the provision of a retirement system that will take care of the financial needs Qf those employees who are dropped from the rolls on account of incapacity resulting from old age or disabilities acquired while in the service. All of these represent factors that must be studied, and studied with great care, if a proper personnel system is to be secured. The present volume attempts , such a study of this problem as it confronts the national government. No such work has ever been attempted before. It is at once descrip- tive, critical and constructive. It seeks to make known in detail existing conditions regarding each phase of the federal personnel system, to point out wherein these conditions are satisfactory or the reverse and the lines along which changes should be made to bring about better conditions. The only personnel topic not handled is that of the provision made for the retirement of civil employees. Important as this sub- ject is, consideration of it was omitted partly on account of its special character and partly due to limitations of space. The Institute moreover has already prepared a volume dealing with the principles governing the retirement of public em- ployees, and it hopes before long to publish one dealing spe- PREFACE ix daily with the civil service retirement system of the national government. The publication of this work is especially timely due to the fact that the national government now has under way an ambitious plan to reorganize thoroughly its present personnel system on the basis of the recommendations of its Congres- sional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries that reported on March 12, 1920. Throughout this work these recommendations are passed in review and their merits com- mented upon. The author of the present volume, Mr. Lewis Mayers, is exceptionally qualified for his task. He took his doctor's degree in political science at Columbia University in 191 4. For three years he was with the Civil Service Commission of New York City, first as examiner, and later as chief of the Bureau of Service and Efficiency Records, positions which brought him into immediate contact with the practical prob- lems of personnel administration. While serving on the staff of the Institute for Government Research his work was almost wholly in this field of public administration. Owing to the fact that Mr. Mayers left the Institute before his volume was put through the press, certain changes have been made in the manuscript as submitted by him for which he is not responsible. This is especially true of Chapter VII. W. F. WlLLOUGHBY. CONTENTS CHAPTER p A0E I. Introductory i Size of the Executive Gvil Service 2 Geographical Distribution of Executive Civil Service .... 4 Character of Employments in the Executive Civil Service ... 6 Women in the Executive Civil Service' 17 PART I. THE ELIMINATION OF POLITICS FROM THE EXECUTIVE CIVIL SERVICE II. Introductory 19 Dual Character of the Federal Personnel Problem 19 Elimination of the Political Factor in Selection the First Essential to an Efficient Personnel System 20 Means of Elimination of the Political Factor 24 III. The Law and Tradition of, Selection and Tenure ... 26 The Civil Service Reform Movement 26 Types of Systems of Formal Selection ........ 26 The System of Pass Examinations 27 The System of 'Competitive Examinations : Selected Applicants 28 The System of Competitive Examinations : Open to All .... 28 The Appointing Power 29 Presidential Positions 32 Power of Congress to Control the Discretion of the President in Respect to Appointments 38 Non-Presidential Positions 40 Early Legislation Regarding Methods of Selection 41 The Law of 1871 43 The Civil Service Act of 1883 44 The Civil Service Rules and Orders 54 The "Classified" Service 56 Non-Competitive Positions 57 Positions Excepted by the Rules and Orders 60 Positions Excepted by Statute 64 Exception of Designated Individuals 68 Laborers 73 Strict Construction of Exceptions from Formal Methods of Selection 74 Statistics of Employees According to Method of Selection Status 80 Tradition in Selection 81 Term of Office 84 Protection against Removal for Political Reasons .,.,,. 89 Xll CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER , IV. The Extension of Formal Systems of Selection .... 90 Heads of Departments and Independent Establishments . .^ . 96 Assistant Secretaries and Analogous Officers 98 Heads of Bureaus and Services 9° Other Superior Personnel at Washington JI ° Solicitors of the Departments II0 Auditors of the Departments IIX Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commission . . . . . m Smithsonian Institution and National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers IX 3 Subordinate Personnel at Washington "3 Legal Employees n 4 Employees of Certain Boards and Commissions 116 Private Secretaries and Confidential Clerks "7 Field Service: Chief Officers 120 General Conditions I21 The Four- Year Term : Its History and Disadvantages ... 123 Action Required to Put Field Services on Merit Basis ... 124 Movement for Placing Postal Service on Merit Basis ... 126 Chief National Bank Examiners 132 Field Service: Subordinate Personnel 133 Deputy Collectors of Internal Revenue and Deputy Marshals . 133 , Field Employees: Federal Farm Loan Board 137 Postal Employees: Star Routes and Third and Fourth Class Post Offices 137 Laborers 138 Foreign Service . . . : 139 Conclusion 142 V. The Elimination of Political Interference Inside the Service 144 The Congressman and Political Interference 145 Direct Prohibition of Outside Intervention in Personnel Matters 148 Location of Legal Power in Personnel Matters 151 Politics and Salary Increases 153 Political Pressure upon Employees by Superior Officers . . . 154 Prohibition of Forced Campaign Contributions 155 Prohibition of Forced Political Services 158 Prohibition of Coercion by Persons Outside the Service . . . 159 Restrictions on Voluntary Political Activity 160 PART II. THE PROBLEM OF FEDERAL PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION VI. Introduction 168 Special Factors in the Federal Personnel Problem 168 The Aim and Scope of Personnel Administration 173 \ CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER PAGE Procedure in Developing a Proper Personnel System .... 174 The Problem of Personnel Control 176 The Need for Special Organization for Personnel Administration 177 m- VII. The Classification and Standardization of Positions and Salaries 180 Legislative Determination of Positions and Salaries : The Stat- utory Roll 181 Administrative^ Determination of Positions and Salaries : The Sum Appropriations • 185 Lack of Inter-Departmental Uniformity in Titles and Compensa- tion Rates 193 The Work of the Reclassification Commission 195 Working Organization of the Commission 196 Method of Determining Position Specifications 197 Scope and Character of Specifications 200 Primary Unit of Classification: The Class 200 Arrangement of Classes in Series and Services 202 Method of Determining Compensation Rates 203 Provision of Minimum and Maximum Rates 205 . Legal Determination of Specifications and Rates 205 Installation of Classification 206 Current Administration and the Classification 207 Gassification and Appropriation Technique 208 General Summary of Classification . . . .* 213 VIII. Selection by Promotion from Within versus Recruitment from Without 215 Case for Selection by Promotion from Within the Service . . 216 Existing Conditions : Positions in the Natural Line of Promotion 222 Public Health Service 223 Diplomatic Service 225 Consular Service . 226 Coast and Geodetic Survey 227 Examining Force: Patent Office 228 Postal Service 228 War and Navy Departments 233 Civilian Engineers ; War Department .....'.... 234 Attitude of Civil Service Commission 236 Attitude of Reclassification Commission 239 Central Control of Selection by Promotion from Within . . . 240 Existing Conditions : Positions not in the Natural Line of Pro- motion 246 Sub-clerical Position 249 Clerical Position 250 Stenographic Positions 250 Statistical, Accounting and Legal Positions 251 xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER . PAGE Other Technical Positions 252 Selection from Within as Affected by Educational Standards at Entrance 252 The British Personnel System 254 Applicability of British System to American Conditions . . . 255 Provision of Educational Facilities 258 The Area of Selection from 1 Within 264 Attitude of Civil Service Commission 271 Attitude of Congress 274 Disadvantages of Existing Restrictions upon Transfers . . . 275 Attitude of Reclassification Commission .' 284 ' Absence of Means for Locating Eligibles for Transfer . . . 286 Advantages of Recruiting Personnel at Washington from the Field Services 287 Technical Obstacles to Selection from Within .....'.. 292 IX. Methods of Selection from Within : Reassignment and Pro- motion 298 Promotion and Reassignment Distinguished from Increase of Compensation 298 ' Reassignment versus Promotion 299 Reassignment Involving No Change of Compensation or Grade . 300 Reassignment Involving Increase of Compensation 303 The Case for Formal Promotion Methods 303 Existing Promotion Methods 307 Central Restrictions 307 Departmental Restrictions 310 Political and Other Improper Influences in Selection for Promotion . 312 The Technical Problem of Formal Promotion Methods .... 317 Types of Formal Methods of Promotion 318 Seniority 318 Efficiency Record 321 Competitive Examination 332 Combination of Efficiency Records, Competitive Examinations . and Seniority 337 General Summary of Formal Promotion Methods 338 X. Recruit Methods: Some Basic Aspects 345 Emphasis upon Education 345 Requirement of Specialized Knowledge and Experience .... 347 Training for Entrance 351 Maximum Age Limits 353 Recruitment of Women 355 Basic Questions of Practical Procedure 357 Fully-Assembled, Local-Assembled and Non-Assembled Examina- tions • • 358 Oral, Written and Manual Tests 361 CONTENTS xv CHATTER PAGB Experience Tests 364 Education Tests 367 ' Technical Capacity Tests 369 Psychological Tests 372 Personality Tests 376 XI. Recruitment Methods: The Classified Competitive Service 378 Legal Basis 379 Area of Competition 380 Examining and Recruiting Organization 385 Places of Holding Examinations 386 Ordering of Examinations 387 Advertising and Inviting Applications 389 Safeguarding the Integrity of Examinations 392 Examination of Fourth Class Postmasters and Rural Carriers . . 398 Speed of Production of Eligible Registers 404 Appeals for Re-rating 406 Military Preference 406 Certification for Apportioned Positions 413 Restriction of Certification of Members of Same Family . . . 428 The "Three Name" Certification Rule 429 Discretion in Fixing Entrance Compensation Rates 440 Publicity of Eligible Registers 441 Probationary Period 444 Efficiency of the Competitive Examination System 446 XII. Recruitment Methods : The Unclassified Service .... 454 Presidential Postmasters 454 Laborers 465 Consular Service 471 Diplomatic Service 476 Public Health Service Medical Officers '.478 XIII.. The Maintenance of Individual Efficiency 480 Records as a Means of Promoting Individual Efficiency . . . 481 Piece Work as a Means of Promoting Individual Efficiency . . 482 Periodic Salary Increases as a Means of Promoting Individual Efficiency 482 Recommendation of the Reclassification Commission Regarding Salary Increases 490 Liability to Demotion and Dismissal as a Means of Promoting Individual Efficiency 492 Existing Law and Regulations Regarding Dismissals .... 495 Possible Machinery for Controlling Exercise of Power of Dis- missal 501 Power to Suspend as a Means of Promoting Individual Efficiency 507 Other Factors for Promoting Individual Efficiency 508 xv i CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER ~ General Attractiveness of the Public Service S<» Security SI ° The Merit System S"> Opportunity for Advancement 5" XIV. Working Conditions 5*8 Hours of Labor Si8 Overtime Work 5I9 Leave Privileges . . . ■ S 21 ,, Physical Environment, Medical Services, etc £25 XV. Organization for Personnel Administration . ., . . .529 Analysis of the Problem 5 2 9 Organization for Recruitment 530 TKe Problem of the Examining Personnel S3i Organization for Internal Administration 536 Organization for Classification of Positions and Salaries . . . 536 Organization for Determination of Physical Work Conditions . . 537 Organization for Elimination of Political Considerations . . . 537 Dual Character of the Problem of Central Administration . .538 Departmental Organization 543 XVI. Employees Organizations and Committees 544 Employees Organizations 544 Existing Employees Organizations 545 Legislative Activities of Employees Organizations 546 Right of Employees Organization to Affiliate with Outside Or- ganizations . 556 Right of Employees Organizations to Strike 558 General Conclusions Regarding Place of Employees Organizations in a Government Personnel System . 559 Employees Committees 561 Existing Machinery for Employees Representation 562 Attitude of Reclassification Commission in Respect to Employees Representation 564 Machinery for Conference in the British Service 566 Composition of Employees Committees 569 The. Function of Employees Committees 570 Employees Organizations as Representatives of Employees before Management 571 Appendix 575 Index , 595 THE FEDERAL SERVICE THE FEDERAL SERVICE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY The present volume concerns itself almost exclusively with the personnel of the civil service of the executive branch of the government. The employees of Congress 1 and of the judicial branch 2 of the government are not at any point con- sidered in the body of the discussion, but they receive inci- dental mention. Similarly, the personnel of the municipal government of the District of Columbia is excluded from con- sideration as not being properly a part of the federal service. Although the executive civil service is clearly' distinguished, for the most part, from the military and naval services, two branches of the former may be regarded as quasi-military and naval. The organization of the medical officers of the Public Health Service is in many points similar to that of the military and naval services and in time of war these officers, may be detailed, at the direction of the President, to the army or the navy. When so detailed they do not lose their civilian status unless they choose to accept temporary commissions in the mjlitary or naval forces. Their commissions in the Public 1 The Library of Congress is not discussed, because it is under the con- trol of the legislative branch, although the Librarian and the Superin- tendent of the building are appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. "It is understood, of course, that aside from the judges and commis- sioners only the clerical employees of the courts are regarded as falling in the judicial branch. The marshals and their deputies, and the custodial employees attached to the buildings where the courts sit, are employees in the executive service, being under the direction of the Department of Justice and of the Treasury Department, respectively. I 2 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Health Service, moreover, do not obligate them to serve for any given term of years. The Public Health Service con- sequently has been regarded in this volume as essentially a civilian service. The Coast Guard, on the other hand, although not strictly a part of the naval service, has been, especially recently, so largely assimilated in that service with respect to the per- sonnel that it has been treated as outside the range of the present discussion. Not only may the service as a whole in time of war be made an integral part of the naval service (as it was during the late war) but even when on a peace footing enlistment in the Coast Guard service is for a definite term of years. As used in the following pages, then, the term executive civil service embraces all officers and employees of the federal government except those of the legislative and judicial branches, the army, the navy, the Coast Guard, and the Dis- trict of Columbia. A term frequently encountered in dealing with federal governmental matters is "departmental service." This refers to all the personnel attached to the central offices of the several departments, bureaus, and services at Washington, and is used in contradistinction to "field service,'' which embraces all personnel of all services outside of Washington, 1 with the ex- ception of those in the consular and diplomatic services, which are collectively designated as the "foreign service." Size of the Executive Civil Service. — The most recent reliable figures available regarding the extent and distribution of the federal executive civil service are those published by the Bureau of the Census in the Official Register of the United States for 19 19. These figures show the number and distribu- tion of the executive civil service on July 1st, 191 9, to have been approximately as follows : 'The personnel of establishments which, while they happen to be located in Washington, are not attached to the central administration, is regarded, of course, as falling in the field service. The Washington navy yard and the Washington post office are the two chief establish- ments in this class. INTRODUCTORY 3 Approximate Number of Employees in the Executive and Admin- istrative Services of the Federal Government, July i, 1919. 1 The White House 47 Department of State 2,019 Treasury Department 61,640 Department of Justice 5,722 War Department (August 1, 1919) >. . . 195,256 Navy Department 107,788 Post Office Department 286,840 Department of the Interior 18,660 Department of Agriculture 22,972 Department of Commerce 10,632 Department of Labor 3,675 Interstate Commerce Commission 2,214 Civil Service Commission 306 Federal Reserve Board 167 Federal Trade Commission 335 United States Shipping Board (including Emergency Fleet Corporation) 11,071 The Panama Canal 17,594 Government Printing Office 4,773 Smithsonian Institution 433 Alien Property Custodian 328 Other Independent Establishments, Boards, Commissions, etc. 4,623 Total (approximate) 757,095 On July 1, 19 1 9 the total number of civil employees in the executive and administrative services of the federal govern- ment amounted to something over 750,000. In considering this figure it is to be taken into account, of course, that the personnel of many of the services was somewhat swollen as the result of conditions growing out of the war. On the other hand, it has been demonstrated that the greater number of the services thus affected will continue to require a personnel far in excess of that which they had prior to the war, while some, for example, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, will probably undergo enlargement. The total given thus may be taken as representing in an approximate manner the size of the civil personnel of the executive and administrative branches of the federal government. 1 The details are given in the Appendix, Table I. 4 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Geographical Distribution of Executive Civil Service. — A factor of no little importance in considering the size of the executive civil service is that of the distribution of this force between the departmental personnel at Washington and the field services whose duties are performed at points outside of the seat of government. The tendency is very pronounced to look upon Washington as the seat of the government's activi- ties and to over-emphasize the problems of personnel having to do with the departmental services. In fact, much of the work carried on in Washington is but the supervision and the official recording of the real work which is. done at various points throughout the country. Such central control and record work requires, of course, clerical labor in far greater proportion than does the actual technical or industrial work controlled and recorded. Washington is, moreover, the seat of those relatively few yet large services where work is almost exclusively clerical — the Veterans' Bureau, the Pension Office, the Census Office, and the like. Even with all these factors present, however, the purely clerical population of the govern- ment establishments in Washington is much less than is com- monly supposed. The distribution of the federal personnel between Wash- ington and the field on June 30, 191 9, as derived from the tabulation of the Census Bureau x is given opposite . No general figures are available of the distribution of the federal personnel among the several cities and states, but figures compiled by the Civil Service Commission in 191 3, show that there were in the classified service in New York City in that year 20,007 persons, including 11,031 in the Post Office Service, 3,869 in the Navy Yard, 2,607 in the Customs Service, 436 in the Immigration Service, 351 in the Railway Mail Service, and 261 in the Lighthouse Service. 2 In addition to the 20,000 or more "classified" employees there shown there were laborers, numbering, doubtless, several thousands. 1 Official Register of the United States, 1919, pp. 10 to 12. a The details are given in the Appendix, Table II, INTRODUCTORY 5 Approximate Number of Civil Employees in the Executive and Administrative Services of the Federal Government, July i, 1919, Classified by Location Services The White House Department of State Treasury Department Department of Justice War Department (Civilian employees) Navy Department (Civilian employees) Post Office Department Department of the Interior . . Department of Agriculture . , Department of Commerce . . 1 . Department of Labor Interstate Commerce Commis Employed in District of Columbia sion Civil Service Commission . Federal Reserve Board . . . Federal Trade Commission United States Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corpora- tion The Panama Canal Government Printing Office . . Smithsonian Institution Alien Property Custodian . . . Bureau of Efficiency United States Tariff Commis- sion Employees' Compensation Com mission '. Federal Board for Vocational Education State, War, and Navy Build- ings Council of National Defense Boards, Commissions, etc. . . . Grand Total 47 1,132 28,366 734 17,660 10,505 1,784 5,562 5,056 2,198 766 806 260 143 33S 2,035 138 4,773 433 294 24 54 49 387 1,806 91 158 1 8&S96 Employed Out- side of District of Columbia 887 33,274 4,988 177,596 97,283 285,056 13,098 17,916 8,434 2,909 1,408 46 24 9,036 17,456 34 2,054 671,499 Total 47 2,019 61,640 5,722 195,256 107,788 286,840 18,660 22,972 10,632 3,675 2,214 306 167 335 11,071 17,594 4,773 433 328 24 54 49 2,441 1,806 9i 158 1 757,095 'This total does not include the following: 2164 officers and em- ployees of the Senate and House of Representatives; the 1363 officers and 6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE On July i, 1 91 9, the total number of civil employees located in Washington was slightly in excess of 85,000. If to this is added the number of civil employees attached to Congress and other employees indicated by the footnote, the total amounted to approximately 100,000. It is probable that this number has undergone some diminution as the services have more and more adjusted themselves to peace conditions. On the other hand, the constantly increasing scope of the activities of the national government brings with it a corresponding increase in personnel. It is thus not far out of the way to view the problem of the departmental personnel at Washington as one having to do with a total of from 80,000 to 100,000 employees. Character of Employments in the Executive Service. — An appreciation of the diversity of occupations in the federal civil service is indispensable for a real understanding of the federal personnel problem. When that diversity is grasped, the impracticability becomes apparent of attempting to apply to the whole of the federal service a single uniform and un- varying rule or practice with respect to any one of the major elements of personnel administration. There exists no single comprehensive classification of all federal employments so presented as to give merely by the titles a complete picture of the service. The recent report of the Reclassification Commission has presented, however, and for the first time, a comprehensive classification of positions found in the federal departments at Washington. The clas- sification proposed by the Commission groups all the positions at Washington into 376 distinct categories, each of which is known as a series. Each series embraces positions involving employees of the Railroad Administration, on duty in Washington; the 2400 yeomen (F) ; an average of 1900 temporary laborers on outside work for the District of Columbia; the 5627 regular employees of the District of Columbia; nor the 968 employees of the Library of Congress. Adding these omitted classes to the totals given above, the result would equal the corresponding totals given on page 10 of the Official Register for 1919, as follows : Employed in the District 99,6i8 Employed outside of the District 671,499 Total 77i,"7 INTRODUCTORY 7 substantially the same kind of work. The series are subdi- vided into what the Commission terms classes on the basis of the difficulty of the exact duties performed and the degree of responsibility involved. The total number of these classes is 1,762. Undoubtedly were a similar form of classification to be extended to the field services, the total number of series and of grades would be greatly enlarged. Passing to the matter of the numerical distribution of the personhel among these numerous classes of employment, the multiplicity of specialized employments makes any brief, sum- mary classification difficult and largely arbitrary. For the pur- pose in hand, however, they may be regarded as falling roughly into six broad groups: (1) directing, (2) technical or pro- fessional, (3) specialized, (4) clerical, (5) mechanical, and (6) labor. The broad distinctions indicated by these terms are suf- ficiently clear, except as to that between the technical, or pro- fessional, and the specialized personnel. The distinction here intended to be drawn is of basic importance in any considera- tion of the federal personnel problem. Under the term pro- fessional, or technical, personnel are included all those various employments which require qualifications and give experience substantially similar to what is involved in the business, pro- fessional, or academic world. Such, for example, are the positions of physician in the Public Health Service, attorney in the Department of Justice, or of engineer in the War De- partment. By specialized personnel are meant those positions which, while frequently requiring a high degree of skill and experience, are peculiar to the government service and are not found in the outside world. The posts of Superintendent of Mails, of Indian Superintendent, and of Consul, are examples of this group. The. classes which have been indicated, of course, are not sharply marked off from one another. The higher clerical positions merge in many instances into what has been desig- nated the specialized class, and, in some cases, into the direct- 8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ing class; and the line between the professional and the spe- cialized classes, which has just been drawn, is not clear at all points. Nevertheless, for purposes of discussion, the dis- tinctions drawn are real and useful. Since the classification suggested is wholly unofficial, no figures, or even primary data, exist from which the numbers embraced in the several classes can be accurately determined. Such figures would be of great value in furnishing the true perspective in which all proposals bearing on personnel ad- ministration should be viewed. There are available, however, figures compiled in 1907 by the Census Bureau as the result of a special census of government employees. 1 The figures recognize each of the classes above mentioned except the specialized class, the members of which were re- garded as falling under one or another of the other classes, pre- sumably chiefly under the clerical and the technical ; postal and railway mail clerks being classified, for example, as clerical. The figures given below are as of July 1, 1907, and are based on the titles of the positions held by the incumbents and not on a statement of their duties. The report of the Reclassi- fication Commission emphasizes the fact previously proven that the titles are not descriptive. The title "clerk," for ex- ample, embraces many who are in reality stenographers, com- puters, and calculators, or followers of some other specialized occupation. The figures, therefore, should be regarded only as giving a general picture of the service, not precise details. Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by Occupations 2 Executive : Chiefs of divisions, chief clerks, and officers in charge : . 985 Heads of Departments, independent offices, and bureaus . . 165 Heads of local offices 331 Melters, Mint and Assay Service 355 Superintendents, miscellaneous, not including superin- tendents of construction 187 Superintendents of Indian schools 134 Total : Executive 2 157 '"Statistics of Employees, Executive Civil Service of the United States," by Lewis Meriam, 1907, Bureau of the Census, Bulletin 94. "Taken from Table 74, p. 117, of "Statistics of Employees." INTRODUCTORY 9 Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by Occupations— Continued Professional, technical, and scientific: Architects 7 Attorneys 89 Botanists 106 Chaplains 3 Chemists and physicists 182 Curators 29 Draftsmen, artists, illustrators, etc 1,068 Electricians and dynamo tenders , 215 Engineers, civil, mechanical, and electrical 993 Engravers 123 Fish culturists 42 Geographers, geologists, and paleontologists 129 Inspectors, live stock, meat, and dairy products, and vet- erinarians ; 1,987 Inspectors, steam vessels 174 Internes , 4 Masters, mates, pilots, and captains 702 Members of Board of Pension Appeals 28 Musicians 40 Nurses 142 Observers, Weather Bureau 391 Patent examiners 303 Pharmacists 55 Physicians and surgeons ; 449 Scientific expert's and investigators 715 Special agents, experts, appraisers, and commissioners . . 1,403 Statisticians 82 Surveyors and levelers 143 Technical employees, Mint and Assay Service yy Zoologists 64 Total : Professional, technical, and scientific 9,745 Clerical : Bookkeepers, accountants, pay clerks, etc 755 Carriers, mail 62,084 Cashiers and tellers 302 Clerks 38,168 Computers and calculators 57 Editors and compilers 56 Interpreters 167 Law clerks 212 Librarians , . 84 Office deputy United States marshals 917 io THE FEDERAL SERVICE Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by Occupations — Continued Postmasters, assistant 1,202 Private secretaries in Railway postal clerks 13.924 Stenographers and typists 1,512 Storekeepers 335 Superintendents or clerks in charge of stations 2,001 Teachers 655 Telegraph and telephone operators 74 Translators 20 Total : Clerical 122,636 Mechanical : Building tradesmen 394 Engineers, steam 1,413 General mechanics 397 Leather workers 153 Lithographers 15 Metal workers 2,580 Photographers 43 Plate printers 708 Printing tradesmen 1,801 Woodworkers 1,092 Total : Mechanical 8,596 Sub-clerical and manual labor: Apprentices 183 Assistant microscopists Cooks and bakers 548 Custodians and miscellaneous keepers 362 Domestics and waiters 319 Farmers 4 6p Firemen I>14 6 Foremen I000 Gaugers 2;30I Guards I)974 Hospital attendants 847 Industrial teachers g 3 Janitors, cleaners, scrubbers, charwomen, etc 2,081 Keepers, Light-House Service ^566 Laborers, unskilled o e$A Matrons .......'.'. '486 Messengers 2 -g Openers and packers ',-93 INTRODUCTORY n Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by Occupations — Continued Samplers } 133 Skilled laborers and workmen 6,968 Stewards and quartermasters 189 Stock examiners and taggers 556 Surfmen, Life-Saving Service 1.675 Surveymen 171 Watchmen, detectives, doorkeepers, gatemen, and elevator conductors 1.847 Total : Sub-clerical and manual labor 37.097 Miscellaneous : Commissioned officers 139 Deputy collectors 2,080 Inspectors, Customs Service 1.528 Inspectors, immigrant, Chinese, sanitary, and school 482 Inspectors, post office 398 Inspectors, work and materials 797 Student assistants and collaborators 101 Officers of tribal courts 118 Total : Miscellaneous 5.643 Grand Total 185,874 While this table is valuable as reflecting the diversity of the occupations in the service and indicating roughly their numerical distribution, a summary compiled from the fore- going would be misleading, owing to the omission from the table, for special reasons not here relevant, of 62,663 post- masters, 18,376 mechanics and laborers at Navy Yards and Naval Stations, and 12,850 clerks in post offices not having free delivery ; and because in the table the great body of letter carriers, railway mail clerks, and postal clerks are grouped under the clerical class, a grouping which, however correct technically, fails to bring out the clear line between these spe- cialized employees and the ordinary clerical employees of the government. In the following summary table the omissions mentioned have been remedied and the figures for the postal service set out separately. The War and Navy Departments, 12 THE FEDERAL SERVICE owing to the large mechanical and labor forces employed in arsenals, navy yards, and the like also present special points of interest which makes it desirable that they be set out sepa- rately. Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by Main . Groups or Occupations All Services Total Other than Post Office Department V 4-> .a s ie a 06 a (U Si Groups Other than War and Navy De- partments War and Navy De- partments Professional, Technical, and Scientific Mechanical . . . Sub-clerical and Miscellaneous . 279,763 2,157 9,745 198,149 26,972 37,097 5,643 97,439 2,020 9,7H 17,775 26,888 35,793 5,249 57,487 i,74i 7,825 " 13,499 4,112 25,821 4,489 39,952 279 1,889 4,276 22,776 z 9,972 760 182,324 137 31 180,374 % 84 1,304 394 All postmasters, 62,663 in number, have been included in this item, although some hundreds of them in charge of the larger offices would more properly be classed as executive; 12,850 clerks in offices not having free delivery, excluded from the previous table, are also included in this item.' 18,376 mechanics and laborers in Navy Yards not included in the preceding table are included in this item, it being impossible to distinguish between those properly classed as mechanics and those properly classed as laborers. Examination of these figures discloses that, in 1907, if the Postal Service, which, of course, is in a class by itself, be ex- cluded, the clerical employees of the government numbered less than 20 per cent of the whole. They were outnumbered by the mechanical employees, who comprised some 28 per cent, and they were less than half as numerous as the sub- clerical and labor employees (subclerical includes messengers, watchmen, etc.) and they were less than twice as numerous INTRODUCTORY 13 as the professional, technical, and scientific group. These cal- culations embrace, however, the War and Navy Departments with their arsenals and navy yards employing the greater pro- portion, of the mechanical employees above referred to as com- prising 28 per cent of the whole. Even if these two depart- ments be excluded from consideration, however, the clerical employees will be found in the 1907 figures to total consid- erably under 25 per cent of the whole, the professional em- ployees about 13 per cent, mechanical employees about 7 per cent, and the subclerical and labor employees over 45 per cent. While the federal service, of course, has expanded enor- mously since 1907, it is probable that the relative distribution of the personnel to-day would not be widely different from that disclosed by these figures. What changes have taken place doubtless have been in the direction of increasing the relative importance of the technical and mechanical employees. Even before the war, the tendency was increasingly toward an enlargement of the government's own arsenals and naval ordnance factories ;. while the scientific research bureaus ex- perienced a very rapid development in the decade preceding the war. It is thus even truer perhaps to-day than the tables pre- sented show it to have been in 1907, that the "government clerk" is by no means so dominant a factor in the federal per- sonnel problem as he is conceived in the popular imagination. The conception of the national governmental machine as a vast circumlocution office occupied solely by clerks engaged in the preparation, copying, filing, and indexing of official papers may have had some validity a few score years ago ; but it is now utterly erroneous. In only a few of the services is the burden of the real work carried on by clerks. In almost every case the work requires and is performed by technical men. The exaggerated number of clerical workers in the con- ventional personnel picture is doubtless due in part to the fact that when the average citizen comes into contact with the op- erations by the government at all, it is generally with a clerk that he has to do business. 1 The innumerable and extensive i 4 THE FEDERAL SERVICE technical, industrial, inspectional, and protective services of the government are carried on silently and without the knowledge of the man in the street. Regarding government employees in the District of Co- lumbia, more recent statistics have been supplied by the Con- gressional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries. The Commission's figures relate to April 30, 1919, and in- clude all employees within their jurisdiction who work full time and who receive,~in addition to their salaries, no allow- ance for board and lodging. All public employees in the District of Columbia are included except those in the Postal Service and in the Navy Yard. The figures, therefore, in- clude the teachers, the police, the firemen, and other municipal and court employees who are beyond the scope of the present volume. In using these statistics, it should be borne in mind that the grouping of classes into services used by the Commission is not based on general statistical considerations. This group- ing has attempted to place in the same service, or in the same series within a service, the classes of positions which may lie withhrthe same line of normal advancement. Since one of its aims was to work in the direction of making possible suc- cessful careers in the government service, it has at times put into the same service positions requiring very general, ele- mentary qualifications and those requiring high technical, or scientific, attainments in the same line, and almost uniformly it has placed administrators in the same service wifh the em- ployees they administer. Only when the work supervised falls in two or more different services are the administrators com- monly placed in a distinct service. The statistics of this grouping were compiled for individual classes set up to aid the Commission in arriving at its recommendations re- garding salaries and not to give a statistical picture of the gov- ernment service at Washington. They may be used, however, for this latter purpose, and a summary of them is presented in the tabular statement that f olloWs. These statistics, it should be noted, are based, not on the INTRODUCTORY 15 official payroll title of the employee, nor upon the common or office title, but on a statement of the duties actually per- formed by the employee, as given both by the employee him- self and his immediate superior. In this respect they are much more accurate and reliable than figures based on titles. 1 / 1 Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919' Services involving clerical, office, or commercial work (ex- clusive of statistics) : Administrative and Supervisory Clerical Service 543 Assessor and Appraiser Service 80 Court Clerk and Docket Service 81 Departmental Publications and Information Service . . . 1,030 Fiscal and Accounting Service 6,624 Mail, File, and Record Service 18,044 Messenger Service 3,433 Office Appliance Operating Service 2,057 Personnel Service 1,277 Specialized Business Service 624 Supply and Equipment Service 3,179 Telephone and Telegraph Operating Service 5.10 Typing, Stenographic, Correspondence, and Secretarial Service 15,929 Miscellaneous Clerical Service 5,737 Total 59,148 Services involving the skilled trades, manual labor, public safety, or related work: Custodial and Janitor Service 3,908 Detention and Reformatory Service 36 Domestic Service 198 Engineman Service 611 Farm, Garden, and Park Maintenance Service 347 Fire Service 634 Investigational and Inspectional Service 160 Marine Operating Service 13 Police and Criminal Investigation Service 892, Printing Trades Service 7,7*7 1 For an interesting demonstration of how meaningless position titles in the government service are, see the report of the Reclassification Com- mission, Part I,, p. 44, et seq. 'For a more detailed statement, see Appendix, Table III. 16 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 — Continued Skilled Trades and Labor Service: Chauffeur 45° General Carpenter 3 02 Electrician 167 Elevator Conductor 256 Laborer 1,069 Freight Handler 493 Mail Bag Sewer 113 Mailer and Wrapper 14 1 Helper, Mechanical Trades 407 Packer 132 Teamster 175 Shop Porter 1,112 Laboratory 100 Other classes i,53<> 6,447 Total 20,963 Services involving scientific, technical, professional, or sub- sidiary work: Actuarial Service 8 Agricultural Promotion and Extension Service 252 Architectural Service 288 Arts Service , 468 Biological Science Service 537 Chaplain Service 2 Community and Recreation Service 41 Economic and Political Science Service 156 Educational Service 2,058 Engineering Service 2,072 Law and Examiner Service 2,712 Library Service 619 Medical Science Service 136 Nursing Service 56 ' Patent Service .* 435 Physical Science Service 889 Social Science Service 349 Statistical Service 1 3,243 Translating Service 124 Total • 14,445 Grand Total 94,556 * All but 103 of. these are in statistical clerical or mechanical tabulation work. INTRODUCTORY 17 Women in the Executive Civil Service. — The extent to which women are or may be employed in a service has an im- portant bearing on many problems of personnel administra- tion. The earlier history of the employment of women in the federal civil service is given in a letter from Charles Lyman, Civil Service Commissioner to Hon. Henry W. Blair of the House of Representatives, dated June 19, 1894. The letter reads in part as follows : Women were first employed in the public service in Wash- ington under authorization of law in 1862, at a compensation of $600 per annum, and in the office of the Treasurer of the United States, under General Spinner. 1 Previous to that time a few women had been employed temporarily in the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, not, however, in a clerical ca- pacity, but in the mechanical labor of clipping the fractional currency. Shortly after the organization of the Internal Revenue Bureau in August, 1862, probably as early as the 1st of Janu- ary, 1863, and perhaps earlier, a few women were employed in that bureau at a salary of $600 per annum. Subsequently the salaries of women were increased in the appropriation acts to $720 per annum and to $900 per annum; and for a number of years no women were employed at a salary above $900, and that grade was practically monopolized by them, but few men being appointed thereto. In a few instances women were promoted to $1,000 and $1,200 salaries, and even to higher grades, before the passage of the civil service law; but these cases were rare exceptions. The effect of the Civil Service law, however, aided by a gradual change in public sentiment in relation to the employ- ment of women in occupations before monopolized by men, has been to open to women in the public service the higher grades; and at the present time (June 14, 1894), a large num- ber of women have won their way, in competition with men, into the more lucrative and responsible places in that service. Since promotions in the departments have been made on the basis of efficiency records kept in the departments, and the more or less close competitive tests which have supplemented those records, there has been a decided increase in the propor- 'A letter from General Spinner to Colonel Frank Jones, written in 1886, states that these women were employed in trimming and counting bank notes, which they could do better and cheaper than men. 1 8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE tion of women promoted, which shows that when women in the public service have a fair and even chance with the men, they win their full share of the lucrative and responsible po- sitions. There is no doubt that the employment of women in the public service has, on the whole, had a beneficial effect upon that service, and has measurably increased its efficiency. . . . For 1907 the Bureau of the Census published fairly com- plete statistics regarding the number of women employed, their salaries, and their occupations as well as their age, marital condition, and length of service. This compilation showed that on July 1, 1907, there was a total of 13,821 women in the civil service, of whom 7,358 were employed in the District of, Columbia and 6,463 elsewhere. The number employed in the District of Columbia represented somewhat less than 8 per cent of the total number of government employees there employed and they were of far less relative importance among empfoyees outside of Washington. The tendency of the years immediately preceding the war was undoubtedly toward a sub- stantial increase in the employment of women, and the war brought a great influx into the government service of women war workers. Within two years the number of employees in the service at Washington more than doubled and the greater part of this body of new employees were women. The Congressional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries compiled < statistics regarding the sex of the em- ployees in the numerically important classes in the service at Washington. All classes containing 100 or more employees were taken; and for these classes the percentage of the total made up of women was approximately 62. In other words, three employees out of five in these classes were women. The figures for each of these numerically important classes are given below. It will be noted that all the large clerical classes and the educational classes have been included and that the proportion of women is very high in such classes. If the smaller classes had been included, the proportion of women would have been reduced considerably. 1 1 See Appendix, Table III. PART I THE ELIMINATION OF POLITICS FROM THE EXECUTIVE CIVIL SERVICE f CHAPTER II INTRODUCTORY Dual Character of the Federal Personnel Problem. — The federal personnel problem, like the problem of any public personnel system, is both a political and an administrative one. The political problem is purely a negative one — how to exclude from the workings of the personnel system the in- fluence of politics and of politicians. Not until this problem has been substantially solved can the positive and technical problems of personnel administration, or indeed of admin- istration generally, be successfully attacked. As was force- fully stated by Franklin MacVeagh, Secretary of the Treas- ury, in 1910, in discussing the problem of administrative im- provement in his department : Any one, however, who comes close to the practical admin' istration of the Federal Government — or of any other gov- ernment — soon becomes aware that everything ultimate or final in the excellence of administration must wait upon the com- plete inclusion of all non-political offices within the classified service, and that progress in the administration meanwhile will materially depend upon the broadening of that service. 1 "Quoted in the Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1910), p. 137. As will be shown in the following chapters, the inclusion of all non-political officers in the "classified service," using that term technically, is not indispensable. What is essential is that their selection be placed upon a formal merit basis. This can be accom- plished without their inclusion in the classified service, very desirable though such inclusion would be. 19 £o THE FEDERAL SERVICE There is a too easy and general assumption that in the federal service this problem of entirely divorcing the admin- istration of personnel matters from politics has been met with substantial completeness. Such is far from the case. The present volume is accordingly divided into two parts — the first dealing with the measures necessary to effect the complete divorce of the personnel system from politics, the second with the problem of personnel administration proper. Necessarily, however, even in the second section consideration must be given at many points to the safeguarding of personnel meth- ods from political influence, for not only has the complete expulsion of politics from the personnel system contended for in the first section not yet been achieved; but even if it had been, there would be need of eternal vigilance to prevent its re- entry. Elimination of the Political Factor in Selection the First Essential to an Efficient Personnel System. — In any at- tempt to divorce a public personnel system from politics or related improper forces, the obvious point of attack is the system of selection. So long as politics dominates, or has any substantial influence in, the process of initial re- cruitment no. substantial progress can be made in eliminat- ing it from the administration of the personnel system proper. Only when the entire administrative personnel, and in particular the directing personnel, are originally selected wholly without regard to political or cognate influence will it be possible to eliminate political influence in assignment, promotion, demotion, increases or reductions of salary, removals, retirement, and other substantive matters. To discuss at length the evils which flow from the selec- tion of the administrative personnel of the government on political grounds instead of on merit is unnecessary. They are too obvious and too widely recognized. It should be pointed out, however, that the entrance of politics into the selection of employees is far more serious when it affects local offices than when it affects the offices at Washington. The local employee who is selected for political reasons remains INTRODUCTORY 21 an active political factor, at all times more or less under the eye of those politicians to whom he owes his place, and politics attends his footsteps at every point in his official history. The officer or employee who receives appointment at Washington, on the other hand, frequently becomes of no account as a di- rect political factor, and, in time, may lose any outstanding character as a political appointee and be hardly distinguishable from those who entered the service entirely by merit. Again, from the standpoint of personnel administration, it should be noted that the selection of the directing personnel by politics, while the subordinate personnel are selected on a merit basis, has an evil influence far out of proportion to the actual numbers of the directing personnel. In the first place, the political selection of the directing personnel obviously means that they are selected from outside the service and, con- sequently, advancement to higher posts in the service is barred to the permanent subordinate personnel, except in those in- stances, fortunately few, in which the permanent employee is also active in politics. This is notoriously the condition in the federal service at the present time. Only in the strictly technical services is the chief directing personnel now nor- mally selected on merit. The geologist may become Director of the Geological Survey, the physician, Surgeon General of the Public Health Service. Once the strictly technical serv- ices are left behind, however, the situation changes abruptly. The customs inspector or appraiser can never become, in the ordinary course, Collector of Customs, the immigrant inspector, Commissioner of Immigration, the clerk or examiner in the internal revenue office, Collector of Internal Revenue. Simi- larly, in the services at Washington which are not strictly technical, the clerk, examiner, or minor executive, who, through long service and innate ability, has qualified himself for ad- ministrative work of the first order is barred from the head- ship of the service, from the deputy headship, and, very fre- quently, from several of the other more important adminis- trative positions at the top of the service, not to mention the assistant secretaryship of the department. Occasional excep- 22 THE FEDERAL SERVICE tions are found to this rule; but they are not frequent enough really to color the picture. It thus may be said with sub- stantial accuracy that one entering the service of the govern- ment in a minor administrative, statistical, or legal capacity has no reasonable expectation of rising to the head of the service. The second reason why the political selection of the direct- ing employees is so disastrous is that such officers must, in any system, be permitted a large measure of discretion in their control over the fortunes of the subordinate personnel, par- ticularly with respect to such matters as assignment, transfer, promotion, salary increases, and the like. Where the admin- istrative officer, himself a political appointee, is vested with authority in these matters, his action in respect to them, how- ever honorable, and however single in its purpose to advance the good of the service, is always open to the suspicion of having been dictated by political considerations. The destruc- tive effect of this atmosphere of suspicion on the morale of the subordinate personnel need not be enlarged upon. Closely related to this aspect of the matter is the fact that, where the directing personnel are admittedly political ap- pointees, they naturally, and indeed almost inevitably, con- tinue to be politically active while in public office. At the same time nothing is better established than that the success of a public personnel system demands that severe restrictions be placed upon the political activity of permanent non-political employees. But the difficulty of enforcing these restrictions upon the subordinate personnel through the medium of a su- perior who is himself, in the nature of the case, primarily in- terested in the maintenance of political activity, is readily imagined. Even where the political head of the establishment takes no step to encourage it, and even in fact where he may publicly announce his opposition to it, there is always the temptation to the employee so minded to believe that a judi- cious amount of political activity would be acceptable to the head. Despite severe regulations to the contrary, therefore, it has been found impossible in the federal service entirely to INTRODUCTORY 23 suppress political activity among the subordinate employees of those local offices in which the heads are political appointees. Pernicious as the appointment of the directing personnel is from any administrative standpoint, it is especially baneful in its effects on personnel administration. The political ap- pointee, however able an administrator he may be in gen- eral, is seldom able to administer personnel matters as effec- tively as the permanent non-political officer. The reason is that, not having himself served in the ranks, and made the service his life work, he finds it difficult to put himself in the position of the employee, and indeed not infrequently does not think it necessary to do so. It is undoubtedly largely on this score that the failure of the federal personnel system to de- velop along advanced lines, even within the area where Con- gress has permitted the President and the departmental pf- ficers wide latitude, is to be explained. The effective devel- opment of personnel policies is not reasonably to be expected from political careerists, however well intentioned. The evil results of the political selection of subordinate employees need only be mentioned to be recognized. Looked at solely from the standpoint of the personnel system, such selection means inefficient service, improper control by the heads of the service through inability to remove or demote those appointed for political reasons, unfairness in promotion, advancement, and the like, and the weakening of the morale of the non-political personnel, which follows as a necessary result. In presenting the evil results which flow from political selection, and particularly when attention is directed to a spe- cific case or to the case of a specific individual, it is easy to get the impression that the evil done in that particular case is slight : especially is this so if the position to which entrance is thus given without competition or other test of merit is one of minor importance. It must always be remembered, how- ever, that one who enters service through political influence quite frequently, as is indeed natural, secures much more rapid advancement in the service than do his or her associates who 24 THE FEDERAL SERVICE have entered by the competitive route and have no political or other influence to assist them in their efforts for promo- tion. The influence of political assistance thus projects itself far beyond the mere entrance gate and is likely to endure throughout the entire service history of the political appointee as a factor making for justified resentment and discontent among non-political employees. Means of Elimination of the Political Factor. — The measures which may be taken to eliminate politics from initial selection, and, in general, to effect the divorce of the personnel system from politics fall into two distinct classes. In the first class are those which limit more or less completely the discretion of the administrative officer in matters of personnel, substituting for such discretion methods of a mechanical or formal character. Here the effort is to prevent the abuse of administrative discretion for political purposes by destroying that discretion in greater or less degree. In the second class are those measures which seek to prevent administrative of- ficers and employees from undue political activity and con- versely to prevent politicians outside the administration from attempting to influence the action of the administrator in personnel matters. Here the attempt is not to limit adminis- trative discretion but to protect it as fully as possible from contact with political influences. Abstract theory would seem to demand that, so far as practicable, reliance be placed on measures of the second class ; for the limitation of administrative discretion is plainly in itself an evil, to be endured only because it is a less evil than the use of that discretion for political ends. Experience has proved, however, that whatever the value of measures of the second type, the chief measure which must be relied on to effect the divorce from politics of a personnel system which has long been wedded to politics is to substitute for adminis- trative discretion in selection a formal system of selection, preferably based on open competitive examination. The in- stitution of such methods of selection, therefore, has come to be accepted as the characteristic and central measure of any INTRODUCTORY 25 program to cleanse the public personnel system of political influences; and it is to the present extent and incidence of such methods in the federal service that attention will primarily be given in the chapters immediately following. The limi- tations on administrative discretion with respect to removals, a matter closely bound up with that of selection, will also be reviewed. Then will be considered what may, and should be, done in the direction of preventing contact between the admin- istrative personnel, both superior and subordinate, and the politician. In the first of the succeeding chapters are reviewed the varied legal provisions by which formal systems of selection for appointment have been applied to the several branches of the federal service; in the following chapter the areas of the service to which no such methods have been applied are ex- amined in detail and a program for the application of such methods to those areas is developed. CHAPTER III THE LAW AND TRADITION OF SELECTION AND TENURE The Civil Service Reform Movement. — The body of law and practice designed to prevent the entrance of political and other improper considerations into the process of selection is, in the main, the product of a great popular movement in the seventies and eighties. To review the details of the history of that movement would be of little value for the present jmrpose. It is of interest, however, to point out that the enact- ment of the civil service law, and the subsequent development of regulations and procedure making it effective, were forced to successful issue by a powerful popular support in the face of determined opposition from those in control of party and of government. The force behind that support was the more remarkable because it represented the economic or social as- pirations of no particular group of the community. It may be said of it, as of few other forces in our political history, that it sprang from a moral or idealistic revolt on the part of citizens of all such groups, against a system which debauched and degraded political life. Unquestionably, this force sur- vives in no negligible degree to this day ; but springing from, and nourished by, the abuses which it attacked, it has weak- ened in proportion as those abuses have disappeared. Types of Systems of Formal Selection. — The systems of formal selection which may be established, and which indeed have been established over various areas of the federal serv- ice, may differ widely in the degree to which they impose re- striction upon the discretion of the appointing officer in mak- ing selection. In some state and municipal jurisdictions the law and the practice have gone to an extreme in excluding the administrative authorities from any participation whatever in 3& THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 27 the administration of the selective system. In the federal serv- ice this extreme position has never been taken and, as will subsequently appear, there are substantial variations in the degree to which participation of the appointing officer in the selection process is permitted at different points of the service. The general development in the federal service undoubtedly has been consistently in the direction of narrowing discretion in selections. Three rather obvious factors determine the degree of limi- tation which the system places upon the discretion of the ad- ministrative officers : first, the extent to which the right is ac- corded to all who may wish to apply to place on record their qualifications and claims to appointment; second, the extent to which selection from among those admitted to application is determined by a competitive weighing of qualifications; and third, the extent to which the procedure is under the sur- veillance or control of an authority outside of the appointing power. A fourth factor which might be mentioned is the extent of publicity which prevails in the actual operation of what- ever system is prescribed. The System of Pass Examinations. — The system which least limits the discretion of the administrative officer is the so-called pass examination, administered by the appointing of- ficer himself. This system merely requires that no appoint- ment shall be made until the prospective appointee has passed a set test. If the service to which it is applied is small and appointments infrequent, this system entails virtually no limi- tation upon the discretion of the appointing officer, as he him- self decides whether the prospective appointee has passed. If, however, the service is large and appointments frequent, the appointing officer will have to delegate the actual conduct of the examinations to a subordinate acting under formal in- structions, and a measure of practical restriction on the dis- cretion of the appointing officer may thus be secured, though without legal sanction. Under this method, not only is se- lection from among the applicants not competitive, but no 28 THE FEDERAL SERVICE provision is made for inviting applications from all who choose. Such a provision, in the absence of competitive selection from among those applying, may be thought empty and futile. Such is not altogether the case. If applications are invited from all who choose to apply, a moral obligation is imposed upon the appointing officer at least not to examine an applicant clearly unfit, or even one of questionable fitness, while failing to examine one of distinguished qualifications; and, if there be any measurable publicity given to the several applications, even if confined to the department concerned, this moral obli- gation may possess some practical force. The present sys- tems of selection for the foreign service and for the medical officers of the Public Health Service are examples of the method here under discussion; and in both, the fact that the right to make formal application for examination is publicly held out to all, undoubtedly constitutes a limitation upon the freedom of selection of the appointing officers. The System of Competitive Examinations: Selected Ap- plicants. — Conversely, it is possible to devise a method by which application for examination is not open to all but selec- tion for appointment as a result of examination is nevertheless competitive. Under such a system it is the function of the appointing officer to designate for examination, entirely in his own discretion, a number of candidates somewhat in excess of the respective number of vacancies, leaving to the results of a competitive examination, whether conducted by the appoint- ing power or by independent authority, the selection of ap- pointees to fill those vacancies. This method, offering as it does a measure of competition, and yet allowing the appoint- ing officer discretion to bar from the examination any one not satisfactory to him, has been developed in but few per- sonnel systems and is not found at any point in the federal service. The System of Competitive Examinations: Open to All. — The final type of selective system, and the one which restricts most severely the discretion of the appointing officer, is the open competitive system — a system in which the right to enter THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 29 the competition is open to all who apply, and the selection is determined by the results of the competition. The open competitive system is commonly regarded as the only method to be employed if political considerations are to be excluded from selection. Despite the essential soundness of this view, it is possible, as will appear in subsequent pages, under certain conditions, wholly to eliminate politics from selections by the employment of one of the other methods mentioned. Nevertheless, any other method than that of open competition is liable to spring a leak unless the conditions are of the best. Hence, it is believed that, unless for adminis- trative reasons the method of open competition is imprac- ticable, that method should be applied in preference to any of the other formal methods of selection discussed. The Appointing Power. — In setting forth, as this chapter purposes to do, the varied provisions of law and regulation under which formal methods of selection have been applied to, or excluded from, the several branches of the federal serv- ice, it is necessary that the basic constitutional and legal as- pects of the power of appointment, and of the term and tenure of office should first be understood. With respect to a very small number of the positions in the executive civil service the Constitution expressly desig- nates who shall appoint. These are "ambassadors, other pub- lic ministers, and consuls." Under the Constitution they must be nominated by the President, and appointed by him by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. As to all others, it is provided that "all other officers . . . which shall be established by law" shall be similarly appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, but that "the Congress may by law vest the appoint- ment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of de- partments." This provision, it will be noted at the outset, refers only to "officers." It is, however, settled law that not every per- son holding employment under the United States is an "of- 3 o THE FEDERAL SERVICE ficer." As distinguished from an "officer," one may be an "employee" or an "agent" of the United States; and to such this constitutional restriction as to method of appointment does not apply. Just what, characteristics a position held under the United States must possess to render the incumbent an "officer" rather than an employee or agent has never been determined. The broad distinction is, of course, a clear and i obvious one, but the zone in which it cannot be sharply drawn is wide. For the present purpose, however, it is sufficient to note that only with respect to "officers" is the appointing power located by the Constitution. The power to appoint employees and agents is regulated wholly by statute, for the Constitution is silent. Within the class of "officers," it should further be noted, it is only "inferior" officers whose appointment Congress may vest in one of the three agencies designated instead of in the President and Senate. What is an "inferior" offiqer under this provision has never been judicially determined. It would seem clear that a "head of department" cannot reasonably be considered an "inferior" officer; but any officer subordinate to the head of a department could apparently be so regarded and his appointment could constitutionally be vested in the Presi- dent alone, in a court of law, or in the head of a department. If this reasoning is correct, the Constitution requires that the method of nomination by the President, and appointment by him "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate" shall be used only in the case of "ambassadors, other public ministers,, and consuls" (where it is explicitly required) and in the case of "heads of departments" (where it is impliedly, but no less clearly, required). The appointment of all other "of- ficers" may be vested in any one of four authorities, as des- ignated by Congress, namely ( I ) the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, (2) the President alone, (3) the heads of departments, and (4) the courts of law; while the appointment of all employees and agents who do not fall under the head of officers may be vested in any authority whatever that Congress may designate. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 31 Criticism of this scheme of control over the allocation of the appointing power is, of course, wholly academic, yet it is of interest in the light of the development that has actually taken place. Senatorial confirmation of ambassadors and consuls resulted, and in a measure still results, in the per- sistence of spoils in the foreign service long beyond what would probably otherwise have been the case, but the fatal weakness of the arrangement is that it permits, and indeed by the implication of the language strongly supports, the intru- sion of senatorial confirmation in the appointment of all classes of officers. Had this provision of the Constitution been omitted, the history of political institutions in the United States might have been materially changed for the better. This is not the place, however, for any extended review of this subject. Suffice it to say that hardly is a single instance to be found in which the participation of the Senate has worked for good, and innumerable instances can be cited in which it has worked for the selection of the unfit, the removal of the fit, and, at almost all points, for the persistence of politics in appointment and removal long after the President was willing and eager to be guided by considerations of merit only. Aside from this primary weakness, the constitutional scheme as a whole is open to criticism as vesting in the legis- lative branch a power which is essentially executive. The Constitution imposes upon the President the duty of seeing "that the laws are duly enforced." A natural implication of this responsibility would be the power' to select the agents by whom the law is to be enforced. Consistency would thus re- quire that the entire power of appointment should be vested in the President, who would exercise it either directly or by delegating it to agents of his own selection. In practice, in- deed, this has been substantially the result, but \he Constitution does not insure it. Not only may the appointment of "of- ficers" be required by Congress to receive the consent of the Senate, but it may be vested to begin within the courts of law, 32 THE FEDERAL SERVICE an independent branch of the government. 1 Thus it is per- fectly possible for Congress completely to exclude the Presi- dent from all legal control over the appointment, or the ma- chinery of selection, of most of the personnel of the govern- ment. As indicated, the actual development under both these heads, however, has placed the whole of the appointing power (except as it is qualified by senatorial confirmation) in the hands of the President or his appointees at first or second remove. Presidential Positions. — Nearly the whole body of law relating both to methods of selection and to tenure is based upon the distinction between what are known as "presiden- tial" and "non-presidential" positions — that is, between those positions to which appointment is by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and those to which appointment is by any other authority. That distinction, therefore, must be developed somewhat fully at the outset. Congress has by no means limited appointment by the President with the "advice and consent" of the Senate to the narrow field expressly required by the Constitution. In the military and naval services it has gone farthest, requiring the "advice and consent" of the Senate to be obtained to the ap- pointment of every officer, even of the lowest grade. In the civil service it has been less thoroughgoing. There, in the departments at Washington, the consent of the Senate has been required,, with few exceptions, only in the case of the heads and assistant heads of departments, bureaus, and services. In the field services, on the other hand, Congress has been particularly insistent on retaining the advice and consent of the Senate in the appointment of officers in charge of local offices, even those of low degree. The postmasters of all of- fices showing annual receipts of $1,900 or over must be ap- pointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate — 'Appointment of federal officers by federal judges was occasionally resorted to in the early days of the government. It survived till as late as 1905 in the provision for the membership of the United States circuit judge on the board of appointment of inspectors of hulls and boilers in the Steamboat Inspection Service (R. S. 4415, amended by Act of March ■? I9°5. 38 Stat. 1028I. "" THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 33 though the number has grown every year and is now over 10,000. Similarly, all collectors of customs and internal reve- nue, registers and receivers at land offices, surgeon general, district attorneys and marshals, and commissioned officers of the Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey* must be confirmed by the Senate. In most cases wherein appointment is made by the Presi- dent with the advice and consent of the Senate that method is expressly required by statute. In the remainder the statute is silent, but as Congress has indicated none of the other pos- sible methods, appointment by the. President with the advice and consent of the Senate is required by the Constitution, 1 since the position involved is clearly that of an "officer." 2 In some instances the statute vests the appointment in the President alone, as in the cases of the Assistant Secretaries of Commerce and of Labor, the Commissioner and Deputy Com- missioner of Lighthouses, and several other officers. The following is a list, as of July I, 1919, of the "presi- dential" positions in the executive civil service requiring con- firmation by the Senate : Department of State Secretary Undersecretary- Assistant Secretaries , Ambassadors Ministers Secretaries of Embassy or Legation Consuls General at Large Consuls General Consular Inspectors Consuls 1 "The general rule deducible from this provision (Art. II, sec. 2, of the Constitution) is that, in the absence of an express enactment to the contrary, the appointment of any officer of the United States belongs to the President, by and with the advice of the Senate." Opinion of the Attorney General, June i, 191 1, 29 Op. 116. ' But it has been held that certain technical employees, the manner of whose appointment is not specifically provided for, are properly to be regarded as clerks rather than officers and as coming under section 169 of the Revised Statutes, which authorizes the head of a department to employ such number of clerks, etc., of the several classes recognized by law as may be appropriated for by Congress from year to year. Opinion of the Attorney General, June I, 191 1, 29 Op. 116. 34 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Treasury Department Secretary Assistant Secretaries Solicitor Assistant Solicitor Office of the Treasurer Treasurer Assistant Treasurer Deputy Assistant Treasurer Assistant Treasurers 1 Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Deputy Commissioners Solicitor Collectors Customs Service Collectors of Customs Surveyors of Customs Naval Officers of Customs Board of General Appraisers of Merchandise — Members Appraisers of Merchandise Assistant Appraisers of Merchandise Special Examiners of Drugs, Medicines, and Chemicals War Finance Corporation Directors Office of Comptroller of the Currency Comptroller United States Mint Director Superintendents of Mints Assayers in Charge of Mints Assayers Engraver Office of Register of the Treasury Register Assistant Register Public Health Service Commissioned Medical Officers Federal Farm Loan Board Members Office of Comptroller of Treasury a Comptroller s , Assistant Comptroller 8 'These were in charge of subtreasuries ; offices abolished since June 30, 1919. "Changed to General Accounting Office, by Budget and Accounting Act of June 10, 1921, and made an independent establishment. 'Changed to Comptroller General and Assistant Comptroller General by Budget and Accounting Act of June 10, 1921. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 35 Treasury Department — Continued Auditors Auditor for Treasury Department 1 Auditor for War Department 1 Auditor for Interior Department 1 Auditor for Navy Department 1 Auditor for Post Office Department ' Auditor for State and Other Departments 1 War Department Secretary Assistant Secretaries * Bureau of Ordnance and Fortification Civilian Member * Mississippi River Commission Members Insular Possessions Governor of Porto Rico Attorney-General of Porto Rico Commissioner of Education of Porto Rico Governor General of Philippine Islands Vice Governor of the Philippine Islands California Debris Commission Members 5 Department of Justice Attorney-General Assistant to the Attorney-General Solicitor-General Assistant Attorneys-General District Attorneys Marshals Post Office Department Postmaster General Assistant Postmasters General Purchasing Agent First Class Postmasters Second Class Postmasters Third Class Postmasters Navy Department Secretary Assistant Secretary Governor of the Virgin Islands 1 Abolished by Budget and Accounting Act of June 10, 1921 ; duties are performed by the Comptroller General. ' Changed to Comptroller, Bureau of Accounts, and placed under Post Office Department by Budget and Accounting Act of June 10, 1921. ' Only one Assistant Secretary at present. * Abolished since June 30, 1019. "Officers of Engineer Corps of the Army. 36 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Department of the Interior Secretary- Assistant Secretaries Solicitor Patent Office Commissioner Assistant Commissioners Examiners in Chief Office of Indian Affairs Commissioner Assistant Commissioner General Land Office Commissioner Assistant Commissioner Recorder Surveyors General Registers Receivers Pension Office Commissioner Deputy Commissioner Geological Survey Director Bureau of Mines Director Bureau of Education Commissioner Government of Territories , Governor of Alaska Governor of Hawaii Secretary of Hawaii Department of Agriculture Secretary Assistant Secretary Weather Bureau Chief Department of Commerce Secretary | Solicitor Assistant Solicitor Bureau of the Census Director Assistant Director 1 Coast and Geodetic Survey Commissioned Officers Superintendent 1 For decennial census period only. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 37 Department of Commerce — Continued Steamboat-Inspection Service Supervising Inspector General Supervising Inspectors Bureau of Fisheries Commissioner Deputy Commissioner Bureau of Navigation Commissioner Bureau of Standards Director Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce Director Assistant Directors Department of Labor Secretary- Solicitor Bureau of Immigration Commissioner-General Local Commissioners Bureau of Naturalization Commissioner Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Children's Bureau Chief Government Printing Office Public Printer Interstate Commerce Commission Commissioners Chief Inspector of Locomotive Boilers Assistant Chief Inspector of Locomotive Boilers Civil Service Commission Commissioners Chief Examiner Federal Reserve Board Members Federal Trade Commission Commissioners United States Shipping Board Commissioners Tariff Commission Commissioners United States Employees' Compensation Commission Commissioners Federal Board for Vocational Education Commissioners 38 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Board of Mediation and Conciliation 1 Commissioner Assistant Commissioner Power of Congress to Control the Discretion of the Presi- dent in Respect to Appointments. — To what extent may Congress control the discretion of the President in his selection of persons for nomination ? Is his discretion absolute, or may Congress prescribe rules to control it — rules providing, for example, for examinations or for open competition? As to those officers whose nomination is specifically en- trusted to the President by the Constitution — "ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls" and, inferentially, the ' "heads of departments" — it seems clear that Congress has no constitutional power to control the action of the President in any way. As to other presidential appointments it is arguable that the President's power exists only at the pleasure of Con-* gress, which could, if it chose, prescribe appointment by one of the other methods permitted by the Constitution; and that presidential nomination to these positions is as much subject to the control of Congress, as to methods of selection, as is a power of appointment derived wholly from statute. The question has never arisen judicially and while it is an interesting one for the constitutional lawyer, it has little prac- tical importance. Historically the President has always taken the lead in action looking to the establishment of some sys- tem of selection of appointees whom he is required to nomi- nate. It is not likely that Congress will at any time be found forcing upon the Executive a system of selection, the effect of which is to weaken the hold of the political machine upon the appointing power. Only in response to a strong and in- sistent demand from the President will Congress give either funds or statutory recognition to any proposal that a ma- chinery and procedure of selection be substituted for "sena- torial courtesy." With the Executive seeking such legislation, it will be effective even if only permissive in its terms. 'Has ceased to function owing to lack of appropriation, but has not been formally abolished. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 39 In practice Congress has long prescribed, in great detail, the method to be followed in making nominations for appoint- ment in the military and naval services, and the constitution- ality of such provisions has never been questioned. In the civil service, however, Congress has to date in only two cases those of the commissioned officers of the Public Health Ser- vice and the Coast and Geodetic Survey — regulated, by law, the selection of nominees to "presidential" positions. Aside from these the President's discretion is wholly uncontrolled by law. The Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey are in many respects two of the most interesting of the civil services of the government because of the similarity of their system of rank and pay to that of the military and naval services. In the organization of these services Congress, fol- lowing the analogy of the military and naval services, requires that every commissioned officer shall be appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. In no other branch of the civil service of the government is there a similar pro- vision. Conjointly with this unique method of appointment, however, Congress has provided * that no person shall be appointed as a medical officer of the Public Health Service "until after passing a satisfactory examination in the several branches of medicine, surgery, and hygiene before a board of medical officers of the said service." In the case of the Coast and Geodetic Survey 2 the law provides that "no person shall be appointed aid . . . until after passing a satisfactory mental and physical examination conducted in accordance with regu- lations prescribed by the Secretary of Commerce. 3 1 Act of January 4, 1889, 25 Stat. 639. Uo Stat. 88. 8 The law thus regulating the methods of selection to be applied to the Public Health Service is of peculiar interest because the act provides also "that original appointments in the service shall only be made to the rank of assistant surgeon," thus establishing the service on a completely closed basis in the same way that the military and naval services are organized. The act governing appointments in the Coast and Geodetic Survey does not explicitly say that original appointment shall be to the lowest grade, but it accomplishes this by implication by providing that "no person . . . shall be promoted from aid to junior hydrographic and geodetic engineer" or to the next higher grade without passing a mental and physical exam- ination conducted in accordance with regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of Commerce. 4 o THE FEDERAL SERVICE These statutes do not provide for an open competitive ex- amination for entrance to the service. It leaves with the President complete power to select whom he will for nomina- tion to the Senate subject only to the requirement that the persons so nominated shall first pass an examination. What is provided is, therefore, a "non-competitive" or "pass' exam- ination." The unquestioning acceptance of this system by the Executive does not prove that it would be equally valid constitutionally for Congress to prescribe for presidential positions a system of open competitive examination with com- pulsory nomination of those graded highest. Whatever may be the power of Congress to regulate the method by which nominees to the Senate are selected by the President, the plenary right of the President himself to pre- scribe any formal system of selection he may desire cannot be questioned. In fact, up to the present time, he has estab- lished both a system of non-competitive examination — that for consuls and for the lower officers of the diplomatic service — and an open competitive system — that for filling certain classes of vacancies in presidential postmasterships. Both of these systems of selection will be discussed in later chapters. Non-Presidential Positions. — Passing now to the non- presidential positions, embracing the remainder of the execu- tive civil service, we shall consider first the legal provisions regarding selection and then those regarding tenure and re- moval, though both are in some cases contained in the same act. Since power of appointment vested in an agency other than the President and Senate is derived wholly from statute, the authority of Congress to prescribe the method of selection to be employed in the exercise of that power is complete. This is as true of those positions whose incumbents are regarded as "officers" as of those filled by "employees" or "agents." In theory a distinction indeed might be drawn; since as to "officers" Congress is not empowered by the Constitution to create the appointing power but merely to select one of the three possible classes of appointing officers — the President, the courts of law, and the heads of departments — named by THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 41 the Constitution. In practice, this distinction has been neg- lected; and for all non-presidential positions, comprising vir- tually the whole of the technical, the clerical, and the me- chanical and labor forces of the government, Congress has complete control over the machinery of selection. 1 Not until 1853, however, did Congress make any use whatever of this plenary control over methods of selection for non-presidential positions; and not until 1883, thirty' years later, did it make any really effective use of it. The nature of its action during that period, and subsequently, will now be reviewed. Early Legislation Regarding Methods of Selection. — In 1853 and 1855 Congress followed the example of England by requiring that the clerks in the departments at Wash- ington should pass examinations prior to appointment in the service. The act, as incorporated in the Revised Statutes, reads as follows: Sec. 163. The clerks in the Departments shall be arranged in four classes, distinguished as the first, second, third, and fourth classes. Sec. 164. No clerk shall be appointed in any Department in either of the four classes above designated, until he has been examined and found qualified by a board of three exam- iners, to consist of the chief of the Bureau or office into which such clerk is to be appointed and two other clerks to be se- lected by the head of the Department. This law was extensively applied for some years, but its enforcement gradually weakened. The Civil Service Commis- sion in its first report commented on the system developed under this law, as follows: The essential vices of the pass-examination system were these : 1. The examinations were not open to all persons appar- ently qualified, nor even to all such persons belonging to the 1 "The head of a department has no constitutional prerogative of appointment to offices independently of the legislation of Congress, and by such legislation he must be governed, not only in making 1 appointments, but in all that is incident thereto." (U. S. v. Perkins, January 25, 1886, 116 U. S. 483.) 42 THE FEDERAL SERVICE dominant party, but rather to such of the favorites of the dominant faction of that party as members of Congress and great politicians recommended. Though the more disinterested and patriotic of those who monopolized patronage brought large numbers into the serv- ice who were both capable and worthy, the tendency was strong in favor of the office-begging and office-earning classes. 2. The tenure of the members of the examining boards was too precarious for strong resistance to influence and solici- tation, but it should be said to their credit that they sometimes defeated the great officers and politicians who tried to push their favorites past the examinations. 3. These pass examinations denied the Government a choice from among the most meritorious applicants. There was no competition or comparison of merits between them, but only the chance of taking a person examined separately, on peril of offending his backers by refusing him. In 1856 Congress also provided that: the President is authorized ... to provide for the appoint- ment of vice-consuls, vice-commercial agents, deputy consuls, and consular agents in such manner and under such regula- tions as he shall deem proper. . . . No vice-consul, vice- commercial agent, deputy consul, or consular agent shall be appointed otherwise than under such regulations as have been or may be prescribed by the President. 1 This statute is noteworthy because it is the first in the whole history of legislation on this subject in which the power is given to the President to prescribe regulations for selection. No formal system of selection, however, was set up by the President under the authority thus conferred. Perhaps the only other provision regarding methods of selection applicable to particular classes of personnel was that enacted in 1871 relative to the method of selection of local inspectors of hulls and of boilers in the Steamboat Inspection Service. This statute provided that : j Whenever any vacancy occurs in any local board of in- spectors, or whenever local inspectors are to be appointed for "Act, of August 18, 1856, 11 Stat. 57. Incorporated in Revised Stat- utes, Sec. 1695- THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 43 a new district, the supervising inspectors shall notify the col- lector or other chief officers of the customs for the district, and the judge of the district court for the district in which such appointment is to be made, who, together with the supervising inspector, shall meet together as a board of designators, and fill the vacant or new inspectorship. Such board, or the major part thereof, when designating an inspector of hulls, shall se- lect a person of good character and suitable qualifications and attainments to perform the services required of inspectors . of hulls, and who, from his practical knowledge of ship-building and navigation and the uses of steam in navigation, is fully competent to make a reliable estimate of the strength, sea- worthiness, and other qualities of the hulls of steam-vessels and their equipment, deemed essential to safety of life in their navigation ; and when designating an inspector of boilers, shall select a person of good character and suitable qualifications and attainments to perform the services required of inspectors of boilers, who, from his knowledge and experience of the duties of an engineer employed in navigating vessels by steam, and also of the construction and use of boilers, and machinery, and appurtenances therewith connected, is able to form a reliable opinion of the strength, form, workmanship, and suitableness of boilers and machinery to be employed without hazard to life, from imperfection in the materials, workman- ship, or arrangement of any part of such apparatus for steam- ing. 1 It will be seen that these provisions do not provide for any system of selection but merely lay an injunction upon the au- thorities charged with selection. This was followed in 1872 by an act providing that laborers "shall be employed in the several navy yards by the proper officers in charge with ref- erence to skill and efficiency and without regard to other con- siderations," 2 which, of course, falls in the same class as being hortatory rather than restrictive. The Law of 1871. — Not until 1871 did Congress make any comprehensive attempt to exercise control over the selection "Act of February 28, 1871, 16 Stat. 443. Incorporated in Sec. 4415, Revised Statutes. This whole section has been amended by vesting the power of selection in the Secretary of Commerce. * Act of May 23, 1872, 17 Stat. 146. Incorporated in Sec. 1544, Revised Statutes. 44 THE FEDERAL SERVICE of the civil personnel. In that year, as the result of persistent agitation for civil service reform by a few devoted men in Congress, supported by President Grant, Congress in 1871 en- acted the first law establishing a general system of selection. This authorized the President to prescribe such regulations for the admission of persons into the civil service of the United States as may best promote the efficiency thereof, and ascertain the fitness of each Candidate in respect to age, health, character, knowledge, and ability for the branch of the service into which he seeks to enter ; and for this purpose he may employ suitable persons to conduct such inquiries, and may prescribe their duties, and establish regula- tions for the conduct of persons who may receive appoint- ments in the civil service. 1 The act thus in terms applies to all positions in the civil service including those to which appointment is by the President with the consent of the Senate; but since the President, without statutory authority, has complete power over the methods of selection for such positions, the act may be regarded as ma- terial only with respect to non-presidential positions. Wide as was the blanket authority conferred by the act, it lacked the reenforcement of adequate funds and the moral support of Congress, and, therefore, proved ineffectual; all effort further to employ it was abandoned by President Grant in 1873. Nevertheless, it is far more sweeping in respect to the authority conferred upon the President than is the civil service law of 1883 ; and, as will shortly appear, it remains to this day a most useful and vital part of the federal personnel law. The Civil Service Act of 1883.— The failure of the experi- ment of 1871 led to the enactment in 1883 of what was re- garded as a more effective measure. 2 This act, known as the civil service act and unamended to this day, constitutes the legal basis on which the present machinery for the selection of the personnel for the non-presidential positions (other than laborers) chiefly rests. •Act of March 3, 1871, 16 Stat. 514; Revised Statutes, Sec. 1753. ' Act of January 16, 1883, 22 Stat. 403. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 45 The substantive provisions of this act fall into two dis- tinct groups: (1) those aimed at political contributions by employees and the coercion of employees for political pur- poses; and (2) those relating to the method of selection of employees for appointment and promotion. The first group has no direct bearing on the immediate subject and need not be further considered at this point. Reference is almost invari- ably to the second group when the civil service law is men- tioned; but, because of the presence of the other group of provisions in the act, it is necessary for precision to speak not of the act itself but of the provisions of the act relating to selection. The precise terms of those provisions are set forth in due course in this section. Broadly speaking, they aim chiefly at establishing a system under which the classes of employees to whom the provisions apply will be selected by open competitive examination. The provisions of the act relating to methods of selection are an extreme example of "inartificial" draftsmanship; and an exact understanding of their tenor can be gained only from a close and careful study of the act itself. Their effect, per- haps, may be most clearly stated here by comparing them with the act of 1871, above set forth. The primary difference between the act of 1871 and that of 1883 is in respect to the classes of employees affected. The act of 1871 applies to "the civil service of the United States." This inclusive term would seem on its face to embrace even the officers and employees of Congress, and the clerks of the United States courts, who are commonly regarded as em- ployees of the judicial department. However this may be, and that phase of the question is at best academic, the term certainly extends to all officers and employees in the executive branch of the government without exception. The provisions of the civil service act relating to selection on the other hand, in addition to explicitly excluding "any officer not in the executive branch of the government" exclude from their operation: first, "any person employed merely as a laborer or workman"; and second, "any person who has 46 THE FEDERAL SERVICE been nominated for confirmation by the Senate.^' * The lat- ter class may indeed be brought under the operation of the law "by direction of the Senate" ; but the failure of the Sen- ate to give such direction in a single instance during the thirty- seven years of the act's history has rendered this proviso vir- tually obsolete. While the provisions of the civil service law relating to the methods of selection thus embrace, potentially, all persons in the executive civil service other than "presidential" ap- pointees and laborers, these provisions do not apply in terms to all the employees within its scope, but only to such as are "classified" under the act. The principle of "open, competi- tive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants" (Sec. 2, Second, First) is to be applied only to applicants "for the public service now classified or to be classified hereunder." Similarly, the principle of "selection according to grade from among those graded highest" is to be applied only to "the of- fices, places, and employments so arranged or to be arranged in classes." (Section 2, Second, Second.) Finally, the defi- nite prohibition in the act against appointment (or promotion) without either examination or specific exemption from exam- ination (Sec. 7) applies only to "either of the said classes now existing, or that may be arranged hereunder pursuant to said rules." From these provisions it thus seems clear that it was the intention of the framers of the act that the principles of competition and examination declared by the act should be applied only to such positions as may be "classified," that is, "arranged in classes." The motive for thus uniting these two totally distinct pro- cedures is difficult to understand. It is perfectly possible to arrange positions in classes without subjecting them to com- petitive examination. Similarly it is equally possible to apply the method of competitive selection to positions not classified, 1 It might seem that this language applies only to persons who, at the time of the passage of the act, held positions to which they had been appointed after confirmation by the Senate. But the uniform interpreta- tion of the clause has been to exclude from the operation of the act all positions to which appointment is made upon the advice and consent of the Senate. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 47 and indeed to special positions not readily susceptible of ar- rangement in classes. In actual operation the broadest pos- sible connotation has been given to the term "classified," and as a result it has been customary for years to include positions within the scope of the competitive system even though they may not be technically "arranged in classes." In fact, a large proportion of the positions so embraced have never been "ar- ranged in classes" at all ; so that the term "classified" has come to mean, in the parlance of the federal personnel system, not "arranged in classes" at all, but simply brought within the scope of the competitive examination system, 1 or, more cor- rectly, within the operation of the civil service rules regarding selection. The provisions made in the act for "classification" are equally confused and ill-considered. At the time of the pas- sage of the act but one portion of the public service was "now classified." This embraced the clerical positions in the execu- tive departments at Washington to which a compensation of either $1,200, $1,400, $1,600, or $1,800 attached. By an act of 1853, already referred to, these positions had been arranged in four "classes" corresponding to the several salary rates men- tioned. In addition, the civil service act (Sec. 6) now re- quired the Secretary of the Treasury and the Postmaster Gen- eral, respectively, to "arrange in classes," in conformity as nearly as possible to the statutory classification of the depart- mental clerks just referred to, "the several clerks and persons employed by the collector, naval officer, surveyor, and ap- praisers, or either of them, or being in the public service, at their respective offices in each customs district where the whole *At one point the civil service law itself seems to contemplate just such a meaning of the term "classified." The concluding sentence of Sec- tion 6 of the act authorizes the heads of departments from time to time to "revise any then existing classification or arrangement" and "for the purposes of the examination herein provided for" to include in such classi- fication employees "not before classified for examination." This is, how- ever, the only place in the act at which the term "classification" is used as identical with the designation of a position as one to be filled by examina- tion ;, and indeed in the next section the two things are apparently regarded as quite distinct, it being provided that no person who has been nominated for confirmation by the Senate shall be required "to be classified or to pass an examination." 48 THE FEDERAL SERVICE number of said clerks and persons shall be altogether as many as fifty" ; and "the several clerks and persons employed, or in the public service, at each post office, or under any postmaster of the United States, where the whole number of said clerks and persons shall together amount to as many as fifty." Finally, the act provided, that from time to time each depart- ment head, and each "head of an office" (that is, of an inde- pendent establishment) "shall, on the direction of the Presi- dent, and for facilitating the execution of this act, respectively revise any then existing classification or arrangement of those in their respective departments and offices, and shall, for the purposes of the examination herein provided for, include in one or more of such classes, so far as practicable, subordinate places, clerks, and officers in the public service pertaining^ to their respective departments not before classified for exam- ination." It is in this last provision that the authority for extending the competitive system beyond the narrow limits prescribed by the two preceding provisions is found ; and it is, therefore, upon this provision of the civil service law and upon the act of 1871 that the application of the system to far the greater proportion of the employees now embraced in it must rest. Like the act of 1871, the civil service act itself contains no mandatory prescription of methods of selection to be em- ployed; like the act of 1871, it leaves complete discretion in this respect in the hands of the President, who is empowered to promulgate "rules for carrying this act into effect." But unlike the act of 1871, it sets forth in general terms certain "fundamental provisions" which such rules shall contain. As even these provisions are to be embodied in the rules, how- ever, only "as nearly as the conditions of good administra- tion will warrant" and as the rules are in no wise limited to these provisions, 1 it is hardly too much to say that the nature of the power of regulation conferred on the President by the tivil service act is virtually as unqualified as is that conferred th * Th -6 aCt .. states that the P rovis i°ns mentioned shall be declared "among THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 49 by the act of 1871. This is, however, a somewhat legalistic view. The moral obligation imposed on the President actually to apply the "fundamental provisions" wherever practicable is, of course, most weighty. Nevertheless, it must be clearly kept in mind that the civil service law requires no single speci- fied position to be filled by competitive examination, or indeed even by non-competitive examination. Of themselves, there- fore, the substantive provisions of the civil service law relating to selection are without effect. So far as they have vitality, they draw it from the provisions of the civil service rules pro- mulgated by the President. Hence it is in conjunction with those rules that these substantive provisions can best be ex- amined. Finally, it will be recalled that the act of 1871 authorized the President to "employ suitable persons to conduct" the in- quiries regarding the fitness of candidates authorized by the act; and to prescribe the duties of such persons. The civil service act on the other hand expressly provides for a com- mission of three members, "not more than two of whom shall be members of the same political party," and who "should hold no other official place under the United States." It is also provided that the commission may at places where ex- aminations are to take place "designate and select a suitable number of persons, not less than three, in the official service of the United States ... to be members of boards of ex- aminers." The duties of the commission, moreover, are de- tailed with much greater fullness than was attempted in the act of 1 87 1. It is to "aid the President as he may request in preparing" the rules already referred to, and "subject to the rules that may be made by the President," it is to "make regu- lations for and have control of," the examinations which may be provided for by the rules, and "shall supervise and pre- serve the records of the same." It may, moreover, investi- gate and report "upon all matters touching the enforcement and effects of said rules and regulations." Finally, the author- ity of the commission is strengthened by a provision requiring officers to give it the use of public buildings for holding ex- 5 o THE FEDERAL SERVICE aminations, and by a provision making unlawful any fraud or corruption with intent to defeat the purpose of the act. Although the civil service act has never been amended, sev- eral supplemental statutes have been enacted. None of them is of major significance except those exempting certain groups of employees from the operation of the act, which are reviewed in a subsequent section of this chapter. They bear only on details of the operation of the system of competitive selection and will be mentioned in connection with the detailed account of that system in a subsequent chapter. Both Presidential and labor positions, and indeed those excluded from the operation of the civil service law by spe- cial statute (to which attention will be called in a subsequent section of the present chapter), as has been pointed out, are subject, by the act of 1871, to any system of selection, in- cluding examination, which the President may order. The elimination of these classes of personnel from the operation of the civil service law may be thought for practical purposes immaterial. Such is not the case, however. Whatever may be the President's legal power, the civil service law does what the act of 1871 does not — it specifically imposes upon the President the moral duty of applying the principle of "open competitive examination" and "selection according to grade from among those graded highest," as far as the conditions of good administration will warrant, and this moral mandate has become so firmly fixed as a portion of the political tra- dition that the mere inclusion of a position under the civil service law, despite the plenary authority granted to the Presi- dent to except it from competition as wholly as though it did not fall under that law, may be regarded in every case as a vic- tory for the merit principle. It may be regarded, therefore, as unfortunate for the development of the merit system that the civil service law does not apply to presidential and to labor employees. Although the legal situation would not be changed in any substantial respect by their inclusion at the present time, an amendment to secure their inclusion should have the ear- nest support of every friend of the merit system. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 51 Quite aside from its influence on the spread of the merit principle, the inclusion of the entire service under one statute would simplify administration, as will subsequently appear from the discussions of assignments and transfers involving a change from an unclassified to a classified status. This division of the service into these purely statutory classes on a basis which may, and in some cases does, have no relation to the method of selection or the needs of the personnel ad- ministration, necessarily places an additional artificial difficulty in the way of the free movement of personnel within the serv- ice. 1 The civil service act differs from most of the acts which have followed it in state and local jurisdictions in one point. It vests complete discretion in the application of the competi- tive principle of selection and the promulgation of rules in the President himself. The Civil Service Commission has no powers under this head except those the President confers upon it. In most jurisdictions it has been thought necessary or desirable to give the Civil Service Commission a large meas- ure, if not the whole, of the discretionary power created by the act, the theory being that the checking of the discretion of *A view contrary to the one here expressed has found support from some who have had much experience in connection with the administration of the federal civil service law. This view has been stated as follows in a letter to the writer: "While there might be some advantages in the extension of the civil service law to include laborers, the result of such action would undoubtedly prove a distinct disadvantage to the service rather than a benefit. At the present time a barrier is set up which effectually prevents departments from assigning a mere laborer or work- man to a classified position except incidentally upon the" approval of the Commission. One evil in the assignment of unclassified laborers to classi- fied duty arises in the claim for promotion to classified positions by reasons of experience and capability acquired in the unclassified position." The validity of this view is open to serious question. It hardly can be said correctly that the present distinction between unclassified and classified positions erects a barrier "which effectually prevents departments from assigning a mere laborer or a workman to a classified position." It is true that the rules at the present time prohibit such an assignment; but they prevent it only in so far as the Commission is able to secure or enforce compliance with its rules. Even though the distinction between unclassified and classified positions were abolished and the grade of laborer were merely to become, as indeed it is in a great many local jurisdictions, a sub-class of the general classified service, it would still be open to the Commission to prohibit the assignment of a mere laborer or workman to a position of higher duty or compensation ; but the enforcement of such rule would depend upon the resources at the disposal of the Commission. 52 THE FEDERAL SERVICE the executive was the primary purpose of the act, and that such a check could effectively be exercised only by a body largely independent of the executive. The federal personnel system, however, is so vast and the President so far removed from the subordinate personnel that a far greater and more rapid development of restrictive control has ensued in the federal service under Presidential authority than has been ob- tained in small jurisdictions with an independent civil service commission. The completeness of the power vested in the President has resulted here and there in a less thoroughgoing and consistent application of merit principles than would have been likely had the power been vested in the Civil Service Com- mission itself, even though that body remained entirely de- pendent on the President in respect to appointment and re- moval. Future progress should probably be in this direction ; but the matter should be considered in its relation to the gen- eral question of giving membership on the commission a more representative character and a more attractive status, points discussed in a subsequent chapter. The opposite extreme to the present arrangement would be not only to give the Civil Service Commission all the dis- cretionary and regulatory power now possessed by the Presi- dent, but to have it appointed independently of him. Such an arrangement would represent a fundamental departure from the tradition of the national government. It would entail a basic division of responsibility for the personnel system, and consequently for the whole administrative system, of the gov- ernment. It is not believed that experience or present con- ditions furnish any warrant for so radical a change. 1 The civil service act expressly prohibits the appointment of any "officer or clerk contrary to its terms," yet no power is vested in the Civil Service Commission itself to enforce this requirement. In a number of jurisdictions the civil service 1 The two proposals here discussed are to be sharply distinguished from that which would leave the President's power of regulation unimpaired, but would make the Civil Service Commission, in its administration of the law and rules, independent of the President (through appointment by an independent authority such as the Supreme Court). THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 53 law provides that no payment shall be made upon any payroll until the civil service commission has certified that all per- sons whose names appear thereon have been appointed in pur- suance of law. In the absence of any provision of this char- acter in the federal civil service law, the Commission, in 1897, requested the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a system of personnel audit in the office of the Comptroller of the Treas- ury. 1 The Secretary of the Treasury declined to do this and the Commission accordingly sent to the Comptroller of the Treasury lists of the names of persons known by it to be holding office or employment in violation of the civil service act. The Comptroller, however, declined to interfere, and on April 1, 1899, rendered an' opinion addressed to a United States Marshal who admitted that he had appointed an office deputy without reference to the lists furnished by the Civil Service Commission, even though the position of office deputy had been placed by the President in the classified service and the civil service rules promulgated by the President required that persons in the classified service, unless specifically ex- empted, should be appointed from lists furnished by the Civil Service Commission as a result of open competitive examina- tion. The decision of the Comptroller 2 held, to quote the syllabus, that "a person employed . . . without having been certified by the Civil Service Commission is eligible to employ- ment, although employed in violation of law." The theory ad- vanced is that, if the marshal had violated an executive order and no action had been taken by his superior, the Attorney 1 Such a system, if established, would have differed from the systems employed in local jurisdictions under a provision of the type just cited, under which payment is withheld until the certification of the Civil Service Commission is obtained. It is not the practice of the federal government to make any central audit of vouchers before disbursing, the practice being, on the contrary, for the several departmental disbursing officers to make all disbursements, including payroll disbursements, upon their own responsi- bility, being held liable for any illegal payments which may be subse- quently discovered upon examination by the auditors acting under the direction of the Comptroller of the Treasury. The request of the Com- mission, had it been granted, would have involved an examination of all payrolls by the auditors to ascertain whether any person appearing on such payrolls held his position in violation of the civil service law or rules. 'Decisions of the Comptroller of the Treasury, vol. 5 (1899), p. 649. 54 THE FEDERAL SERVICE General, and similarly no action had been taken against the Attorney General by the President, the action of the marshal might be regarded as having had the approval of the President, arid the President as having impliedly waived the provisions of his own general order in the specific case. It need hardly be said that this decision clearly runs counter to the well-estab- lished doctrine which gives to executive orders made in pursu- ance of law the force of law. However, taking the position he did, the Comptroller decided that he "would not go behind the certificate of the appointing power and ascertain whether the civil service rules and regulations have been complied with in the employment of persons in the classified civil service." The Civil Service Commission appears to have made no further attempt to secure action in this direction * and the Comp- troller's decision represents the practice down to this day. Although the failure to confer upon the Commission any power to enforce the law was undoubtedly a serious defect in the framing of the act, and undoubtedly prevented as rapid and consistent an observance of the law in its early days as might otherwise have been had, it can hardly be said that at the present time this absence of legal power is material. Since the instance above cited took place, a tradition has developed throughout the service which insures the observance of the law and the regulations substantially as effectively and, of course, infinitely more economically than would be secured by an elaborate and thoroughgoing audit of payrolls by the Civil Service Commission. It is not believed that at the present time the letter of the civil service rules is in any appreciable degree willfully violated. The Civil Service Rules and Orders. — The civil service rules now in force were promulgated by the President on April 15, 1903. Since then they have been amended textually _ * Indeed the Commission not only made no attempt to secure legislative relief but the whole subject is not mentioned in its annual reports. For the statements of fact above made reliance has been placed principally on the report of the investigating committee of the National Civil Service Reform League on the Condition of the Civil Service under the Present National Administration, made to the annual meeting of that body in 1900 (See Proceedings, 1900, p. 33 ff.). THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 55 a number of times. In addition, their tenor on several points has been altered by executive orders issued by the President. The rules recite that they are promulgated by the Presi- dent "in the exercise of power conferred by the Constitution, by Section 1753, Revised Statutes [hereinbefore referred to as the act of 1871] and the act of January 16, 1883 [the civil service law]." The act of 187 1, it will be recalled, author- ized the President not merely to "prescribe regulations for the admission of persons into the civil service of the United States," but to "establish regulations for the conduct of per- sons who may receive appointments in the civil service." Again the civil service act, as already pointed out, contains provisions bearing on the matter of political contributions by employees, and the coercion of employees for political pur- poses, and confers upon the President the blanket power to promulgate "suitable rules for carrying this act into effect." Finally the civil service act itself, while it enumerates cer- tain specific provisions which the rules shall embody, "so far as the conditions of good administration warrant," it per- mits the President, by implication, to make rules on any other phase of personnel administration. 1 The rules consequently contain provisions bearing on al- most all phases of personnel administration. All these pro- visions will be adverted to in their proper place. Here we are concerned only with those rules which bear directly on the matter of the application of formal systems of selection to that portion of the service to which the civil service act re- lates. 2 'The act provides that ''among other things" the President shall pro- mulgate rules as set forth in the statute. As was said by Attorney General Knox (23 Op. Atty. Gen., 595, 597. December 2, 1901) : "Short of a pur- pose to break down this law or impose some arbitrary and unfair require- ment which is inconsistent with the spirit of law in general (a supposition too absurd to be indulged), it is not too much to say that the determina- tion of the contents of these rules rests almost wholly with the President himself." ' Since the rules as already indicated also cite the Constitution and the act of 1871 as sources of the authority of the President, it would have been perfectly proper for the President to incorporate in those rules the various orders setting up systems of selection for classes of personnel not within the provisions of the civil service act relating to selection, but this has in 56 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The "Classified" Service.— It will be recalled that the provisions of the civil service act relating to selection apply only to positions "classified" under the act. This does not mean that all positions "classified" must be filled by open com- petitive examination. On the contrary, the provision of the act which lays down the principle of open competitive exam- ination merely provides that the President shall promulgate a rule which shall "provide and declare ... for open com- petitive examinations" for positions "classified," "so far as the conditions of good administration will warrant." The same intention is manifested in the enforcing clause of the act (Sec. 7) which prohibits the employment of any person in a "classified" position "until he has passed an examination, or is shown to be specially exempted from such examination in conformity herewith." Indeed this clause, the only man- datory clause in the entire act relating to selection, does not even require that the examination passed by those not "spe- cially exempted" shall be open or competitive. It is thus clear that under the act a position may be a "classified" one and yet need not be filled by competitive examination, or by any form of examination. In the earlier rules, however, the process of "classifica- tion" was conceived of as synonymous with the application of the principle of competitive examination; and those posi- tions to which this method was not applied were regarded by the rules as "not yet classified." But since the Revision of 1896, the rules have followed the original intent of the civil service law and they now prescribe (Rule II) that "the clas- sified service shall include all officers and employees in the executive civil service of the United States, heretofore or hereafter appointed or employed, in positions now existing or hereafter to be created, of whatever function or designa- tion, whether compensated by a fixed salary or otherwise, ex- cept persons employed merely as laborers, and persons whose no case been done. So far as methods of selection are concerned the rules, like the civil service act, exclude from their application presiden- tial appointees and laborers. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 57 appointments are subject to confirmation by the Senate" — that is, all officers and employees to whom the principles of selection declared by the civil service act may, under that act, be applied, 1 the rules making specific designation of those positions to which competitive selection is not to be applied. 2 Under the rules now in force all "classified" positions, as thus defined, are to be filled by open competitive examination unless specifically excepted therefrom. These exceptions take either of two forms. The rules themselves make provisions for "non-competitive" and for "excepted" positions, and con- tain schedules of the positions included under each head. Ad- ditional exceptions, usually of a less permanent nature, are created by special executive order, without textual amend- ment of the rules or accompanying schedules. The precise nature and extent of each of these classes of exceptions from competitive selection warrants examination. Non-Competitive Positions. — Non-competitive appoint- ments are provided for in Rule III, Section 2, which reads: "Where in its opinion the conditions of good administration warrant, the commission may give non-competitive examina- tions to test fitness for . . . appointment to the positions named in Schedule B of these rules." While discretion is thus accorded the Commission to use either competitive or non-competitive examinations for these positions, it has fol- 1 Indeed this definition is so broadly phrased that in strictness it would include even those positions which are by special statute specifically ex- cluded from the operation of that civil service law. It is not intended, of course, to include those positions. " The "classified" positions to which competitive selection is applied are distinguished in the rules from the "classified" positions not filled by com- petition by the term "classified competitive" positions. Since, however, those classified positions which are not filled by competitive examination are not clearly distinguished in the popular mind from positions not classic fied, there is a natural tendency to restrict the application of the term "classified" service, as it was restricted in the earlier rules, to competitive positions, even though the rules, when referring only to those positions, speak always of the "classified competitive service." So general has this popular usage of the term "classified service" become that it has now received legal recognition. By act of August 24, 1912 (37 Stat. L. 555), Congress provided certain safeguards against improper removal from the "classified civil service." In an opinion rendered shortly after (30 Op. Atty.-Gen., 181), the Attorney General declared that the term "was used in the more popular sense of the competitive service, and therefore should not be held to include excepted positions," 58 THE FEDERAL SERVICE lowed consistently the practice of using non-competitive ex- aminations only. The incumbents of these positions are se- lected, therefore, by the appointing officer, subject only to their successfully meeting a test imposed by the Civil Service Com- mission, which the rules provide "shall consist of the same tests of fitness as those applied to other persons seeking ap- pointment through competitive examination," a requirement obviously of no importance since competitive examination for these positions is not given. In any sound system of personnel administration positions will be found which cannot be filled to the best advantage by open competition. Designation by the appointing officer of a particular individual for appointment subject to the passing of a particular test by the Civil Service Commission is in such cases clearly a desirable procedure. The positions now filled by this method, under the exist- ing provisions of the civil service rules, are not numerous. Some of them fall clearly within the particular provinces of a non-competitive method. Thus, it is provided that certain positions in the Indian service 1 and in the Office of Indian Affairs 2 may be filled non-competitively when filled by In- dians; that any competitive position in an Indian school may be filled non-competitively when filled by the wife of a com- petitive employee at that school; 3 and that any competitive position at a United States penitentiary may be so filled when filled by a paroled prisoner. 4 Again there are found certain positions so undesirable either by reason of low compensation or remote location, or of such infrequent occurrence, that open competitive examina- tion would be futile. The service in these cases usually con- siders itself fortunate if it can find a suitable employee to 1 Superintendent, teacher, manual training teacher, kindergartner, phy- sician, matron, clerk, seamstress, farmer, and industrial teacher (Schedule B, II). "Junior clerk, messenger, assistant messenger, and messenger boy (Schedule B, I, 2). " Schedule B, I, 3. 'The prisoner must be recommended for such employment by the officers of the penitentiary in which the employment is proposed, by the Board of Parole, and by the Department of Justice (Schedule B, V, 1). THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 59 accept the position. Here, too, is obviously a proper case for the use of the non-competitive method. There would seem to be only one instance 1 of such a position in the present schedule of non-competitive positions, since such positions are usually entirely excepted from examination. Several additional classes of positions are found, however, for whose inclusion in the non-competitive class there is little apparent reason, since in virtually every case positions of equal importance and difficulty in other services are filled by open competition. These positions are: miners employed at res- cue stations or on rescue cars at experimental mines under the Bureau of Mines ; 2 special agents of the Division of Inquiry of the Interstate Commerce Commission; 3 assistant engineers in the Valuation Division of that Commission; 4 and various classes of employees of the Department of Commerce engaged in investigating trade conditions both at home and abroad. 5 That little, if any, good reason exists for the inclusion of these positions in the non-competitive class would seem to be indicated by the proviso attached to the orders including the miners in the Bureau of Mines and the special agents of the Interstate Commerce Commission under this class "that should the Civil Service Commission at any time have reason to be- lieve that the privilege so afforded is abused it may revoke it." The existence of an emergency is another reason which may warrant the substitution of the non-competitive for the competitive procedure. The application of the competitive method necessarily requires an appreciable time. Public an- nouncement must be made, usually over the country as a whole, and a reasonable time given for the submission of applica- tions, and even if no written test is embraced in the exam- 1 The position referred to is that of disciplinarian in the Indian Schools (Schedule B, I, 7). a Schedule B, 1, 4. 8 Schedule B, II, I. ' Schedule B, II, 2. 'Trade commissioners, commercial agents, experts, and special agents (Schedule B, III, 2) ; and clerks to commercial attaches (Schedule B, III, 1). 60 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ination, time must be taken for the conscientious examination of all the applications submitted and their comparative grad- ing, involving also usually the necessity for correspondence with persons familiar with the applicants. Under the most favorable circumstances and the most expeditious procedure this will consume not less than perhaps two or three weeks, and cases arise even in times of peace where so long a delay is highly undesirable or even impossible. Consequently, in response to war needs the President, on March 25, 1917, or- dered that "when the Civil Service Commission decides that, because of a public exigency, there is need of the immediate filling of a position for which there is no suitable eligible, the Commission may authorize the filling of such position by the appointment of a person shown to be qualified by such non- competitive test of fitness as the Commission may prescribe." This order proved of the highest value during the war. A number of persons appointed under it are still in the service, having received permanent appointment; but it is, of course, purely an emergency procedure, to be resorted to only when circumstances make it unavoidable. It is difficult to offer any judgment as to how real a check upon political selection the conduct of non-competitive ex- aminations by the Civil Service Commission constitutes. The Commission does not publish or compile any figures showing the number of such examinations held, the number of entrants, and the number of persons declared qualified. Positions Excepted by the Rules and Orders. — The ex- cepted class, which is provided for in Rule II, Section 3 of the Rules is of far greater importance. That rule provides that "appointments to the excepted positions named in Sched- ule A of these rules may be made without examination or upon non-competitive examination; but the proper appointing offi- cer may fill an excepted position as competitive positions are filled." While this rule thus admits of competitive or non- competitive examination being employed in the filling of any of the positions in this class, they are in practice filled entirely without examination. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 61 A large, perhaps the largest, class of positions covered by this rule consists of skilled and non-skilled laborers employed in the field services. The theory on which exception from competition may be justified in these cases is that when work is being conducted in the field at remote points, it is essential that the officer in charge of such work be given a free hand in recruiting whatever skilled labor he may need which may be locally available, without the necessity of calling upon the Civil Service Commission for the certification of eligibles. Another class of exceptions are those which are made on the ground of the positions being of a "confidential" charac- ter. It is on this theory that the various private secretaries to heads of departments and bureaus are excepted from ex- amination; and the same argument has been advanced in sup- port of the exception, for example, of national bank exam- iners. Other classes consist of positions where the service required is wholly temporary or is of a part-time character, and, there- fore, necessarily performed by persons in the immediate vi- cinity, or in which the work carried on is financed not chiefly by the government but by private organizations or persons, or in which the work is carried on in such unusual locations that competition would be impracticable, or where the salary offered is so low that no competition would be likely to be secured. Finally mention may be made of positions which have been brought under the rule due to dissatisfaction of the appointing officers with the results produced by the Commission in at- tempting to secure qualified persons by open competitive ex- amination. Sometimes this has resulted after an honest at- tempt has been made to fill the ( positions by the competitive method. 1 No one can read the enumeration of positions thus ex- empted from the system of competitive examination as given 1 For a detailed statement of classified positions excepted from exam- ination under Rule II, Section 3, see Appendices to the Annual Reports of the Civil Service Commission. 62 THE FEDERAL SERVICE in the annual reports of the Civil Service Commission without feeling that adequate grounds are in many cases lacking for the exemption. Many of the positions so exempted differ but slightly, if at all, from positions in the filling of which the system of competitive examination is rigidly applied. Especially is this true of positions exempted on the ground that .they are of a confidential character. It is the history of all civil service systems that when competitive methods are first applied this exception is applied to large classes of positions, but that as it becomes more and more clearly demonstrated that positions as "confidential" or even more "confidential" than the excepted positions are successfully filled by open competition, the field of exceptions is greatly narrowed. As the Civil Service Commission said some years ago, when it was proposed to except the position of chief deputy marshal because of its "confidential character" : It is said that the relation of the marshal and his chief deputy is one of a confidential character. Until 1904 cash- iers in the Customs Service were excepted from examination; cashiers in post offices were excepted until 1906. Since these positions were made competitive there is no reason to suppose that they have not been filled as successfully under the civil service rules as any other class of competitive positions. This fact is of great value in considering the present question be- cause it shows that the civil service rules are successfully ap- plied to a class of positions whose duties are very similar to those of chief office deputies and which were for many years excepted from the operation of the rules because of their con- fidential and responsible nature. The objections that the mar- shal should be personally acquainted with a chief office deputy before his selection and should have confidence in his integ- rity, reliability, and efficiency, and that the chief deputy should be acquainted with local conditions could be met in many cases by the promotion within the office of suitable persons or by transfer from the vast number of competitive employees in other parts of the classified service. From the records available it is not clear to what extent the recommendations of the Civil Service Commission have been sought or respected by the several Presidents, in the pro- THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 63 mulgation of exceptions from competition. In certain in- stances it seems clear that the President acted without refer- ence to the Commission; and in a few instances, the Commis- sion has doubtless been flatly overruled. One's general im- pression is, however, that here, as in other matters, the Com- mission might have displayed, during recent years, a greater measure of aggressiveness in promoting the competitive prin- ciple. While occasional references to the undesirability and needlessness of a large excepted class are to be found in its annual reports, it has at no time taken a strong stand in the matter or made any really energetic attempt to secure from the President a thoroughgoing revision of the schedule of excepted positions and its rigorous restriction to those posi- tions for which competitive selection is really impracticable. The question arises whether in the legitimate field of ex- cepted positions, it is desirable or proper that exceptions should be made as now by the President or whether it would be better to vest that authority in the hands of the Commis- sion itself. From almost every standpoint it would seem de- sirable to pursue the latter course. The exercise of this power by the President necessarily renders him more or less subject to importunity by cabinet members and other political officers and the constantly increasing volume of business which the President must transact makes it increasingly unlikely that applications by department heads for exceptions will receive the careful consideration which, from the standpoint of the personnel system, they should. It is noteworthy that in some local systems the power of excepting positions from competitive requirements is regarded as so filled with possibilities of abuse for political purposes that not only is the power vested in the Civil Service Com- mission rather than in the executive, but even its exercise by the Commission is subject to review By higher authority. Thus in the case of New York City the exception of positions from competition by the local commission must be approved by the state commission. The contrast between this and the federal practice is, however, but one illustration of the dominant power 64 THE FEDERAL SERVICE accorded to the President in the civil service administration as opposed to that usually accorded the executive in state and local sytsems. In this connection, however, one special feature may be pointed out. In determining whether a particular position should be excepted there is involved, in a measure, an ap- praisal of the efficiency of the recruitment methods of the Civil Service Commission, the only justification for exception in the large being that the position cannot with equal satisfaction or expedition be filled by the normal competitive method of recruitment. To this extent there is valid ground for ob- jection to vesting in the Civil Service Commission the power of passing on requests for the exception of positions, since it is the adequacy of the commission's own methods which is in effect called into question. The experience of local commis- sions, however, and the record of the federal commission itself in making recommendation for exceptions of this character in those cases where it has been asked for recommendation, as well as in passing on requests for the appointment of desig- nated individuals to positions ordinarily competitive, seem to indicate that little is to be feared from a too rigid insistence by the Commission on competition in cases where competition is not really suitable. Positions Excepted by Statute. — From time to time Con- gress, by statute, has placed some or all of the employees of specific services, who would in the absence of special statute fall in the classified service, outside the general power of "clas- sification" conferred upon the President by the civil service act. The exceptions now in effect are employees of the Inter- national Joint Commission ; deputy collectors of internal reve- nue; deputy marshals; all employees of the Federal Reserve Board and of the Federal Farm Loan Board; commercial at- taches and a clerk to each; certain technical and expert em- ployees of the Federal Trade Commission, the Shipping Board, the Tariff Commission, and the Veterans' Bureau; immigration inspectors employed in the enforcement of the THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 65 contract labor law; and even special technical and clerical services needed in the construction of hospitals for the Public Health Service. 1 1 The statutes making these exceptions are as follows : Deputy Collectors and Deputy Marshals. — . . . That hereafter any deputy collector of internal revenue or deputy marshal who may be re- quired by law or by authority or direction of the collector of internal revenue or the United States marshal to execute a bond to. the collector of internal revenue or United States marshal to secure faithful perform- ance of official duty may be appointed by the said collector or marshal, who may require such bond without regard to the provisions of an act of Congress entitled "An act to regulate and improve the civil service of the United States," approved January sixteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty- three, and amendments thereto, or any rule or regulation made in pursu- ance thereof, and the officer requiring said bond shall have power to revoke the appointment of any subordinate officer or employee and appoint his successor at his discretion without regard to the act, amendments, rules, or regulations aforesaid. (38 Stat. 208, act of Oct. 22, 1913.) Federal Reserve Board. — ... All such attorneys, experts, assistants, clerks, and other employees shall be appointed without regard to the pro- visions of the act of January sixteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-three (volume twenty-two, United States Statutes at Large, page four hundred and three), and amendments thereto, or any rule or regulation made in pursuance thereof : Provided, That nothing herein shall prevent the Presi- dent from placing said employees in the classified service. (38 Stat. 262, act of Dec. 23, 1913.) Commercial Attaches. — For commercial attaches, to be appointed by the Secretary of Commerce, after examination to be held under his direc- tion to determine their competency, . . . $100,000. (38 Stat. 500, act of July 16, 1914.) Federal Trade Commission. — . . . With the exception of the secre- tary, a clerk to each commissioner, the attorneys, and such special experts and examiners as the commission may from time to time find necessary for the conduct of its work, all employees of the commission shall be a part of the classified civil service, and shall enter the service under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the commission and by the Civil Service Commission. (38 Stat. 718, act of Sept. 26, 1914.) Federal Farm-Loan Board. — . . . All such attorneys, experts, assist- ants, clerks, laborers, and other employees and all registrars, examiners, and appraisers shall be appointed without regard to the provisions of the act of January 16, 1883, . . . and amendments thereto, or any rule or regulation made in pursuance thereof : Provided, That nothing herein shall prevent the President from placing said employees in the classified service. (39 Stat. 361, act of July 17, 1916.) Shipping Board. — . . . With the exception of the secretary, a clerk to each commissioner, the attorneys, naval architects, and such special experts and examiners as the board may from time to time find necessary to employ for the conduct of its work, all employees of the board shall be appointed from lists of eligibles to be supplied by the Civil Service Com- mission and in accordance with the civil service law. (39 Stat. 729, act of Sept. 7, 1916.) ■ Tariff Commission. — . . . With the exception of the secretary, a clerk to each commissioner, and such special experts as the commission may from time to time find necessary for the conduct of its work, all employees of the commission shall be appointed from lists of eligibles to be supplied 66 THE FEDERAL SERVICE In the cases of the Federal Reserve Board and the Fed- eral Farm Loan Board, the exception from the statute may be revoked by the President. These cases, therefore, consti- tute no real exception to the civil service law. The difference is that under the civil service law specific action by the Presi- dent is required to except positions from competition ; whereas here the exception is made by statute but may be revoked by the President. The language employed in the acts providing for the ex- ception is far from uniform. The act relating to deputy col- lectors of internal revenue and deputy marshals provides that they "may be appointed . . . without regard to the pro- visions of 'the civil service law' or any rule or regulation made in pursuance thereof." The same language is used in the acts relating to the appointment of the employees of the Fed- eral Reserve Board, the Federal Farm Loan Board, and to the persons employed to enforce the contract labor law, and spe- by the Civil Service Commission and in accordance with the civil service law. (39 Stat. 795, act of Sept. 8, 1916.) Immigration Service. — . . . said Secretary, in the enforcement of that portion of this act which excludes contract laborers and induced and assisted immigrants, may employ, for such purposes and for detail upon additional service under this act when not so engaged, without reference to the provisions of the said civil service act . . . such persons as he may deem advisable . . . (39 Stat. 893, act of Feb. 5, 1917.) Veterans' Bureau. — . . . With the exception of the director, the commissioners, and such special experts as the Secretary of the Treasury may from time to time find necessary for the conduct of the work of the bureau, all employees of the bureau shall be appointed from lists of eligibles to be supplied by the Civil Service Commission and in accord- ance with the civil service law. . . . (40 Stat. 400, act of Oct. 6, 1917, as amended by the act of August 9, 1921 (Public No. 47, 67th Congress).) Technical and Clerical Services in Connection, with Construction of Hospitals, Public Health Service. — Sec. 10. And the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to employ, for service within or without the District of Columbia, without regard to civil service laws, rules, and regulations, and to pay from the sums hereby authorized and appropriated for construction purposes, at customary rates of com- pensation, such additional technical and clerical services as may be neces- sary, exclusively to aid in the preparation of the drawings and specifications for the above-named objects [additional hospital facilities for discharged sick and disabled soldiers] and supervision of the execution thereof, for traveling expenses, and printing incident thereto, at a total limit of cost for such additional technical and clerical services and traveling expenses, and so forth, of not exceeding $210,000 of the above-named limit of cost. All of the above-mentioned work shall be under the direction and super- vision of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury. (40 Stat., 1304.) THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 67 cial architectural or other technical experts for the construction of public buildings. The remaining acts use a precisely op- posite formula: that "with the exception of" the employees in question, all other employees of the board or bureau in question "shall be appointed from lists of eligibles to be sup- plied by the Civil Service Commission and in accordance with the civil service law." It is to be noted that in all cases, except those already mentioned in which the exclusion from the civil service law is only tentative and may be terminated by the President, the act definitely excludes the employees affected from any pos- sible inclusion under the provisions of the civil service law generally. There would seem to be nothing in the acts, how- ever, which would prevent the President from exercising; with reference to these classes of employees any more than any others, the powers conferred on him by the act of 1871. Such being the case, it is perfectly possible for him, despite these provisions of law, to apply to these positions the same sys- tem of selection as would be applied were they under the civil service law, or for that matter, a system of selection placing on the discretion of the appointing officers an even more severe restriction than is imposed under the civil serv- ice rules. It may thus be said that the acts in question are merely in the nature of a moral mandate to the President and in no wise limit his power over the system of selection to be applied to these positions. It was doubtless this power which President Wilson had in mind when he declared, in a memo- randum explaining his approval of the act of October 22, 1913, exempting deputy collectors of internal revenue and dep- uty marshals from the operation of the civil service acts, that "The control of the whole method and spirit of the admin- istration of the proviso in this bill which concerns the appoint- ment of these officers is no less entirely in my hands now than it was before this bill became law." 1 Perhaps, however, the reference was merely to the control possessed by the President 'Thirty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1914), p. 138. 68 THE FEDERAL SERVICE by virtue of his general power of direction, based on his power of removal. It need hardly be said that no justification exists for any of the exceptions to the civil service act made by these statutes. The President possesses ample authority to except from open competitive selection any position if it seems to him that the exception will facilitate the government's work. The only explanation for this succession of exceptions from the com- petitive principle is the irrepressible desire on the part of cer- tain elements in Congress to extend the area of political ap- pointment. Exception of Designated Individuals. — In addition to the exception of specific positions made by the rules or statutes, provision is made by the rules for excepting designated indi- viduals from the requirement of competitive examination. The rules provide (Rule II, Sec. 10) : Whenever the commission shall find that the duties or com- pensation of a vacant position are such, or that qualified per- sons are so rare, that, in its judgment, such position cannot, in the interest of good civil-service administration, be filled at that time through open competitive examination, it may authorize such vacancy to be filled without competitive exam- ination ; and in any case in which such authority may be given, evidence satisfactory to the commission of the qualifications of the person to be appointed without competitive examination shall be required. A detailed statement of the reasons for its action in any case arising hereunder shall be made in the records of the commission and shall be published in its annual report. As distinguished from the exceptions made by the Presi- dent which apply to a given position whenever a vacancy occurs in it, those under this rule consist only in filling a particular vacancy at a particular time. To make this interpretation doubly sure the rule, in fact, provides that "any subsequent vacancy in such position shall not be filled without competitive examination, except upon express authority of the Commis- sion in accordance with this section." The rule is intended, of course, only for the most exceptional use and ordinarily THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 69 it has been so employed. During the war, however, frequent use was made of it by the War Department, the War Trade Board, and the Department of Commerce. Two classes of cases are embraced under the rule. In the one the exception from competition is called for because of the nature of the "duties or compensation" ; that is presumably where the duties are so arduous, hazardous, or unattractive, and the compensation so low, that it may be assumed that there will be no competition and that the service should deem itself fortunate to obtain any applicants willing to accept. Where such condition exists, however, it would seem that the position itself should be placed in the excepted class, as have several positions that fall in this category. The second class under this rule embraces cases in which "qualified persons are so rare that open competitive examina- tion is undesirable." The grounds upon which this provision can be defended are difficult to see. The fact that qualified persons are very rare so far as the knowledge of the depart- ment or the Commission goes, would seem to furnish the best possible reason why open competition should be invited, in the hope that additional qualified persons, whose identity may not be known to the department or the Commission, may present themselves. It may be urged, however, that this rule permits the designation of a person of such high and unusual qualifica- tions that he would decline to enter a competition for the place. Examination of the cases in which the Commission has actually applied the rule, as set forth in its Annual Report, does not, however, support the belief that such instances have actually occurred. In point of fact the Commission has always been studious to point out that, under the method of non-assembled examination, which it invariably employs for the higher posts, applications have been secured from individuals of the highest distinction in their several lines of work. In addition to this method of excepting designated indi- viduals from competition which is recognized by the rules, the practice has grown up of issuing executive orders excepting designated individuals from examination. Persons so ap- ■jo THE FEDERAL SERVICE pointed have all the rights and privileges of persons appointed through competitive examination. 1 Under a practice inaugu- rated by- President Roosevelt, requests for such orders are submitted to the Civil Service Commission for recommenda- tion before being passed on by the President; 2 but instances are relatively numerous in which the President has issued such orders, despite the non-concurrence of the Commission. The practice of special exception by the President has de- veloped proportionately to the increasing rigidity of the com- petitive system. During the first fifteen or twenty years after the passage of the act, while a large though steadily dimin- ishing area still remained to which the principle of competition had not yet been applied, but few requests were made to the President for the suspension of the rules. Since the applica- tion of competitive methods to virtually all positions in the classified service, which became effective about 1900, the ex- ceptions have averaged about one per week. The number of exceptions made in each year, beginning with 1901, is as fol- lows: 1901 3 19" 47 1902 10 1912 66 1903 30 i9 J 3 91 1904 22 1914 77 1905 60 !9iS 9i 1906 71 1916 73 1907 77 l 9W 85 1908 64 1918 * 13 1909 38 19™ 55 973 In about 125 cases the Commission has advised the Presi- dent against the making of the exception, but has been over- 1 Minute of the Civil Service Commission, April 6, 1904. Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. 65. ' In rare instances (perhaps no more than a dozen in all) this practice has been ignored by the President. 8 The small number of exceptions made in 1918 was doubtless due to the fact that owing to the war emergency there were in force a large number of general orders excepting large classes of positions, and in some cases the entire personnel of a service, from competition, so that it was possible for virtually everybody to find employment without seeking execu- tive intervention. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 71 ridden. In all the remaining cases, except a very few where its opinion has not been sought, it has either expressly ap- proved or offered no recommendation. By far the most common reason advanced for making the exception is that the persons whose exception is proposed pos- sess special fitness or availability. Of the 973 orders listed above no less than 498 would fall under this head. The plea of special fitness is hardly valid since the open competi- tive method is eminently suitable to secure the services of the individual whose appointment is sought if he, in fact, pos- sesses the "special fitness" alleged. As an illustration of the unconvincing character of the statements made in connection with some of the executive orders making exceptions on this ground may be cited the following : Mrs. , of California, may be appointed to a position in the United States Employment Service of the Department of Labor, without reference to the civil service rules. Her appointment is recommended by the Secretary of Labor. It is stated that Mrs. possesses qualifications which eminently fit her for a position in the employment service. The Civil Service Commission does not concur in the recom- mendation. Under the head of "special availability" are found, for the most part, cases in which a person is already in the service in one capacity and whose assignment, transfer, or promotion to the position desired is interdicted by the rules. In a few instances it may be that the situation is so peculiar that spe- cial exception should be resorted to, but in most cases, if the rule has any merit, there is no reason for setting it aside. A related class of cases, and the next largest numerically, being larger indeed than all the remaining classes combined, is that in which the person in whose favor the exception is made has been separated from the service for more than a year and is thus ineligible for reinstatement. These cases numbered 231 during the period covered by the figures above given. They doubtless indicate that the rule limiting eligi- bility to reinstatement in all cases to one year is unduly severe, -J2. THE FEDERAL SERVICE and at a subsequent point where this matter is considered the recommendation is made that the rule should be made more elastic. Nevertheless, so long as it remains the rule, it should be enforced. Other exceptions of persons who could not meet one or another of the requirements in the rules (in most cases with respect to physical qualifications) numbered 94 out of the total of 973 exceptions above listed. Here again the same con- sideration applies as in the two preceding cases. The last important class of exceptions, embracing 81 dur- ing the period covered, is made up of cases in which appoint- ment without examination was permitted to a woman on the death or disability of her husband, son, or brother, upon whom she was dependent for support. At first blush, the mere fact that the person upon whom she was dependent was for- merly in the service would seem to give the dependent no claim whatever to a position in the service. Looked at from the standpoint of the employees already in the service, however, much may be said for a policy of assuring employment, within such limits as may be consistent with the good of the service, to dependents of employees left without support upon the death or disability of the employee. Such a policy would have an obvious value in making the service attractive to the em- ployee in exactly the same way that retirement and insurance benefits do so, but if such a policy is adopted it should be care- fully formulated and promulgated as a general rule to the benefits of which all would be equally entitled under like con- ditions. Moreover, careful limitations should obviously be placed in the rule to safeguard the service against an undue access of personnel of this type. Manifestly none of these re- quirements are satisfied by the practice of making these ex- ceptions by executive order. A special class of exceptions embraces cases arising from time to time, through the discontinuance of certain temporary agencies, necessitating the discharge of employees. In the few cases of this kind which have occurred provision has been made by executive order permitting the appointment of these THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 73 clerks without competitive examination. In some of these cases the employees had originally entered the service of the temporary agency without examination, so that there was little reason for these exceptions in their favor. In any case, how- ever, there should be a permanent rule to cover cases of this kind. At another place account is given of the recent es- tablishment under executive order of reemployment registers which should make any further exceptions under this head entirely unnecessary. In summary, the sound method of providing for any meri- torious cases which are now taken care of by special excep- tion would seem to be the formulation of general rules, de- fining all those possible classes of cases in which an exception from competiton seems desirable. A study of the large num- ber of such special exceptions which have been granted in the past twenty years should make it possible to bring within the sweep of such rules virtually every type of case in which ex- ception should properly be granted. The Commission should then be authorized to pass upon individual applications under any one of the rules thus provided. Even if no such general rules are framed, however, every consideration would seem to demand that the Commission rather than the President should be vested with the power to grant special exceptions. If this much cannot be accomplished, the President at least should make it a rule not to overrule the recommendations of the Commission when the latter recom- mends a denial of the application for special exception, and the Commission in turn, once its power becomes more than that of mere privilege of expressing an opinion, should make its procedure in this matter more formal. 1 Laborers. — "Persons employed merely as laborers and workmen," as already stated, are excluded specifically frqm the operation of the civil service law. They fall, however, under the more inclusive class of "persons in the civil serv- 'The National Civil Service Reform League has gone on record as favoring a procedure of this kind. Good Government, vol. 33 (January, 1916), p. 15. 74 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ice of the United States" covered by the act of 1871, and it is, therefore, within the power of the President "to pre- scribe such regulations for the admission of persons" as laborers "as may best promote the efficiency thereof and ascertain the fitness of each candidate in respect to age, health, character, and knowledge and ability." Under this authority it is possible for the President to set up a system of selection identical with or even more rigid than that which he may have prescribed for persons to whom the civil service law is applicable. But as in the case of the classes of employees excepted from the application of the civil service law by special statutes he cannot apply to persons employed merely as laborers or workmen the other provisions of the civil service law or other statutes relating exclusively to "classified" positions, which will be discussed under subsequent heads. In fact, the President has established a system of open competitive physical examinations for this class of personnel, which now covers perhaps a majority of the class. The pre- cise extent and character of this system will appear in a sub- sequent chapter. Strict Construction of Exceptions from Formal Methods of Selection. — The exceptions from formal methods of selection which have been reviewed apply in some cases to specifically designated positions; in others, to all positions of a given class or title. Where the exception is of the latter class, it is essential that precaution be taken that appointments under the "excepted" procedure be confined to positions really covered by the exception; that persons be not appointed to excepted or unclassified positions and then assigned to duties properly belonging to a competitive position. The largest pos- sibilities for this kind of evasion for a long time were in con- nection with the assignment of persons appointed as "labor- ers" to duties properly belonging to clerical or sub-clerical positions in the competitive classified service. The civil service law, as has already been pointed out, ex- cluded from the operation of its provisions regarding selection THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 75 "any person merely employed as a laborer or workman" (Sec- tion 7), and while the President possesses power under the act of 1 87 1 to apply the competitive method to the selection of laborers, he did not exercise that power till 1904, and then only over a small portion of the field. Hence for over twenty years after the enactment of the civil service law, the labor positions remained outside the competitive system, and indeed untouched by any formal method of selection, except in the navy yards, where a system of formal registration was in- troduced early. It is not surprising that the tendency to use the unguarded entrance gate to labor positions as a means of evading the competitive system applied to the clerical positions should have reached significant proportions within a few years after the effective application of that system. In 1898 the Civil Service Commission thus reviewed the situation under this head as it had developed in the fifteen years since the en- actment of the civil service law : The pressure for place, being removed from positions cov- ered by competitive examination, is concentrated upon those outside. These so-called laborer places below the classified service are the only ones which can now be obtained through influence, and the pressure for these places is in consequence very great. The only way to remedy this is to withdraw places of laborers from patronage and to fill them under the registra- tion system, which has proved so admirable in filling places of laborers at navy-yards. Since 1883, when the civil service law was enacted, there has been an increase of about 37 per cent in the number, and 43 per cent in the salaries, of the unclassified places, while there has been a slight decrease in the number of positions originally classified by the civil service act, as well as a de- crease in the appropriations for these positions. Practically all of the increase in the classified positions occurred before they were included in the classified service. The tendency toward increasing the number of unclassified positions, in evasion of the civil service act, is not peculiar to the federal service. The same abuses have been practiced in States where the merit system has been established. 1 fifteenth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1898), p. 271. 76 THE FEDERAL SERVICE It would be of little value to review here the long succes- sion of executive orders and amendments to the rules which have been aimed at these abuses. Prior to 1904 the action taken was directed principally at preventing the performance of "classified" duties, that is, of duties not actually those of a "mere laborer or workman," by persons employed under the title* of laborer and thus selected without examination or com- petition. 1 The inherent difficulty of enforcing such orders, however, owing to the impossibility of any central inspection, over the vast area of the federal service, of the duties actually performed by the great numbers of laborers, is obvious. At the present time the terms of the rules on this point are sufficiently specific and mandatory. They provide (Rule II, Sec. 5) that laborers who, in connection with their usual duties, are to perform work of the grade performed by classified employees shall be appointed upon certification by the commission from appropriate registers of eligibles in the manner provided by these rules : and a person employed as a laborer or workman without examination under these rules shall not be assigned to work of the grade performed by classified employees. 2 In order to keep the Civil Service Commission advised of the conduct of the department in applying this rule, it is fur- ther provided (Rule XIII) in connection with the requirement 1 In addition these rules were aimed at the improper promotion of laborers to "classified" positions. This matter is treated in a subsequent chapter. ' "No persons shall be appointed or employed in any executive depart- ment or office for the performance of any service of the character per- formed by classified employees, except in accordance with the provisions of the civil service rules ; and before making any appointment or employ- ment for service with respect to which there may be a reasonable doubt as to the requirement of examination the head of the department or office shall confer with the Civil Service Commission for the purpose of deter- mining whether examination is required, and when such conference does not result in agreement the case shall be presented to the Attorney General for his opinion." (Executive Order, November 29, 1904.) ". . . Unclassified laborers may be assigned to classified work inci- dentally, but not as a part of their main work, in cases where such work cannot be conveniently and economically done by classified employees, but never without the prior consent of the commission, obtained before such assignment, and with a view to the doing of the particular classified work in question by unclassified employees." (Executive Order, April 21, 1909.) THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 77 (Section 1) that "every nominating or appointing officer in the executive civil service shall report in detail to the com- mission whenever and in such manner as it may prescribe, all changes in the service under his authority, that (Section 3) : Reports of appointments and changes in status of mere laborers or workmen shall be accompanied by a statement setting forth specifically the kind of labor performed in detail sufficient to enable the commission to determine the status of each position as classified or unclassified; and a similar state- ment of duties performed by any employee or pertaining to any position in the executive civil service shall be furnished to the commission on request. ' All essential changes of duties pertaining to persons appointed as mere laborers or workmen without examination under the civil service rules shall be re- ported at once to the commission. In the regulations which have been promulgated for the application of the competitive method to labor positions in Washington, it is provided that: When an appointment or employment of an unskilled la- borer is to be made, the appointing officer shall request the board to certify eligibles, stating the principal duties of the position. If in the opinion of the board the duties are of the grade performed by classified employees, the fact shall be referred to the Civil Service Commission to determine the status of the position as classified or unclassified under section 3 of civil service Rule XIII, and the vacancy shall be filled in accordance with such finding. No such procedure is provided in the case of appointments to labor positions in the field service, the regulations simply providing (VII, Sec. 1) that: If a position of laborer requires, in connection with the usual duties of mere laborer, the performance of work of the grade done by classified employees, it should be filled from a register for the classified service and not under these regu- lations. 1 'These regulations also provide (V, 3) that "heads of offices shall require assistant superintendents or foremen of divisions or crews to make monthly reports showing specifically the kind of labor performed by the unclassified laborers in their charge, which report shall be open to the inspection of the board and the commission." 78 THE FEDERAL SERVICE A person appointed to an unclassified position shall not be assigned to work of a classified competitive position, and shall not be transferred or promoted to such a position except in accordance with the Executive Order of April 21, 1909, viz: It appears that in certain cases the work of various depart- ments, independent offices, and bureaus is of such character that it cannot be economically and conveniently done consist- ently with a rigorous adherence to the division between classi- fied and unclassified work. In such cases classified laborers are engaged for the greater part of their time on unclassified work, but at the same time there is certain classified work which could be more economically and conveniently done if such laborers were permitted to do it incidentally, and not as a part of their main work or employment. It is therefore ordered that hereafter when such a state of things exists as is above recited, unclassified laborers may be assigned to classified work incidentally, but not as a part of their main work, in cases where such work cannot be con- veniently and economically done by classified employees, but never without the prior consent of the Civil Service Commis- sion, obtained before such assignment, and with a view to the doing of the particular classified work in question by un- classified employees. It is difficult to ascertain how effective the rules and regu- lations cited have been in preventing the employment of la- borers in duties other than those appropriate to the title. In the case of persons appointed as laborers in the field service, the regulations, as just stated, require periodical reports to the Civil Service Commission. In all other cases, the requir- ing of such reports is left to the Commission. The Commis- sion has not required by regulation the submission of the in- formation provided for by the rules at any regular periods; nor do its reports in recent years give evidence of any con- sistent attempt to secure the strict enforcement of the rules on this head. Since the application of the competitive method to the se- lection of laborers in certain districts in 1904, and its gradual extension since that time, the importance of the distinction between duties appropriate only to classified positions, and THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 79 those appropriate to the positions of "mere laborer or work- men" has steadily declined; and once the extension of the com- petitive method reaches completion, as it doubtless will in the near future, this distinction will become different only in de- gree, but hardly in kind, from the distinction between any two other classes of classified positions. The appointment of persons to positions "excepted" by the rules and their assignment to duties properly appertaining to competitive positions is a possible form of evasion of the competitive principle which, in the earlier days of the sys- tem, when the "excepted" positions were very numerous, was not infrequently resorted to. With the gradual narrowing of the area of "excepted" positions, however, and the specific provision of the rules that "not more than one position shall be treated as excepted under the title of any such position unless a different number be indicated," 1 the opportunity for this type of evasion has been diminished to a point where it is rather negligible. Substantially the same may be said of the "non-competitive positions." A zone where an appreciable opportunity for this type of evasion still exists, however, is in those services (the Shipping Board, the Federal Trade Com- mission, the Tariff Commission, the Veterans' Bureau and the Public Health Service, which have been authorized by statute to appoint specified classes of technical employees and such other "special experts" as may be needed. Here is obviously af- forded the possibility of appointing under the title of "special expert" classes of personnel who by no stretch of conscience could truthfully be so designated. While naturally no of- cial information is available on this point, there is reason to believe that this opportunity has not escaped the notice of the skilled job-hunter, and that it has been taken advantage of to a measurable extent. Similarly there has been from the beginning opportunity for evasion of the competitive requirement in the positions of deputy marshal and deputy collector of internal revenue, which, as already noted, are excepted from competition by special 1 Schedule I, Civil Service Rules, Paragraph I. 80 THE FEDERAL SERVICE statute; and with the unprecedented growth of the internal revenue service in recent years this opportunity has cor- respondingly grown. That it has not been lost sight of, but has been taken advantage of to the full, might have been sur- mised; and the Civil Service Commission is authority for the statement that a large proportion of the employees "appointed under the designation of deputy collector without reference to the rules are in fact employed principally as clerks, typists, addressograph operators, messengers, etc." * The Civil Service Commission to date has adopted no pro- cedure designed to prevent the possible abuse in the manner indicated of excepted, non-competitive, and statute-occepted positions. In connection with excepted and non-competitive positions, as already suggested, it is doubtful if there is any necessity for action. In connection with the "special expert positions" excepted by statute, however, it would be well for the Commission to obtain from the President an executive or- der requiring each of the establishments which enjoy the statu- tory exemption to obtain a certificate from the Commission, prior to making appointment to any position so exempted, that the position, under the statement of its proposed duties cer- tified by the department, is properly embraced within the terms of the statute. 2 Another closely related evasion against which it is neces- sary to safeguard the competitive service is the improper pro- motion or transfer to competitive positions of persons holding positions not subject to examination — whether "excepted" or "unclassified" positions. The regulations bearing on this point will be considered in the chapters on promotion and transfers. Statistics of Employees According to Method of Selection Status. — Thoroughly satisfactory statistics are not avail- able showing the exact distribution of the federal personnel among the several primary legal classifications, namely : presi- 1 Thirty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission, (1919), p. xxi. •This suggestion runs, of course, on the assumption that statutory exceptions persist. The position has already been taken, however, that they should be abolished. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 81 dential, labor, classified, and excepted by statutes ; and, still less within each of these primary legal classifications, the numbers respectively selected by competitive or non-competitive exam- ination or wholly excepted from such examination. The lat- est figures under this head are those published in the Annual Report of the Civil Service Commission for 1917. These show the number of federal employees on June 30, 1917. un_ der the four heads of : competitive classified ; excepted and non- competitive ; unclassified ; and presidential. These data, some- what summarized, are given on the following pages. Tradition in Selection. — It must not be inferred that over the whole area of "excepted" positions and of "presidential" positions to which no formal system of selection has been ap- plied, selection is invariably or unqualifiedly political. Such is far from the case. In a number of excepted positions, despite the total absence of formal methods of selection, merit controls almost exclusively; in others merit and political con- siderations mingle in uncertain degree, varying even with re- spect to the same position from one time to another. Prob- ably in only a minority of "excepted" positions (if the numer- ous deputy marshals and deputy revenue collectors be ex- cluded) is appointment determined solely by politics. In the "presidential" positions to which no formal method of selec- tion is applied the situation is equally varied, at least with respect to appointment at Washington. Certain of the bureau headships are filled solely on a merit basis; others solely on political grounds. 1 Again where it is stated that selection is controlled by political considerations it is not intended to imply that all con- siderations of efficiency and fitness are ignored. In not a few of the posts which will hereinafter be characterized as being filled by political appointees, the incumbents are, and often customarily have been, men well equipped for their posts ; but they are none the less political appointees in that they have been selected, not for outstanding qualifications which distin- 1 The actual tradition in this regard in respect to the general classes of excepted and presidential positions is discussed in the next chapter. 82 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Positions by Status, June 30, 1917 Department Grand Total of Table . . . In Washington, D. C. White House State Department Treasury Department War Department Navy Department Post Office Department . . . Interior Department St. Elizabeth's Hospital . Miscellaneous Department of Justice Department of Agriculture. Department of Commerce . Interstate Commerce Com- mission Civil Service Commission . Bureau of Efficiency Smithsonian Institution and Bureaus State, War, and Navy De- partment Building The Panama Canal Government Printing Office Federal Trade Commission. Total : in Washington, D. C. Number of Positions on June 30, 1917 tJ JL s s V y Un- Presi- "O 1 4) Total ti M v > classi- den- O >7 V u W 497,867 326,899 125,740 33,094 12,134 39 36 3 376 280 81 10 5 9,464 8,693 61 684 26 4.S58 4,360 30 161 7 i,74i 1,725 11 3 2 1.555 1,452 13 84 6 5.147 4,604 169 330 '44 1,138 1,135 3 204 135 69 1,500 257 354 32 '857 5.251 4,371 461 416 3 3.176 2,384 22 749 21 978 814 130 24 10 240 227 1 7 5 42 41 1 778 468 5 305 258 157 1 100 135 109 14 12 4,593 4,120 5 467 1 244 145 93 1 5 4i,4i7 35,477 1,490 3,457 993 1 Secretary, 2 assistant secretaries, 19 bureau officers, Indian allotting agent, recorder of deeds, register of wills, 10 members of Board of Indian Commissioners, and 9 members of board of visitors to St. Elizabeth's Hospital. ' Officers of the Department, 18 ; commissioners of deeds, 23 ; notarie* public for the District of Columbia, 800; trustees reform school, 16. THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 83 Positions by Status, June 30, 1917 — Continued Number of Positions on June 30, 1917 Department Total «T3 > V ed and - com- ive Un- classi- Presi- den- V to Cn a &S$ fied tial SO U* u w Outside Washington, D. C. Treasury Department Assistant Custodian and Janitor Service and contingent force on 5.441 2,562 52 2,827 Mint and Assay Service . 908 717 30 145 16 Subtreasury Service 40c 390 1 9 Public Health Service . . 3,5i8 1,939 1,263 124 192 Coast Guard Service . . . 54 54 6,461 5,646 215 491 109 Internal Revenue Service 4,927 3,044 1,813 6 64 432 176 250 6 War Department Quartermaster Corps . . . io,545 6,446 1,181 2,918 Ordnance Department at large 11,387 9,500 89 i,798 Engineer Department at 15,767 8,764 916 6,087 3,305 1,678 827 800 Navy Department Exclusive of trades and 4,679 4,659 19 1 Trades and labor positions 40,000 32,000 8,000 Post Office Department . . . 522 522 Post Office except fourth- 187,982 79,221 96,785 1,642 10,334 Fourth-class postmasters . 45,079 45,079 Rural Carrier Service . . . 43,339 43,339 Railway Mail Service . . . 21,191 21,191 Department of the Interior i,3" 4,502 1,062 25 4,502 14 210 Pension examining sur- 7,665 2,395 4,453 811 6 Reclamation Service 3,853 3,842 7 4 969 558 386 18 7 84 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Positions by Status, June 30, 1917 — Continued Number of Positions on June 30, 1917 Department Total 4> t3 J> a, riefs and law memoranda previously written by them, and held personal conferences with such as were found to be most promising. As a result of this investigation, the committee submitted to me the names of the four applicants who they considered best suited to meet the requirements of the vacant positions. I appointed the first two on this list, one of them a recent graduate of high standing of the Harvard Law School and the other a recent graduate of like high standing of the Columbia Law School. I have recently filled another minor attorneyship by appointing the third of the four applicants so selected and recommended. These appointees have proved so satisfactory in their departmental work as to convince me that such a method of selection is not only prac- ticable and convenient, but that it would greatly strengthen the legal force of the department. I therefore recommend the adoption of this method of selecting the attorneys and assistant attorneys, as a permanent policy, by the classifying of these positions as competitive under the civil service rules." FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 117 cases, are in most cases as competent and capable as any who would have been selected through the ordinary competitive methods. Nevertheless the absence of those methods furnishes an opening for the entrance of political considerations; and here and there they do enter unquestionably. The abuse is minor, but it is still an abuse and it has always latent in it large powers of growth should a different tradition develop in any of these bodies. Moreover, even when the employee selected is wholly competent and has been selected perhaps wholly with- out reference to political considerations, the fact that there has been no open competition or even invitation of applications with respect to the position throws an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion over the whole proceeding. By so much it weakens the morale of the personnel as a whole and in particular of those employees in the competitive classified service who would be eligible for transfer or promotion to the positions thus in- formally filled were they on the regular competitive classified basis. Private Secretaries and Confidential CVerfe.?.— Another group of positions in Washington, much smaller than either of those already covered, in the selection for which politics plays a greater or less part, is that of so-called private secretaries or confidential clerks to the heads of departments and bureaus, who are excepted by the civil service rules. 1 Unimportant numerically as this group of positions is, the opportunity af- 1 The rule provided for the exception in all executive departments of two private secretaries or confidential clerks to the head of the department and in addition the Secretary of the Interior has an "assistant" who is excepted. The rules also provide for '"'one private secretary" or "confiden- tial clerk" to each of the heads of bureaus appointed by the President in the executive departments, though it is not apparent why the fact that the bureau head is appointed by the President rather than by the head of a department should make any difference in respect to the need for a "private secretary" or "confidential clerk." Similarly, the purchasing agent of the Post Office Department is allowed an excepted private secre- tary by the rules, apparently for no better reason than he, too, is a presi- dential appointee. Private secretaries are also allowed to the Public Printer and to the Chief of the Bureau of Efficiency. The provision of excepted private secretaries to the heads of the several independent estab- lishments other than the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Civil Service Commission is effected by the use of the statutory exception from competition applicable to those bodies. n8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE forded for the entrance of political considerations is a viola- tion of principle and should be eliminated by placing these posi- tions in the competitive classified service. These positions are, of course, no more confidential than a host of other posi- tions which are in the competitive classified service. The in- clusion of the positions under discussion in that service need not limit materially the ability of the head of the department or bureau to select a secretary personally acceptable as the large number of available employees in the department or bureau among whom selection may be made offers an ample opportun- ity under this head. Cognate to the positions of private secretary, secretary, and confidential clerk are those of "confidential inspectors" and "special agents." These are now found only in the Depart- ment of the Interior and in the Department of Justice. In the Department of the Interior exception is made of "inspectors whose duties are of a confidential nature" in the office of the Secretary and of the six "special agents" in the General Land Office to investigate fraudulent entries and other matters of a criminal nature (Schedule A, VII, n); while in the De- partment of Justice all operatives of the so-called Division of Investigation are excepted under the. general exception above cited in connection with the legal service of "positions and appointments deemed by the Attorney General to be . . . con- fidential in their character and which relate to temporary service, or which grow out of appropriation acts committing to the Attorney General the execution of some purpose of the law and the expenditure of the funds therefor but not creat- ing specific positions," all of the funds for this division being regularly appropriated in this manner. The position of "detective" or "operative" is not indeed one which at first blush seems readily susceptible of being filled by competitive examination, and indeed it is of all posi- tions one to the application of which the competitive method is perhaps least appropriate. Nevertheless, it does not follow that positions of this character cannot be filled other than by FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 119 designation of persons outside the service. In a service as large as the federal service it is always possible to find within the competitive service a sufficient number of persons capable of filling positions of this character to complete satisfaction. In this connection it is not without interest that the entire detective force of the New York Police Department, admittedly one of the most efficient detective forces in the world, is en- tirely recruited by the detail to the detective bureau of patrol- men who show aptitude for the work. Yet the original ex- amination by which patrolmen are secured is solely directed to ascertaining the physical qualifications of the candidate and his possession of even less than the somewhat limited scholastic ac- quirements supposed to result from a common school education. That it would be possible to recruit an equally efficient force from among the large and varied range of the federal service can hardly be questioned. Even if, as is perhaps substantially the case at the present time in the Department of Justice, the force is selected in fact for the most part on a merit basis, its removal from the ex- cepted class is particularly desirable. The absence of any for- mal requirement of merit or any formal system of selection opens wide the door for political influence and occasionally, if not more frequently, a political appointment is bound to be made. Yet the service is one which it is obviously peculiarly desirable to keep entirely divorced from politics. The remaining exceptions to competition in the depart- mental service are of a special character which hardly warrant discussion, though in practically no case is there any good reason why exception should be made. 1 1 These positions are: one specialist in higher education in the Bureau of Education (See Schedule A, VIII, 24) ; one inspecting engineer and inspectors in the purchasing department of the Panama Canal (Schedule A, X, 2) ; and the director of the valuation division in the Interstate Com- merce Commission and his chief assistants, two; five experts to be mem- bers of an advisory board; five persons of a board of engineers; one supervisor of land appraisals; and one chief accountant (Schedule A, XII, 1, 5). This list, of course, does not include a few minor officers, the reason for the exception of which is that they involve only temporary or occasional service or that the salary is too low to secure competition. These have all been mentioned in the preceding chapter. izo THE FEDERAL SERVICE With the exceptions just reviewed all the positions at Wash- ington below that of chief or assistant chief of a bureau are on a competitive basis, 1 those above the grade of laborer being in the classified competitive service and those of that grade being embraced in the competitive labor regulations of No- vember 15, 1904. Field Service ; Chief Officers. — Passing to the field service, it should be noted first that the field organizations maintained for the purposes of research and survey by the several scientific bureaus of the government are treated, from the standpoint of appointment, in the same way as are the personnel perma- nently located in Washington. The officers in charge of local offices and stations in one of the^e services, like the officers of corresponding rank and responsibility in the service at Wash- ington, are, therefore, in the competitive service. In the perma- nent local offices and establishments the chief officers are in most cases appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. There are, however, important excep- tions to this rule. It will be well for purposes of future ref- erence to list here all the classes of local establishments and offices of the government and the titles of their chief officers, grouping them accordingly as the appointment of such chief of- ficers rests with the President and Senate or with the head of de- partment. I. Chief Local Officers Appointed by President with Advice and Consent of the Senate Treasury Department Mints Assay Service — Superintendents, Assayers, Melters and Re- finers, Coiners Internal Revenue Service — Collectors Customs Service — Collectors, Naval Officers, Appraisers Department of Justice District Attorneys Marshals Department of the Interior Public Lands Service — Registers, Receivers, Surveyors Gen- eral 'A few positions are on a non-competitive basis. FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 121 Department of Commerce Steamboat Inspection Service — Supervising Inspectors Post Office Department First, Second, and Third Class Postmasters 1 Department of Labor Immigration Service — Commissioners of Immigration II. Chief Local Officers Appointed by the Heads of Depart- ments : Treasury Department Office of Comptroller of Currency — Chief National Bank Examiners Department of Justice Wardens of Penitentiaries Post Office Department Fourth-class Postmasters 2 Department of the Interior Reclamation Service — Project Managers Indian Service — Superintendent of Schools and Reservations National Park Service — Superintendents Department of Agriculture Forest Service — Foresters (in charge of the several for- ests) Department of Commerce Shipping Commissioners Department of Labor Naturalization Service — Chief Examiners Civil Service Commission Secretaries of District Offices General Conditions. — The total lack of principle which characterizes this classification of the local officers with re- spect to their method of appointment is explainable largely on historical grounds. Most of the services in which the appoint- ment of local offices is by the President subject to confirmation by the Senate run back many decades; while those in which appointment is by the head of department are, in almost every case, of comparatively recent origin. The appointment of local officers by the President and the Senate is thus a venerable 1 Many of the second and all of the third class postmasters are not in any real sense "officers" at all, being in fact merely clerks in charge of small offices. They are included here, however, because it has been cus- tomary to treat them in law in the same manner as the postmasters in charge of the post offices in the large cities. 1 As explained in connection with the preceding list, fourth class post- masters are not, properly considered, "officers." 122 THE FEDERAL SERVICE historic institution, which Congress itself now tends to aban- don or at least to keep within its present limits. It should further be said that the newer services in ques- tion are in nearly every case technical in character, while the long established services are administrative, that is, charged with the enforcement of law. The distinction is by no means so clear cut or so consistently adhered to that any justification of the difference in appointing method could properly be based upon it. With the exception of the eleven supervising inspectors of the Steamboat Inspection Service and of certain classes of vacancies in the position of postmaster, the "presidential" po- sitions in question are filled invariably on political grounds, and are invariably vacated on or before the expiration of the statutory term if there has been a change of administration. 1 As is common knowledge, nominations to these positions in reality are normally made in the first instance not by the President, but by the Senators of the state in which the vacancy exists, where those Senators are of the same political party as the President ; and by the party leaders of the Presi- dent's party in the State, should the Senators from the state in question be of the opposing political faith. 2 The appointees are almost without exception persons who have rendered politi- cal service to their party; only in the rarest cases have they been selected from within the service, and when so selected 1 In 1907 the Civil Service Commission stated that "the average tenure of collector of customs and other presidential officers is gradually increas- ing," and it regarded this as "probably due to the policy of reappointing efficient incumbents" (Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1907), p. 3). Since at the time the Commission wrote the Republican party had been in office continuously for ten years, whereas during the twelve years immediately preceding 1897 neither party had been in power longer than four years at one time, the question arises whether the "gradual increase" in the tenure of presidential officers ob- servable in 1907 was ever "probably" clue to "the policy of reappointing efficient incumbents." At any rate a computation made in 1917, for exam- ple, after the Democratic party had been in office four years, would have shown an astounding and by no means gradual decrease in the average tenure of presidential officers. 2 Occasionally, a Senator or party leader, fearful of offending local sentiment by the recommendation of the candidate of one rather than another of the contending local factions, has held a popular election to obtain the consensus of local preference. FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 123 it has been only when their political activity has been con- spicuous. 1 In all the list of local "presidential" officers, there is none which could not be filled with thorough satisfaction on a wholly non-political basis of merit. In no single one of the cases listed do the requirements of good administration call for any exception whatever to the normal processes of competition. The removal of these positions, without exception, from the influence of politics and personal favoritism would improve the administration of the service and would exert a powerful influ- ence for good on the political life of the country. Apart from the question of securing more competent officers the difficulty of recruiting and retaining a capable subordinate personnel, when no opportunity exists for advancement to the principal posi- tions, is obvious and well-recognized; and it has greater im- portance in connection with the smaller local offices where even the chief position is within striking distance of the average employee, than it has in the large departmental and bureau organizations at Washington. Of the political evils which re- sult from this political selection of the heads of the local offices, it is unnecessary here to speak. All the well worn and well proved contentions of the civil service reformer have their full application here. The complete removal of all local federal offices from partisan control would exert a powerful cleansing effect upon the machinery of both the major political parties. The Four-year Term: Its History and Disadvantages. — The four-year term is an institution which has served power- fully to fortify the system of political selection of local officers and to make difficult any reform in the direction of placing these posts upon a basis of merit. The tradition of the four- year term for local officers goes back to the very beginning of the government. In the original judiciary act it was pro- vided 2 that marshals should be appointed for a four-year term. 1 The increasing severity of the civil service rules aimed at political activity on the part of classified employees has now made it virtually impossible for such an employee to render the political service necessary to entitle him to presidential appointment. 2 Act of September 24, 1789. 124 THE FEDERAL SERVICE For over a quarter of a century these remained, however, the only local officers of the United States having a definite term, but in 1820 it was enacted that the several collectors and sur- veyors of customs, the so-called naval officers at the several custom houses, the district attorneys, and the registers and receivers of land offices should likewise hold for a four-year term. In 1851, the same principle was applied to the offices of Indian agent and Indian superintendent; but when the office of Collector of Internal Revenue was established in 1862, no fixed term was provided. While this may have re- flected at the time a disposition on the part of Congress to abandon the fixed term for local officers, such an attitude did not long persist. In 1872 postmasters who had hitherto been appointed in every case for an indefinite term were classified into four classes, and all except those in the lowest class, that is all where office receipts amounted to as much as $1,900, were thereafter to be appointed for four years. This was the most sweeping and the most indefensible extension of the four-year term ever made by Congress. It was followed by one other extension — that of 1894 providing a four-year term for the commissioners of immigration at the several ports. At the present time, therefore, the only important local presidential officers who do not hold for a four-year term are the collectors of internal revenue. Clearly, no lasting progress can be made towards putting these local offices upon a basis of merit until the fixed term is abolished. Even if a merit system of selection be set up for appointment to these positions, their character as permanent, non-political posts will never become irrevocably established so long as their incumbents are required to seek reappointment, or even to face the possibility of non-renewal of appointment, every four years. The abolition of the four-year term of local officers, even if unaccompanied by any change in the method of their selection, is thus an important item in the immediate legislative program of personnel reform. Action Required to Put Field Service on a Merit Basis. — With the four-year term abolished, the way would be clear for FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 125 a complete conversion of these local offices to a merit basis. Such a change could be made, as in the case of other "presi- dential" offices, solely by executive order. Reliance on mere executive order, rather than on statutory classification is, in the case of local officers, open to several minor objections which do not exist in the case of the heads of bureaus and the assist- ant secretaries. In the first place, in legislation regarding personnel, distinction is naturally made in numerous cases be- tween those employees who are subject to the civil service law and those not so subject. If local officers are to be in reality under the merit system, they should obviously be included in legislation intended to apply to the employees under that sys- tem. Perhaps the most serious objection to the introduction of the merit system in local offices merely by means of executive order is, however, that it will not enlist public confidence in the same degree that will outright classification under the civil service law. The legislative program for the placing of local officers upon a merit basis should also embrace the abolition of the local residence requirement which now obtains in the case of col- lectors of internal revenue 1 and postmasters. 2 These, contrary to popular impression, are the only local offices for which local residence is required by law. In all other local offices, it is tradition alone which demands that appointment be restricted to local residents. This tradition, of course, is closely bound up with the system of political appointment to these offices, and no doubt will readily be broken down, so far as adminis- trative needs make it desirable, once selection by merit, and more particularly promotion from within the service, has estab- lished itself. The legislative program here urged was first brought before Congress officially by President Taft. In a message to Congress in 1910 he urged that all local officers be placed upon a merit basis, through the abolition of the four-year term, 1 Revised Statutes, Sec. 3142. ' Revised Statutes, Sec. 3831. 126 THE FEDERAL SERVICE where it exists, and of senatorial confirmation; and this rec- ommendation he reiterated in his messages of 191 1 and 1912. In line with these recommendations bills were at the time in- troduced into Congress, but neither the messages nor the bills received much attention; and during the administration of President Wilson the whole question may be said to have dropped from sight, except as regards the presidential post- masterships. Bills providing for the abolition of senatorial consent for these latter positions were introduced in Congress in 19 1 6, and in 191 7 a provision to this effect, embodied in the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill passed the Senate but failed in conference. 1 The only recent official mention of the general matter aside from the annually repeated recommendations of the Civil Service Commission appears in the report made in 1918 by the Tariff Commission to the Committee on Ways and Means on the revision of the laws governing the administration of the customs. In this report the Commission urges that collectors of customs be placed under the provisions of the civil service law through the substitution of appointment by the Secretary of the Treasury for appointment by the President with the confirmation by the Senate. 2 Movement for Placing Postal Service on Merit Basis. — The action of President Wilson in placing presidential post- masterships, except as to vacancies occurring by expiration of the statutory term, upon a competitive merit basis marks the most important step in a development which has been proceed- ing steadily since the enactment of the Civil Service law in the direction of lifting the postal service out of politics. As will be recalled the civil service act itself provided (Section 6, Second) that the Postmaster-General should "arrange in classes the several clerks and persons employed, or in the pub- lic service, at each post office, or under any postmaster of the United States, where the whole number of said clerks and 1 See Good Government, vol. 34, p. 21. "Curiously enough, the Commission at the same time recommends, not the abolition of the four-year term but its extension to six years. FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 127 persons shall together amount to as many as fifty. And there- after, from time to time, on the direction of the President, it shall be the duty of the Postmaster-General to arrange in like classes the clerks and persons so employed in the Postal Service in connection with any other post office." Pursuant to this authority, the subordinate personnel of all offices of the first and second class were for the most part soon brought within the classified competitive service. 1 The employees of offices not having free delivery, and one assistant postmaster (or chief assistant to the postmaster of whatever designation) at each office still remained, however, in the excepted class. By order of President Taft, on September 30, 1910, these exceptions were abolished and the competitive basis extended to virtually the whole of the personnel of the postal service, other than postmasters to which it is practicable to apply competitive methods. 2 It is worthy of note that even before the inclusion of the position of assistant postmaster in the competitive service the exigencies of the business at many of the larger stations had resulted in the promotion of competitive employees to that po- sition. Of the 1,504 offices whose personnel was in the com- petitive service at the time the order placing assistant post- masters in that service went into effect, 348 had assistant postmasters who had thus been promoted from the competitive service. It is also worthy of note that despite this plain demon- stration of the impracticability of the political appointment of assistant postmasters in the larger offices, not to speak of its impropriety for any office, an attempt was made in Congress a few years later to override the President's order and to ex- cept assistant postmasters from classification by statute. 3 Meanwhile, in 1908, a beginning had been made in the ex- tension of competitive selection to the postmasters themselves. 1 The subordinate personnel of the third and fourth class offices (the annual receipts of which do not exceed $8,000) and on star routes re- mained excepted, and owing to the part-time nature of their service they still remain so. ' The auditor of the post office at New York City is still in the excepted class, without apparent reason. 3 See Good Government, vol. 31, p. 25. 128 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The system of selection of thousands of postmasters had re- mained unaffected by the passage of the civil service act. The postmasters of the fourth class, that is those having total re- ceipts of less than $1,900, and an annual salary of less than $1,000, were appointed by the Postmaster-General and they had from the beginning been "classified" in the excepted class, but those of the third, second, and first class, that is "presi- dential postmasters," were entirely outside the provisions of the law. The evils of the political appointment of these tens of thousands of humble officers had repeatedly been pointed out by the Postmaster-General as well as by the civil service reformers. It was not, however, until 1908 that any action was taken. On November 30 of that year, President Roosevelt, by amend- ment of the civil service rules, transferred from the exempt to the competitive class all those fourth class postmasters — 15,488 in number — in the 14 states north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi rivers. After several years of experimenta- tion by the Civil Service Commission and the Post Office De- partment in the methods of filling the vacancies in these posi- tions as they arose, an order was issued by President Taft (on October 15, 1912) extending the classification to include all the states (but not Alaska, Hawaii, or Porto Rico). Under the plan of classification effected by these orders of President Roosevelt and President Taft, all incumbents serving on the dates of the orders, however, were treated as brought within the classified service without examination. To this method of "covering in" political appointees President Wilson appears to have taken exception, and on May 7, 191 3, he amended the order of his predecessors so as to provide that no fourth class postmaster should be given a competitive classified status un- less and until he had been appointed as a result of open com- petitive examination (or, in the case of the smallest offices, after selection and inspection by a representative of the Post Office Department) ; and he ordered that examinations or in- spections accordingly be conducted for all offices where the then incumbent has not been so appointed. This order placed FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 129 upon the Civil Service Commission the responsibility of pro- ceeding with examinations and inspections covering 17,318 offices, and upon the Post Office Department the responsibility for inspections at 17,936 offices. With the precise methods used in the discharge of their responsibilities we are not here concerned; nor will it be of value here to enter into discussion of the propriety of the action of the Postmaster-General in submitting to the Congressman of the appropriate district the names of those certified by the Civil Service Commission, with a request for his opinion of the candidates "not as a member of any political party but solely as the representative of the community regardless of political affiliations." x The Civil Service Commission stated in its annual report for the fiscal year 191 6 after virtually all of the work of appointment under the new regulations had been com- pleted, that it was "satisfied that the great majority of the ap- pointments were made in the interest of the service," and the available evidence seems to justify this statement. For the present purpose, however, all this is of secondary importance. What is important is that the order of 1913 and the examina- tions and inspections of 1913-6 extended to every fourth class postmaster in the United States, the security of tenure contem- plated by the civil service law, and fourth class postmasterships passed definitely and permanently out of the class of political appointments. The failure of the efforts of President Taft to secure the "classification" of presidential postmasters (as well as of other presidential local officers) and the failure of subsequent at- tempts in Congress have already been mentioned. Even as late as February, 19 17, it doubtless would have been said by most that success in this direction was still some distance off. On March 31, 191 7, however, President Wilson issued an execu- tive order providing that all vacancies in first, second, or third class postmasterships thereafter occurring by death, resigna- l A full official account of the methods of examination and inspection of employees, and of the action of the Postmaster General referred to, will be found in the Thirty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commission, pp. xi-xx, xxv-xxvi. 130 THE FEDERAL SERVICE tion, or removal, should be filled by open competitive examina- tion, the person rated highest to be appointed "unless it is established that the character or residence of such applicant disqualifies him for appointment." The order also provided that the same procedure may be followed where no vacancy exists but there is a "recommendation of the First Assistant Postmaster-General, approved by the Postmaster-General, to the effect that the efficiency or needs of the service requires that a change should be made." The actual procedure provided is that the Civil Service Commission shall hold the examination, and "certify the result thereof to the Postmaster-General who shall submit to the President the name of the highest qualified eligible for appointment to fill such vacancy, unless it is estab- lished that the character or residence of such applicant disquali- fies him for appointment." After receiving the name submitted by the Postmaster-General the President, of course, if he chooses, may reject it, and submit the name of one lower on the list, or indeed, of anyone he chooses, to the Senate; but such action, of course, would be justified only on the strongest and most unusual grounds, and has not yet ensued in any single case. Nor has the Senate in any case yet declined to confirm the nomination of a postmaster selected under this procedure. The order, it will be noted, has no application to vacancies arising through the expiration of the four-year terms of post- masters. No official explanation of the reasons for this major exception has ever been issued. The Postmaster-General has stated several times that the policy of the administration is to reappoint, at the expiration of their four-year terms, those postmasters whose efficiency warrants it. Where a reappoint- ment is thus made, of course, no examination is called for. It is difficult to understand, however, why the principle of the order should not be applied to those numerous instances in which, upon the expiration of a four-year term, the incumbent is not reappointed. In such a case the vacancy is under pres- ent practice filled by a political appointment precisely as be- fore the issuance of President Wilson's order. The data re- garding the appointment of postmasters contained in the annual FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 131 report of the Post Office Department are unfortunately not sufficiently full to disclose the relative proportions of appoint- ments with and without examinations, and of reappointments and original appointments. But whatever the figures, it does not seem open to question that the original order ought to be amended so as to apply to vacancies arising by expiration of the four-year term where the incumbent is not reappointed. Were this amendment made, the pressure upon the President to replace an efficient postmaster, upon the expiration of his four-year term, by a political appointee — a pressure the force of which was signally illustrated in connection with the New York postmastership but a few months before President Wil- son issued his order — would completely disappear. Such an order in effect would completely remove the postmasterships from politics, except to the extent that political pressure might be brought by a present incumbent to secure his reappointment instead of the throwing open of the post to open competition. President Wilson's order was issued on March 31, 191 7, but it was naturally some months before the methods to be fol- lowed by the Civil Service Commission in conducting the novel type of examination involved were settled upon and applied. Up to June 30, 1 9 19, the order, therefore, had been in prac- tical operation something less than two years. The situation with respect to the presidential postmasters is thus that they have been removed from politics in large measure. However, not only are a great proportion, if not the majority of them still political appointees, but there is nothing in the system thus far set up which insures that this proportion will diminish, or in fact will not increase; for those who have been appointed upon examination, solely for merit, may at the expiration of their four-year terms be displaced by political appointees. The current system is thus at best an unstable and precarious one, and needs to be reenforced by changes in the executive order now in force, along the lines above suggested. As has been pointed out with respect to local officers generally, a perma- nently satisfactory system, of course, can come only through legislation definitely abrogating the four-year term, and plac- 132 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ing postmasterships squarely in the competitive class under the civil service law and rules. 1 Chief National Bank Examiners. — A group of local chief officers who, though not presidential appointees, are in the ex- cepted class,, are : the thief national bank examiners, of whom there are 12, one in each of the Federal Reserve cities; the subordinate bank examiners, of whom there are at the pres- ent time 129. These are also in the excepted class, and both groups may conveniently be considered together. The practice of appointing these employees without examination had prevailed for many years after the enactment of the civil service law despite the absence of any specific exception in the rules, and by order of February 3, 1909, this practice was given legal status following an opinion rendered by the Attor- ney General holding that these positions must be filled by open competitive examination unless specifically excepted. The Ex- ecutive Order making the exception, dated February 3, 1909, gives as the sole reason that "the present Comptroller of the Currency, as well as former occupants of that position, was of the opinion that owing to their confidential character it was impracticable to fill these positions as a result of open competi- tive examination." 2 And the Commission, in its report for 1 On May 10, 1921, while the present work was in press. President Harding issued a new Executive Order regarding the appointment of first, second, and third class postmasters. It requires that examinations shall be held "when a vacancy exists or hereafter occurs ... if such a vacancy is not filled by nomination of some person within the competitive classified civil service who has the required qualifications." The defect in the Executive Order of March 31, 1917, is thus cured. The new order, however, permits the Postmaster General to submit to the President "the name of any one of the highest three qualified eligibles for appointment unless it is established that the character or residence of any such appli- cant disqualify him for appointment." The order of March 31, 1917, required the Postmaster General to submit to the President the name of the one highest qualified eligible. The new order_ contains a proviso that at the expiration of the term of any person appointed to such a position through examination before the Civil Service Commission, the Postmaster General may in his _ discretion submit the name of such person to the President for renomination without further examination. It does not re- quire the retention of the incumbent provided he has been efficient. The new order, with its provisions for the selection of one of the three highest and for new examinations on the expiration of the four-year term, still leaves open a wide possibility for political preference. * Twenty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission, (1909), p. 113. FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 133 1910, stated that "the highly confidential character of their employment and the degree to which the personal element en- ters in determining fitness are the reasons advanced by the Department for treating these employees as in the excepted class." x It is difficult to understand why the Commission should have recommended this exception to the President. In point of fact, the Secretary of the Treasury himself, in the following year, was stated to be considering the competitive classification of bank examiners, though no action was taken. 2 Field Services: Subordinate Personnel. — The subordinate personnel of the local offices and establishments in part are ap- pointed by the head of the service and in part by the officer in charge of the local office or establishment. In the case of the large industrial establishments of the Government, ar- senals, the navy yards, and the like, the methods followed in the employment of the forces of mechanical employees are similar to those followed in all large industrial establishments. The subordinate personnel of the field service (other than postmasters) not in the competitive service are as follows: Presidential Positions Positions specifically exempted by statute: Deputy collectors of internal revenue Deputy marshals Employees of the Federal Farm Loan Board Positions excepted by Civil Service rules: The numerous positions which have already been listed in detail in the preceding chapter. Deputy Collectors of Internal Revenue and Deputy Mar- shals. — The case of the deputy collectors of internal revenue and the deputy marshals is of special interest as rep- 1 Idem, p. 11. _ ., _ . _ , _ ' Report of the Council of the National Civil Service Reform League contained in the Proceedings of the League, 1910, p. 61. The report further states that "the matter has been further taken up with the Comptroller of the Currency. Bank failures which disclosed inefficient investigations make such an extension seem desirable, and the fact that bank examiners of New York City, under the competitive system, have done most efficient work with the utmost despatch, makes it seem desirable." 134 THE FEDERAL SERVICE resenting the only recent instance in which a large class of subordinate employees have been withdrawn from the opera- tion of the civil service law and the system of competitive selec- tion. The deputy collectors of internal revenue number some 1,500/ the bulk of them being paid from $1,000 to $1,500, with a maximum salary of $3,000. The deputy marshals are about 550 in number, 2 and their scale of salaries is slightly higher. The appointment of deputy collectors of internal revenue was first authorized in 1864; 3 that of deputy marshals in 1 896. 4 Appointment is made by the collector and the mar- shal respectively, and in both cases the principal is made per- sonally responsible for the acts of his deputy. Except for a brief period, from 1896 to 1899, 5 both classes of positions, be- cause of the personal relation thus imported by the statutes, had been exempt from competition ; but by the order of Novem- ber 7, 1906, President Roosevelt placed the deputy collectors in the competitive class ; and by the order of March 2, 1909, but two days before the expiration of his term, he took similar action with respect to the deputy marshals. By these orders the incumbents of the positions were "covered" into the com- petitive class. They, however, did not acquire thereby as secure a tenure as the ordinary competitive employee, for the statutes creating their positions made their terms dependent upon that of their several principals. 6 What would thus seem 1 The number employed during the fiscal year 1918 was 1,283; for 1920 an increase to 1,837 was estimated. Book of Estimates, 1920, p. 61. 2 868 in 1918, Book of Estimates, 1920, p. 829. "Act of June 30, 1864, Sec. 10; 13 Stat., 225. This act provided that deputy collectors should be compensated by the collector personally. By act of February 8, 1875, as amended by act of March 1, 1879 (20 Stat., 329), it was provided that their compensation should thereafter be paid by the government. *Act of March 8, 1896 (Sec. 10), 29 Stat. 182. 6 The general revision of the civil service rules, promulgated May 6, 1896, placed in the competitive class many positions which were later withdrawn from competition by the order of May 29, 1899. ""A newly appointed collector of internal revenue has a legal right, upon taking office, to drop from the service any deputy collector in com- mission and to appoint deputies of his own selection in accordance with the rules of the Civil Service Commission." (Opinion Atty. Gen., Sept. 3, 1907, 26 Op. 363.) A ruling similar to the above was made with reference to United States deputy marshal on November 30, 1910, by the Comptroller of the FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 135 to have been desired in the premises was the repeal by Congress of the special provisions responsible for this peculiar status of these officers. Instead, however, Congress, in 1913, by rider to the deficiency appropriation act, enacted "that hereafter any deputy collector of internal revenue or deputy marshal who may be required ... to execute a bond ... to secure faithful performance of official duty may be appointed" without regard to the civil service law. 1 It is difficult to see wherein the duties of either of these classes of officers in any degree call for their exemption from the civil service act. The fact brought out in the act, that these officers are required to give a bond to their immediate superiors, far from furnishing a reason for their exemption from competitive selection, is what makes such selection the more practicable; for it renders of less importance the element of personal trust which is theoretically desirable because of the personal liability of the collector or marshal for the acts of his deputy. Indicative of the almost universal acceptance which the merit principle has achieved is the fact that, upon the enact- ment of the legislation under discussion, official protestations were issued, on behalf of the administration, that no de- parture from the principles of merit was contemplated. The President in affixing his signature to the bill, issued a memor- Treasury, who held that the term of a deputy marshal expires with that of the marshal who appointed him. If not reappointed, his successor must be chosen under civil service rules. (Decisions of the Comptroller, vol. 17, p. 362.) 1 The text of the provision is as follows : "That hereafter any deputy collector of internal revenue or deputy marshal who may be required by law or by authority or direction of the collector of internal revenue or the United States marshal to execute a bond to the collector of internal revenue or United States marshal to secure faithful performance of official duty may be appointed by the said collector or marshal, who may require such bond without regard to the provisions of an act of Congress entitled 'An act to regulate and improve the civil service of the United States,' approved January sixteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, and amendments thereto, or any rule or regula- tion made in pursuance thereof, and the officer requiring said bond shall have power to revoke the appointment of any subordinate officer or employee and appoint his successor at his discretion without regard to the act, amendments, rules, or regulations aforesaid." (Act of October 22, 1913; 38 Stat., 208.) 136 THE FEDERAL SERVICE andum in which, after resorting to the unexpected and very doubtful defense that "the offices of deputy collector and deputy marshal were never intended to be included under the ordinary provisions of the civil service law," he pointed out that "the control of the whole method and spirit of the administration of the proviso in this bill which concerns the appointment of these officers is no less entirely in my hands now than it was before the bill became law" * and gave assurance that there was "no danger that the spoils system will creep in with my approval or connivance." 2 The Commissioner of Internal Revenue instructed all collectors "that the object of this pro- vision of law is efficiency and only efficiency, and that any tendency to use this class of appointments merely for personal reward, or for anything that savors of the spoils system, will be regarded as a very serious disregard of public duty" ; and he ordered that changes in the personnel of the force of deputy collectors could be made only with his approval. Similar in- structions were issued by the Attorney General with respect to deputy marshals. The number of removals and new appointments that have been made under the authority granted by this proviso has not been published, nor are any data available indicating the extent to which the action taken has been "for efficiency and only effi- ciency." Whatever the facts may be, however, not a single valid reason has been advanced why these two classes of local employees should not be selected through public competition. 3 1 This statement is correct only in a very general sense. Before the enactment of this proviso, the appointment of deputy collectors and deputy marshals had been controlled by the Civil service laws and it would have required express action of the President to remove it from competitive examination under the supervision of the Civil Service Commission — action which had never been taken. Under the present provision it would require positive action by the President to establish any form of control or even direction over the method of appointment. No such action has been taken, except that the instructions of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Attorney General, referred to below, were probably issued at the direction of the President. 'Quoted in Thirty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1914), p. 138. * An excellent discussion of this matter is contained in the letter from the Civil Service Commission to the President reproduced in the Twenty- seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1910), P. I4S. FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 137 Field Employees: Federal Farm Loan Board— -The field employees of the Federal Farm Loan Board are excepted from the provisions of the civil service act by the law creat- ing the Board, which excepts the entire personnel. That ex- ception has already been characterized as indefensible, and nothing regarding the field forces offers any reason for modify- ing this characterization. Although this force, like the force at Washington, has been selected in fact with a due regard for merit, its exception is inconsistent with the principle of the civil service law and is particularly undesirable. Should an appointment to such positions as that of appraiser be made for political reasons, the appointee would be peculiarly subject to improper influence, a danger particularly to be guarded against in this service. The same is applicable to such of the local employees of the Bureau of War Risk Insurance as are appointed without competition under the special statutory ex- ception of the technical employees of the bureau. The remaining exceptions to the competitive principle in the classified field service fall chiefly in the class of skilled labor and in the special classes in which the service required is temporary, occasional, or of a part-time character; or in which the work is carried on in such unusual locations that competi- tion would be impracticable or where the salary offered is so low that no competition would be likely to be secured. The specific exceptions falling under this head have been reviewed already in the preceding chapter, and the position there taken, that these exceptions are in the main justifiable in the interests of good administration, though in a measurable proportion of the cases no inconvenience to the service would result, and the principle of formal selection would be better observed, were a system of provisional appointment subject to non-competitive examination or approval by the Civil Service Commission substituted for the unregulated methods of selec- tion which now prevail. Postal Employees: Star Routes and Third and Fourth Class Post Offices. — The only class of employees to which attention may here be called is that of postal employees on the 138 THE FEDERAL SERVICE star routes or in third or fourth class post offices. This class of employees includes more persons than any other group in one of the most numerous classes of federal employees to be found anywhere in the service. Strictly speaking, however, they are not to be regarded as federal employees, since their salaries are fixed and paid, not by the Government, but by the postmasters of the several offices in which they are employed. From the standpoint of the federal personnel system they are of interest only to the extent that it is the duty and interest of the Government to see that these employees are provided with proper working conditions and are not unduly exploited by the postmasters for whom they work, requirements which it is dif- ficult for the Government to meet. They are also of interest in view of the civil service rule which provides that when a post office is advanced to the second class the employees of that office acquire the status of competitive postal clerks, pro- vided only that they satisfy the Postmaster-General of their ability. 1 Laborers. — The appointment of laborers in the local offices and establishments, like the appointment of those who serve in Washington, has been made a subject of regulations by the President pursuant to the authority conferred upon him by the act of 1871. These regulations 2 do not apply to all la- borers in the field but only to those in cities or to branches of the service designated by the Civil Service Commission. Up 1 The rule provides (Rule II, sec. 7) that on the date of the effect of such order (for the advancement of an office from third class to second class or for the consolidation of any office with one of the first or second classes) these rules shall apply to positions, officers, and employees of the offices affected in the same manner as they apply to others now classified, and all appointments after an eligible register has been established shall be made by selection from the register; but no officer or employee in any post office shall be classified under the terms of the section who fails to establish to the satisfaction of the Postmaster General his capacity for efficient service in the position held ; and if he has been appointed to such office within less than 60 days prior to the application of these rules, he shall not be classified without the express consent of the Commission." It may be noted that in this rule the term "classified" is used in the narrow and incorrect sense of "classified competitive." Incidentally, this incorrect use of the term occurs in the very rule in which the definition of "classified" is laid down. 2 Promulgated July 3, 1909, and amended. _ They are to be found in the annual report of the Civil Service Commission. FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 139 to June 30, 191 5, the regulations had been extended by the Civil Service Commission to some forty cities and to all un- skilled labor positions in the assistant custodian and janitor service under the Treasury Department, that is in the public buildings. It is particularly desirable that these regulations should be put into force over the remainder of the field service as rapidly as possible. Minor as are the positions involved they have always been a fruitful field for the spoilsman. It must be admitted, however, that owing to the undesirable char- acter and very low remuneration of these positions in the fed- eral service the competition for them, even where competitive methods are applied, is so slight as to have virtually no effect. The effort of the spoilsman in this field is not so much to have a particular individual appointed as it is to have a position created or to have an unnecessary one retained so that the object of his solicitude may be taken care of. This sort of political influence is beyond the reach of personnel methods. It is the province of the financial and not of the personnel ad- ministration to prevent the creation or retention of unnecessary posts. Foreign Service. — The foreign service of the government falls into two main divisions, the diplomatic and the consular. In the diplomatic service, the "ambassadors and other public ministers (including doubtless commissioners, charges d'af- faires, and agents), are required by the Constitution to be appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The statutes also require that appointments of secretaries of embassy and legation, and of secretaries, be made by the President and Senate ; 1 and, as already stated, a system of non-competitive selection has been set up for these positions by executive order. Clerks, interpreters, and stu- dent interpreters at the embassies and legations are appointed by the Secretary of State. These employees are, therefore, within the scope of the civil service law ; but a provision of the rules covering "any person employed in a foreign country under •Revised Statutes, Sec. 1684. 140 THE FEDERAL SERVICE the State Department" 1 excepts therm from regular civil service examination. Except in so far as a non-competitive ex- amination is conducted by the State Department, the clerks for foreign service are selected without examination. In the consular service, a similar condition obtains. "Con- suls" (which term includes "consular agents") must also un- der the Constitution be appointed by the President and Senate; while the clerical employees of the several consulates are ex- cepted from examination under the provision of the civil service rules just quoted. The non-competitive examination system of the State Department, however, is applied to both. In the whole field of the foreign service, therefore, it is virtually only the highest positions, that of ambassador or minister — or, as it is sometimes called, chief of mission — that is not em- braced in the system of formal non-competitive selection ad- ministered by the Department of State. All the posts of ambassadors and ministers — are, as is well known, political. The executive order of 1909, setting up a formal system of selection for diplomatic secretaries, provides that the Secretary of State shall recommend to the President secretaries of embassy or of legation who are capable of be- ing promoted to the post of chief of mission. If such recom- mendations have been made on the occurrence of vacancies in posts of chief of mission, they have been disregarded by the President in virtually all cases ; for the order has had little or no effect whatever in ameliorating the purely political selec- tion for those posts except possibly some of the minor ones. That the entrance of political considerations in the selection for these posts is improper, that it results in an inferior type of diplomatic service, and that in no other great nation is the principle of purely political appointment to posts of this char- acter in force are all well worn truisms which have been put before the public repeatedly in recent years. It is difficult to find a specific remedy for this situation owing to the diffi- culty of devising any formal or rigid system of selection. A 1 Schedule A, I, 7. FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 141 committee of the National Civil Service Reform League, which recently made a study of this entire subject, came to the conclusion that the next step should be merely "that the President be urged to fill the post of minister by the promo- tion of capable officers in the foreign service and that when a vacancy occurs the Secretary of State be required to submit to the President for his consideration the names of secretaries and consuls who merit promotion," and "that the President be urged in as far as practicable to promote ministers to embassies when vacant." x It must be admitted that while this recommendation is doubtless all that is practicable under the circumstances (for any legislation looking to the taking of these officers out of the presidential class or limiting the presidential power of removal is clearly barred by the Con- stitution) it furnishes no very concrete material on which to work. 2 It may be questioned whether there is not a tendency on the part of some of the advocates of the merit principle to over-emphasize the value as applied to the diplomatic service of that principle of selection from within the service which is ad- mittedly and perhaps unquestionably sound as applied to most branches of the federal service. While every chief of mission, of course, should be possessed of a generous intellectual equip- ment in the field of history and politics and international af- fairs, and while a knowledge of the more technical aspects of international law and etiquette are obviously an asset of the highest value for the purpose, it by no means follows that the best diplomatic representative can always be found in the ranks of the permanent diplomatic service. Diplomacy in its more difficult and important aspects is, after all, a political rather than a technical matter, and it may well be that on occa- sions the country's interests would be poorly served were the 1 Report on the Foreign Service, p. 19. 1 It is significant that an earlier declaration of the National Civil Service Reform League advocated the invariable selection of ambassadors and ministers from the permanent personnel of the lower ranks. See Good Government, 1918, p. 119; apparently the committee on the foreign service regarded this recommendation as impracticable. 142 THE FEDERAL SERVICE President to restrict his choice too rigorously to the member- ship of the permanent diplomatic corps. It is notable that some of the foreign nations in which the tradition of a perma- nent diplomatic personnel has long been well established have broken away from the tradition from time to time, and es- pecially in recent years, and appointed to their most important missions men without previous diplomatic experience, but of tested political wisdom. Moreover, the long life of the tradi- tion of a permanent diplomatic corps in those countries has had the effect of bringing into the service at an early age men of a type who are not likely to be attracted into our diplo- matic service until the tradition of selection of these men on a merit basis from within the service has long been well estab- lished. So for many years to come it is probable that less promising material, on the average, will be available for promo- tion to the highest missions in our service, than in the French or British, for example. All this is not to say, of course, that it is proper under any circumstances that diplomatic missions should be awarded to "deserving Democrats" or for the pur- pose of enabling politicians with social aspirations to bask in the atmosphere of foreign courts; it is intended merely to emphasize that the extreme application of the principle of selec- tion from within the service, so frequently urged by civil service reformers, here needs to be accepted with great caution. Conclusion. — If all administrative officers and all subordi- nate personnel originally were selected on a wholly non- political merit basis, by means of formalized methods, and were an effective prohibition placed on the intervention of politicians outside the service in any manner whatso- ever in personnel matters, it is altogether likely that no fur- ther measures would need to be taken to exclude politics from the administration of the federal personnel system. The administrator, himself wholly non-political and subject to no outside influence, might safely be entrusted with as full a measure of discretion in personnel matters as is ac- corded the manager in private enterprises. This does not mean that discretion would be absolute. Even in private enter- FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 143 prises of the larger kind it is found necessary to establish rules and procedures to insure that not merely in general but in every individual case the employee shall receive the full measure of justice and consideration, and that all shall be treated alike; and, obviously, restrictions of this kind will always be equally necessary in public personnel systems. But further restriction, aimed specifically at the abuse of discretion for political pur- poses, will be unnecessary. , In the present situation, however, with the majority of chief officers still selected and removed on political grounds, with political appointment and removal still obtaining over a not inconsiderable area of the subordinate personnel, and with virtually no progress made in prohibiting the interference of politicians outside the service with the action of the adminis- trator in personnel matters, the need for additional protection against political influence is felt at a number of points. The precise nature and extent of the restrictions and procedures designed to afford such protection, however, may be consid- ered profitably only in conjunction with the detailed consid- eration of the several phases of personnel administration in the second part of this volume. The personnel practices of the government are, and under existing conditions should be, a compound of, and not infrequently a compromise between, the dictates of personnel administration proper, and of the need for protection against political interference. Hence, as applied to specific procedures and regulations, the latter can be usefully described only in conjunction with the former. In the second part of this volume, devoted though it is to per- sonnel administration proper, it will be necessary frequently to consider what procedures or regulations should be adopted under the basic relations between the federal personnel system and the political world now prevailing, to prevent the intrusion of political influence at this point and that. CHAPTER V THE ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE INSIDE THE SERVICE In the foregoing chapter the complete elimination of poli- tics in selection, and particularly in the selection of the direct- ing personnel, with the exception of the heads of executive departments, was declared to be the sine qua non of the es- tablishment of a proper personnel system. But even were the entire personnel selected solely on a basis of merit, or at least through the application of formal systems of recruitment, guard would still have to be kept against the intrusion of po- litical influence at various points in the personnel system. To devise a formal system of recruitment which will absolutely exclude the need for the exercise of any discretion whatever by the administrative officer is difficult, and with respect to some classes of positions virtually impossible. In matters af- fecting the employee after selection, such as assignment, pro- motion, demotion, increase or reduction of salary, removal, and retirement, it is, from the standpoint of sound adminis- tration, still more difficult and, in addition, very unwise to attempt to limit severely the discretion of the administrative officer. At all these points he must be allowed some discre- tion; and at all these points there is danger, even though the administrative officer be a non-political, permanent officer and the employee himself appointed wholly without political in- fluence, that the employee affected may seek to enlist political influence on his behalf. Since this would be true, even if all of personnel, from lowest to highest, were chosen by formal methods of a more or less competitive character, it need not be said that in the federal service, where, as just seen, the greater part of the directing personnel and no small part of the subordinate per- 144 ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 145 sonnel is still selected wholly without formal methods or com- petition and chiefly on political grounds, the need for rigidly excluding politicians outside the service from influencing ad- ministrative action in personnel matters is a most vital one. The Congressman and Political Interference. — Political influence in respect to personnel matters is usually brought to bear on federal administrative officers in behalf of an em- ployee or prospective employee through "his" Representative, but sometimes through "his" Senator. In the case of local offices an unofficial politician may be the medium, but even here the Representative or Senator is usually brought into action. In some cases the person thus invoking the good offices of his representative is an active political worker, but the rigor and the increasingly effective enforcement of the civil service rules prohibiting undue political activity by classi- fied employees 1 make it improbable that one who is, already an employee is anything more than a friend or relative of an active political worker. In perhaps as many cases as not, moreover, the person seeking congressional intervention is merely a constituent of the Congressman with no special claim to consideration whatever. It is one of the peculiarities of the congressional temperament to be unable to refuse a request for intervention on behalf of a constituent 2 even though the 1 These rules are discussed in the following chapter. 1 While referring primarily to a matter of economy rather than of personnel administration proper, the following colloquy in the Senate on December 4 1919, is illustrative of the readiness with which members of Congress lend themselves to intervention in personnel matters : Mr. Thomas. "I think there is another reason which prevents the reduction of the civil service force, and that is Congress, or, rather, the individual Members of the two Houses. The Senator will correct me if I am wrong, because he knows, but I was informed that a reduction was made, or proposed to be made, in one of the departments some time ago." Mr. Smoot. "In the War Department." Mr. Thomas. "A reduction of 500 employees, and within 24 hours 169 protests personal and by letter, were lodged by Members of both Houses of Congress against the reduction, as affecting certain of their constituents, with the result that the movement was aborted and paralyzed, and then abandoned. Is that correct?" Mr. Smoot. "The Senator is correct. There were 169 protests within 24 hours." Mr. Thomas. "One can imagine the number of protests that would have been made if the reduction had been 5,000 instead of 500." (.Con- gressional Record, December 4, 1919, p. 114O 146 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Representative may be morally certain in advance that such intervention will avail his constituent nothing, as is indeed often the case. Hence administrative officers are continually pestered with merely perfunctory recommendations and re- quests from Congressmen with reference to proposed appoint- ments, assignments, promotions, salary increases and reduc- tions, removals, and indeed all other matters of personnel affecting the fortunes of individuals. A courteous acknowl- edgment or promise of. consideration by the administrative officer usually satisfies the etiquette of the case. To this extent, congressional intervention is more serious as an annoy- ance than as a factor in actually influencing personnel administration. Where, however, a Representative or Senator chooses for whatever reason to take a real interest in the fortunes of a particular employee, and to make real exertions on his behalf, he is generally able to bring 'influences to bear which only a very courageous and very well intrenched administrative of- ficer can resist. Particularly is this so if the Representative or Senator in question is a member of the appropriations com- mittee which passes on any part of the appropriations for the service with which that officer is connected, or indeed for any branch of the executive department in which that service falls ; or if, though not himself a member of the committee, the Rep- resentative or Senator possesses, through political or log-roll- ing connections, a measure of influence with that committee. Every head of a service, or of any distinct branch of a service for which Congress appropriates separately, lives ever in the fear of the pruning knife, or even the ax, of the appropria- tions committees. Those branches of the service whose func- tions are well established by tradition, or whose continuous op- eration on an adequate scale is indispensable, of course, stand in less danger of drastic reductions in appropriation than do A former important officer at Washington has told the writer of an instance in which the entire congressional delegation from a certain state, two Senators and three Congressmen, had visited his office in a body to intercede on behalf of a native son who had been dismissed for habitual drunkenness and neglect of duty. ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 147 those whose functions are novel or of more doubtful necessity. But even where no reduction in appropriations is to be feared, the head of a department is ever seeking their enlargement and must think long before denying the request of a Repre- sentative or Senator on whose vote in committee, or on whose intervention with the committee, may some day depend the fate of an important requested increase in appropriation. There can be no doubt that the effective interference of the individual Representative or Senator in personnel matters derives largely from the detailed control of Congress over appropriations, as exercised by its several committees. A measure of relief from this condition is likely to be found from the development toward a more ordered procedure and a more concentrated authority for the formulation and adop- tion of the federal appropriation measures. This will almost inevitably reduce the possibility of the use o>f the appropriat- ing power to strike at an administrative officer who has incurred congressional displeasure. Another factor which has been of much importance in perpetuating the tradition of interference by politicians, and more especially by members of Congress, in personnel mat- ters, has been the failure of Congress, and perhaps even more specifically of the President and the Civil Service Commission, to develop the necessary machinery for the routine perform- ance of some of the elementary processes of personnel admin- istration. In a subsequent chapter, attention will be called to the complete failure to develop, for example, any machinery for facilitating the transfer of employees between the depart- ments, even when such transfers are obviously demanded by the needs of the service, and indeed the failure of the depart- ments themselves to develop similar machinery with respect to transfer among the several services of the same department. The natural result of this failure has been that the employee seeking a transfer and having open to him no regular and formal method of obtaining it, often resorts to his Representa- tive or Senator for assistance. In fact, if a newer employee in Washington seeking information should ask an older one 148 THE FEDERAL SERVICE how transfers were effected, he would probably be told that ordinarily the Representative or Senator helps the employee in bringing himself to the attention of the office to which he wishes to be transferred. Similar instances could be cited at other points in the system. The establishment of adequate methods and machinery under all these heads would do much to weaken the tradition of political intervention. Direct Prohibition of Outside Intervention in Personnel Matters. — There is, however, a more direct way of attack- ing the evil, not only as respects Congressmen but any other individual outside the service, namely, the method of directly prohibiting any person from interceding with administrative officers in any personnel matter whatsoever. So obvious is the need for a direct prohibition of this sort that an attempt to secure it would seem to be one of the elementary planks in any program of civil service reform. Yet in virtually none of the laws which have been enacted in the various jurisdictions is any such attempt made. In the fed- eral service the only provision of law under this head is that found in the civil service act (Section 10) which prohibits any person concerned in giving any examination or making ap- pointment under the act from "receiving or considering" any recommendation of any person which may be given by any Senator or any member of the House "except as to character or residence of the applicant." Aside from this obviously unenforceable provision no leg- islation looking to a prohibition of political interference with the administration of personnel matters has been enacted, or, so far as known, ever been introduced in Congress, and the civil service rules contain only one provision aimed in this direction. 1 This is the provision occurring in the rule bear- 1 During the period 1902- 1912 there were in effect various Executive Orders prohibiting employees from soliciting the aid of Congressmen (or Congressional committees of Congress) on their behalf. While they applied in terms to the attempt of an individual employee to solicit inter- vention on his personal behalf, they were essentially directed against attempts of groups of organizations of employees to influence legislation; and their effect as respects traffic between individual employees and Con- gressmen, while substantial, was not of major importance. ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 149 ing on promotion, which prohibits any officer concerned in making promotions from considering any recommendation for the promotion of a classified employee unless it be made by the person under whose supervision the employee has served (Rule II, Paragraph 3). This regulation, it will be noted, does not prohibit the making of such a recommendation ex- cept to the extent that it provides that such recommendation is made "with the knowledge and consent of the employee" which "shall be sufficient cause for removing him from the service." The futile character of the existing law and regulations, which in no wise penalize the person making the recommenda- tions, which authorize no penalty upon the employee (unless, in the case of the regulation, the recommendation is made with his "knowledge and consent," an element which could well be assumed in every case and which even then does not require the penalizing of the employee, but merely authorizes such penalty) need not be enlarged upon. It is hardly neces- sary to add that these provisions are wholly without effect upon the current situation. What is needed is an express prohibition aimed not merely at the employee but at the person making the recommendation or interceding in any way for an employee. The situation calls for a thoroughgoing measure. Legislation making it a penal offense for any one 1 to make any recommendation to an administrative officer in behalf of any individual employee would largely go beyond the needs of the case. It will be argued, of course, that it would be improper to prohibit a Congressman from giving his opinion to an admin- istrative officer as a private citizen ; and indeed the Postmaster General in recent years stated that in submitting to the Repre- sentative of the district the names of the three highest eligibles for fourth class postmaster and for rural carrier, he called upon the member "not in his capacity as a member of any 1 Exception should be made, of course, of former employers or teach- ers of applicants for appointment, when recommendation is requested by the administration officer. ISO THE FEDERAL SERVICE political party but solely as the representative of the com- munity regardless of political affiliations." 1 Aside from the question whether it is morally or intellectually possible for the average member of Congress to act wholly as a private citizen, "regardless of political affiliations," nothing is clearer than that in the overwhelming majority of cases Congressmen, if they act at all, act, and must continue to act in these matters, as politicians; that is to say, in the ordinary case they must put the wishes of the constituent above the interest of the service. It has been thought perfectly proper for the Presi- dent to promulgate rules prohibiting the active participation of classified civil service employees in politics, even though such activity might be carried on wholly in the character of a pri- vate citizen and might have no relation whatever to the duties of the employee. In precisely the same way, there should be no objection to prohibiting the political officers of the gov- ernment from participating in any way whatsoever in admin- istrative affairs. Although the precise method here proposed may be some- what more radical than would be generally favored, most Congressmen, undoubtedly most of the better sort, would them- selves strongly favor some measure of relief from the weari- some and time-consuming pressure of constituents in per- sonnel matters — something which would enable them to es- cape the importunities of the constituents by pleading some statutory or other overpowering disability. Complementary to such a statutory provision there should be one penalizing the individual, whether an employee or merely an applicant, who solicits such intervention in his behalf. Whether or not such a statute be enacted, the civil service rules themselves ought to be amended immediately so as to direct summary removal of any employee, and the debarment from appointment of any applicant, on whose behalf intervention is made unless the employee can show positively that the inter- vention was unsought, and to require administrative officers 1 Statement of Postmaster General, November 17, 1917, quoted in the Thirty-third Report of the United States Gvil Service Commission (1916), p. xvi. ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 151 to report all cases of intervention directly to the Civil Serv- ice Commission. Location of Legal Power in Personnel Matters. — A factor of no small importance in determining the extent of political influence in personnel matters is found in the legal provisions governing the location of the power of appointment and, in- ferentially, of the powers of promotion, demotion, salary in- crease, and assignment and removal. As already seen, the Constitution itself requires that "officers" may be appointed only by the President (with or without the consent of the Senate), by the courts of law (which may be neglected for practical purposes) and by the heads of departments. As to "employees and agents," it is the general rule that such persons, unless the statute providing for their employment otherwise directs, shall be appointed by the heads of depart- ments. 1 With respect to some of the field employees, includ- ing even some who might be regarded as "officers" ( for exam- ple, deputy marshals, deputy collectors of internal revenue, etc.), the statute has provided that appointment shall be by the local chief officer, but again certain field employees are by law to be appointed by the head of the bureau in Washing- ton. The net effect of the scheme of distribution of the appoint- ing power just outlined may be illustrated by applying it to a single typical service as, for example, the Internal Revenue Service, which is a bureau of the Treasury. The Commis- sioner of Internal Revenue is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. His subordinates at Washington from highest to lowest are appointed by the Sec- retary of the Treasury. Passing to the field establishments of the service, the collector in charge of each collection district is appointed by the President with the consent of the Sen- ate; while the subordinate personnel, the deputy collectors, 1 "Each head of department is authorized to employ in his department such number of clerks of the several classes recognized by law and such messengers, assistant messengers, copyists, watchmen, laborers, and other employees ... as may be appropriated for by Congress from year to year." (Act of April 22, 1854, incorporated in Revised Statutes, Section 169.) 152 THE FEDERAL SERVICE clerks, etc., are appointed in part by the commissioner at Washington, and in part by the collector. With respect to the great mass of the subordinate per- sonnel, the appointing power of the head of the department is, of course, a pure formality, exercised almost invariably per- functorily upon the recommendation of the head of the bu- reau, yet the legal requirement of this formality has the result of vesting in the departmental offices a control over personnel matters which not infrequently falls in large measure into the hands of one of the political subordinates who stands close to the Secretary. 1 A door is thus left open for the entrance of political pressure in a quarter which is more susceptible to political pressure than is the non-political head of a bureau, and which at least is as likely to encourage as to discourage any tendency on the part of a political bureau head to yield to such pressure. That this result ensues, not merely with respect to appointment but perhaps still more with respect to promotions, salary increases, reductions, and removals, all of which must, by analogy, receive the approval of the Secretary, is hardly open to doubt. In the interests not merely of ad- ministrative simplicity and decentralization, but of reenforc- ing the merit principle, it is desirable that, in every case in which appointment by the head of the department (and the power over other personnel matters which usually go with ap- pointment) is not required by the Constitution, it should be vested in the bureau chief. Consistency would seem to demand that the appointment of all subordinate personnel in the local offices should be vested in the hands of the chief of those local offices. Two consid- erations, however, must be kept in mind in this connection. 'Even when personnel matters of the department are handled on behalf of the Secretary by a non-political officer, the system favors the entrance of political considerations in so far as that officer is further re- moved from responsibility for the efficiency of the several services than are the heads of those services. While there may be advantages, from the standpoint of record systems, of concentrating all personnel records in a single office in each department (a point which will subsequently receive attention) it by no means follows that any portion of the actual power should be vested in any hands other than those of the head of the service. ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 153 In the first place, almost all the chiefs of local offices are at the present time purely political appointees of a type peculiarly subject to improper partizan and personal influences. For this reason it may be best at present not to allow them to ex- ercise, uncontrolled by Washington, the power of appoint- ment of their local subordinates. Another factor is that in not a few of the services the local personnel is regarded as eligible for transfer from one locality to another and this is a practice which on all accounts should be encouraged and strengthened. Where this is the case the local personnel is to that extent not merely local but a part of the personnel of the entire service and the discretion of the local officer in the control of this personnel, therefore, may properly be subject to central review. In the light of these considerations, the present practice in retaining the appointment of certain classes of local employees in the hands of the head of the service at Washington, though the initial selection remains with the local officer, seems well advised. Politics and Salary Increases. — One field of personnel ad- ministration in which political, and particularly congressional, influence has traditionally and notoriously been active is that of salary increases within grade, that is, a mere increase of salary not involving a change of duties. There are two rea- sons why this has been a favorite point of attack for those with "influence." The first is that, unlike an appointment, or promotion (that is, a change to higher duties), or transfer, which can ordinarily be agitated only when a vacancy exists, the time has always been seasonable for an increase in salary. Again, in making an appointment, promotion, or transfer, an administrative officer, particularly if the position involves supervisory functions, must have some regard to the capacity for the position of the individual on whose behalf interven- tion is made. In the case of salary increases no such con- sideration need enter. The only administrative considerations which must be heeded are the conservation of appropriations and of the morale of the working force. In both these respects, the federal personnel system has 154 THE FEDERAL SERVICE been fundamentally defective, and still remains so, though the work of the Reclassification Commission, discussed in a subsequent chapter, 1 gives ground for hope that a change is to come. In a well ordered personnel system, there are only certain dates when the question of salary increases can be con- sidered ; and at that time the claims of all must be considered on an equal basis. Moreover, in a well ordered system, there are definite and fairly narrow limits above which the salary paid for any given class of work may not be raised; and such limits are not only defined but enforced by a central inde- pendent authority. It is the absence of such a central definition and enforcement of compensation standards (and the failure, in most cases of departmental officers themselves to apply such standards) that has made it possible for variations of as much as ioo per cent in the compensation paid for the same class of work. Where it is possible for an administrative officer to pay one $2,000 for the same class and grade of service as is being rendered by another for $1,000, it is obvious that an employee who has "influence" has a most powerful in- centive to employ it as actively as possible. The fixation and enforcement of compensation standards, and of procedure for determining on an impartial basis the award of periodic in- creases within the range permitted — matters discussed from the administrative standpoint in subsequent chapters 2 — will end one of the most fertile and pernicious sources of political intervention in the field of personnel. Political Pressure upon Employees by Superior Officers. — Another manner in which political considerations may in- terfere injuriously in personnel matters is that of the coercion of employees by superior officers to render political service in the form of making contributions to the party's campaign chest or the rendition of party aid in other ways. Such coer- cion can be exerted through the withholding of a deserved promotion, salary increase, or favorable assignment in the case of recalcitrancy, or at the worst through a dropping from the rolls. 1 See Chapter VII. 'See Chapter IX and Chapter XV, ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 155 Prohibition of Forced Campaign Contributions. — The dangers inherent in this situation were early recognized. At the outset attention was chiefly directed toward the prevention of forced contributions for political purposes. As is well known, prior to the enactment of legislation on the subject, all federal employees were regularly levied upon by the party in power at every election period. Failure to contribute meant, at best, denial of all deserved promotion or salary in- crease, and, at worst, reduction or removal. The first legislation against political contributions in the civil service was the act of August 15, 1876, which provided that: All executive officers or employees of the United States not appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, are prohibited from requesting, giving to, or receiving from, any other officer or employee of the Govern- ment, any money or property or other thing of value for po- litical purposes; and any such officer or employee, who shall offend against the provisions of this section shall be at once discharged from the service of the United States ; and he shall also be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding $500. It does not appear that this enactment had any particular effect. It will be noted that it did not penalize the action of a presidential appointee who might request or demand con- tributions from his subordinates but only, penalized the action of a subordinate in acceding to such a demand. The slight penalty imposed by the act was hardly calculated to break up a practice so deeply rooted and extensive, nor were the district attorneys, themselves political officers, likely to exert them- selves unduly to enforce these provisions. Not until the enactment of the civil service act in 1883 was an effective statutory prohibition secured. The last five of the 15 sections of the act are devoted wholly to the matter of political contributions, and remain to this day the whole of the federal law on this subject. Of these sections, the most 156 THE FEDERAL SERVICE material for the present purpose are Sections n and 14. Taken together their effect is to prohibit any officer of the United States, legislative, executive, or judicial (except the President) "from soliciting or receiving a contribution from or giving a contribution to any other officer or employee of the United States for any political purpose." Violation of this prohibition is made punishable by a fine not exceeding $5,000 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years. This provision is further enforced, at least morally (for from a practical standpoint the reenforcement is very slight), by the provision (Section 13) "that no officer or em- ployee of the United States mentioned in this act shall dis- charge or promote or degrade or in any manner change the official rank or compensation of any other officer or employee, nor promise or threaten so to do for giving or withholding or neglecting to make any contribution of money or any other valuable thing for any political purpose." From the standpoint of immediate and effective enforce- ment, the penal sanction which Congress attached to these pro- hibitions would doubtless have remained relatively ineffective had it not created at the same time the Civil Service Com- mission. The act provided that the Commission might "make investigation . . . concerning . . . the action of those in the public service in respect to the execution of this act." (Sec- tion 2, 4.) The Commission was thus given authority to investigate all cases of political contributions levied or given in violation of the act, and has displayed from the beginning great persistence and energy in running down any cases of this character brought to its attention. The activities of the Commission brought a considerable, indeed a tremendous, improvement in the situation within a very few years after the enactment of the law. Never since that time have political assessments been levied in the fed- eral service on anything like the scale which prevailed previ- ously. The history has not been one of continuous progress, however. Occasionally with changes of administration or of ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 157 local chief officers conditions have gone backward in one branch or another of the service. On the whole, however, progress has been consistent. It would probably be too much to say that political assessments have been completely and per- manently driven out of the federal service; but even where they may persist or occasionally be revived they are no longer an important factor affecting the dismissal, promotion, etc., of any large body of employees. 1 It is impossible to examine the abstracts of the Commis- sion's investigations of cases of violation of the statutes against political assessments, which are a regular feature of the Commission's annual reports, without being driven strongly to the conclusion that this statute has hardly ever received from district attorneys, or even from the Attorney General, that vigorous and impartial enforcement which is traditionally awarded to all federal statutes. Case after case is to be found in the Commission's records in which a clear and deliberate violation of the statute appears to have been made out, but which, if taken up at all by the Department of Justice, was so feebly handled that either no indictment was secured or an acquittal resulted. The obvious explanation is that the district attorney is generally a member of the same political party as the officer whose prosecution is sought. In view of the record it is at least worth considering whether the Civil Service Commission should not be vested with in- dependent powers of presentation and prosecution on cases of this kind, such power to be exercised by it whenever, in its 1 The effect of the statute was greatly strengthened by the decision handed down in 1913 by the United States Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania in the case of the United States v. Dutro. In this case it was held that if a federal officer received contributions from federal employees and delivered or used them for political purposes, he would be "concerned in receiving" them and would be guilty of violation of the statute. The fact that the defendant "did so without any thought that he was violating any statute and felt that he was acting purely as a conveyor of these contributions to the political parties for whom they were intended, to accommodate those who were making the contributions, and purely as a personal matter" did not absolve him from guilt. The principle appears to be definitely established, therefore, that a defendant may no longer escape punishment by alleging that he received a political contribution as a mere agent or messenger for the purpose of turning it over to a political organization. 158 THE FEDERAL SERVICE judgment, the local prosecuting officer of the government is not wholeheartedly seeking a conviction. Prohibition of Forced Political Services. — Coercion may be exerted by a superior officer not merely to extort a con- tribution from the employee but to extort political service of one kind or another. To coercion of this type the civil serv- ice act offers no effective opposition or restriction, nor has any subsequent statute done so. The act indeed lays down the principle "that no person in the public service is for that rea- son under any obligation to render any political service and that he will not be removed or otherwise prejudiced for re- fusing to do so"; (Section 2, Second, Fifth) and the rules provide that "no person in the executive civil service shall use his official authority or influence for the purpose of in- terfering with an election or affecting the results thereof" (Rule I, 1), a provision which has been interpreted by the Commission as prohibiting a superior officer from requesting or requiring the rendition of any political service or the per- formance of political work of any sort by subordinates. But there is no penal sanction behind this will, and its effective enforcement depends upon the desire of the President and the department heads to cooperate. To what extent employees are actually called upon by po- litical superiors to perform political service it is difficult to say. In view, however, of the relatively insignificant num- ber of complaints on this hand which reach the Commission, it seems fairly clear that violations of the rule are relatively infrequent. Like the local federal prosecuting officers, the depart- mental authorities also have too frequently displayed an ex- cessive tenderness towards the superior officer who has been detected by the Commission in a violation of the law prohibit- ing political assessments or of the rule prohibiting political discrimination. The Commission consequently, on several oc- casions, has recommended to the President that the rules be so amended as to make it mandatory upon the departments to act in accordance with the recommendation of the Commission ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 159 in any matter involving the violation of these provisions of the law and rules, such recommendation to be subject to re- view only by the President. It is hard to see any objection to this proposal. It is not open to the exception which may be taken to the injection of an outside body into the matter of removals or punishments in the service generally, as dividing responsibility for administration. Here the responsibility for the enforcement of the law and rules is primarily upon the Civil Service Commission. Indeed, it is rather the present arrangement which divides responsibility in that while the Commission is supposed to be responsible for the enforcement of the law and rules it has no effective means of discharging that responsibility but is at the mercy of the departmental officers. Prohibition of Coercion by Persons Outside the Service. — Manifestly the official superiors of an employee are not the only persons in a position to coerce him to make political contributions or to render other political service. Equally ef- fective is coercion exercised by a person not holding any of- ficial position but known by the employee to be of authority or power in the party organization to which the political superior officer belongs. A. threat of demotion or dismissal or a promise of promotion by such an individual would be fully as effective a means of coercing the employee as a threat or promise by the superior officer himself. It might be thought, therefore, that Congress had extended to the employee the same statutory protection against the pos- • sibility of coercion by persons of this type that it has against coercion by superior officers. The only statutory provision, however, which condemns such coercion is that of the civil service act, "that no person shall in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by any officer or employee of the United States mentioned in this act or in any navy yard, fort, or arsenal, solicit in any manner whatever or receive any contribution of money or any other thing of value for any political purpose whatever." (Section 12.) Both the Courts and the Commission have given to this 160 THE FEDERAL SERVICE prohibition the widest possible interpretation; 1 but by no stretch of interpretation can it be extended to cover a visit by the party worker to the employee at his home. The Commission has recommended repeatedly to Congress a statute which would prohibit the solicitation of a political contribution from an officer or employee in the Government by any person whatsoever, but the proposal has never received any consideration from Congress. The enactment would seem to be plainly called for, and should cover, moreover, the solici- tation of political service of any kind. Restrictions on Voluntary Political Activity. — In contrast to the question of the coercion of the employee into rendering political contributions or service, the question of the restric- tions, if any, which shall be placed upon his voluntary activities is indeed a difficult one. The line between contributions or service rendered as the result of coercion and that which is really voluntary may be and often is impossible to draw. No word of threat or promise may be spoken by the superior officer, yet the employee may know perfectly well that a contribution or activity on his part will earn its due reward and conversely that failure to contribute, or inactivity, 'The Commission by a minute adopted March 23, 1897, held that addressing a letter to a government employee in a government building soliciting political contributions is a solicitation in that building within the meaning of section 12 of the civil service act, and in this opinion was sus- tained by the advice of eminent counsel (See 14th Report, pp, 147-155), but notwithstanding numerous violations no opportunity arose of having the question judicially determined until 19x17, when an indictment was obtained against Edward S. Thayer at Dallas, Texas. A demurrer was interposed to the indictment and was sustained on the ground that the act required the personal presence in the government building of the solicitor. Appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, and the judgment of the lower court was reversed. (United States v. Thayer, 209 U. S., 39.) The opinion of the court, which was delivered by Justice Holmes on March 9, 1908, establishes definitely the proposition that solicitation by letter or circular addressed to and delivered by mail or otherwise to an officer or employee of the United States at the office or building in which he is employed in the discharge of his official duties is a solicitation "in a room or building" within the meaning of .this section, the solicitation taking place where the letter was received. (See also United States v. Smith, 163 Fed. 926, where the letter was personally delivered.) The Commission holds that the sending through the mails of letters to government employees soliciting contributions, and omitting the street or home address from the envelopes with the result that the letters are delivered by the postal authorities in the government building in which they are employed, constitutes a violation of this section. ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 161 will bring swift and sure retribution. So long, therefore, as the chief officers are political appointees, particularly in local offices, it is next to impossible to be sure that any political activity on an employee's part is purely voluntary — that is to say, is rendered without any prospect or hope of reward or any fear of punishment. Consequently, in the attempt completely to eliminate poli- tics from public personnel systems, the only practicable course has seemed to many to be virtually complete prohibition of political activity on the part of non-political employees. This radical step was taken in the federal service in 1907, when the rules were amended by President Roosevelt to provide that "persons ... in the competitive classified service while retaining the right to vote and to express privately their opin- ions on all political subjects shall take no active part in political management or in political campaigns," x and by subsequent *This rule is subject to the following exceptions: "Whenever in the opinion of the Secretary of the Navy a strict enforcement of the pro- visions of section 1, Rule I, of the civil service rules would influence the result of a local election the issue of which materially affects the local welfare of the Government employees in the vicinity of any navy yard or station, the Civil Service Commission may, on recommendation of the Secretary of the Navy, and after such investigation as it may deem neces- sary, permit the active participation of the employees of the yard or station in such local election. In the exercise of the privilege which may be conferred hereunder, persons affected must not neglect their official duties nor cause public scandal by their activity." (Executive Order, May 14, 1909.) "Employees of the executive civil service permanently residing in the following incorporated municipalities adjacent to the District of Columbia will not be prohibited from becoming candidates for or holding municipal office in such corporations : "In Maryland — Takoma Park, Kensington, Garrett Park, Chevy Chase, Glen Echo, Hyattsville, Mount Rainier, Somerset, Capitol Heights, Laurel. "In Virginia — Falls Church, Vienna, Herndon. "Employees of the executive civil service, qualified to vote at a munici- pal election of the town of North Beach, Maryland (a summer resort, practically uninhabited during eight months of the year, and inhabited during the other four months almost exclusively by residents of Washing- ton), will not be prohibited from becoming candidates for or holding municipal office in or under such town of North Beach, Maryland. "This order, which is recommended by the Civil Service Commission, is based upon the facts that a considerable number of the residents and taxpayers of the towns mentioned are employed in the Government service, that service as municipal officers in such town should in no way involve general partisan political activity, and that the principle of home rule and local self-government justifies such participation." (Executive Order, February 14, 1912, as amended by Orders of May 5, 1914, May 26, 1914, and March 9, 1818.) 162 THE FEDERAL SERVICE departmental regulations similar limitations have been placed on unclassified laborers. Pursuant to its general power to "make investigations and report upon all matters touching the enforcement and effect of said rules," the Civil Service Commission, since 1907, has investigated scores of cases of political activity. In these in- vestigations the phrase "active part in political management or in political campaigns" has been given a very wide mean- ing by the Commission. Some of the forms of activity which the Commission has thus held to be forbidden by this pro- vision of the rule are : 1. Candidacy for service as delegate, alternate, or proxy in any political convention or as an officer or employee of the same. 2. Service on or for any political committee or similar organization. 3. Service in preparing for, organizing, or conducting a political meeting or rally, addressing such a meeting, or taking any other active part in the same. 4. Engaging in political discussions or conferences while on duty or in public places. 5. Canvassing a district or soliciting political support for any party, faction, candidate, or measure. 6. Offensive activity at primary and regular elections, soliciting votes, assisting voters to mark ballots, or in getting out the voters on registration or election days, acting as accredited checker, watcher, or challenger of any party or faction or assisting in counting the vote or engaging in any other activity at the polls except the marking and depositing of his own ballot. 7. Rendering service for pay, such as transporting voters to and from the polls and candidates on convassing tours even though rendered without regard to political party. 8. Service as an election officer, except in positions in which refusal to serve is penalized by the election law of the state. 9. Connection editorially, managerially, or financially with any po- litical newspaper or writing for publication or publishing any letter or article, signed or unsigned, in favor of or against any political party, candidate or faction, or measure. 10. Soliciting, collecting, receiving, or otherwise handling or dis- bursing political contributions. 11. Candidacy for a nomination or for election to any national, state, county, or municipal office. 1 1 The actual holding of local office prohibited by Executive Order of January 17, 1873, is applicable to all federal employees, including presi- dential appointees and laborers. The order is as follows : ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 163 12. Betting or wagering upon the results of primary and general elections. 13. Service as a legislative agent or lobbyist and all activities in connection with direct legislation and proposed constitutional or statutory provisions, national or state, and with proposed municipal ordinances, regulations, and other enactments. 14. Distributing campaign literature, badges or buttons and wearing such badges or buttons while on duty. 15. Circulating political petitions. 16. Accepting political leadership or becoming prominently identified with any political movement, party or faction. r- "J"? " 8 h ° ldin S any federal civil office by appointment under the Constitution and laws of the United States will be expected, while holding such office, not to accept or hold any office under any State or Territorial government, or under the charter or ordinances of any municipal corpora- c?" ; a ,£ d ' further, that the acceptance or continued holding of any such State, territorial, or municipal office, whether elective or by appointment, by any person holding civil office as aforesaid under the Government of u T V n - j States - other than judicial offices under the Constitution of the United States, will be deemed a vacation of the federal office held by such person, and will be taken to be and will be treated as a resignation by such federal officers of his commission or appointment in the service of the United States." By this order and by a supplementary order issued January 28, 1873, the following local offices are excepted from the rule : 1. Offices of justices of the peace, or notaries public, and of com- missioners to take acknowledgment of deeds, of bail, or to administer oaths. 2. Deputy marshals of the United States, when these offices are con- ferred upon sheriffs or deputy sheriffs. 3. Positions and service on boards of education, school committees, public libraries, religious, or eleemosynary institutions incorporated or established or sustained by state or municipal authority. 4. Officers of the state or territorial militia. 5. Unpaid service in local or municipal fire departments. By subsequent orders the following have also been excepted : 1. Employees on Indian reservations, appointed under state authority as deputy sheriffs or constables, as the requirements of the service demand. 2. Small salaried positions in municipal fire departments. 3. State and territorial positions by officers and employees of the Department of Agriculture if deemed necessary by the Secretary of Agri- culture to secure a more efficient administration (Executive Order, June 26, 1907). 4. Special agencies under the Bureau of the Census when conferred upon state and county officials for the collection of cotton statistics (Executive Order, Aug. 4, 1909). 5. Temporary office of moderator of a town meeting and offices of a like character (Executive Order, Aug. 24, 1912). 6. Deputy state fish or game wardens' positions, without compensa- tion, if conferred upon employees of the Reclamation Service and the National Park Service, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior (Executive Order, July 9, 1914)- 7. Appointments of employees of the Treasury Department, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, on state, county, or municipal councils of defense for purposes of mobilizing and conserving the re- sources of the country (Executive Order, April 14, 1917). 164 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The rule does not prohibit employees in the classified serv- ice from: i. Attendance as spectators at conventions, attending and voting at primary meetings, caucuses, political committees, and similar occasions provided the employees do not participate in the deliberations, address them, act as officers, or take a prominent part in the same. 2. Membership in political clubs provided the employees are not officers, committee members, or delegates or representatives to other organizations. 3. Making political contributions to any committee, organization, or person not employed by the United States. 4. Candidacy of an employee for promotion or transfer to an un- classified office, with the consent of his department, provided he does not use his official authority or influence in political matters, neglects his duty, causes public scandal, or semblance of coercion upon his fellow employees. The rule does not specifically prohibit classified employees from making contributions for political purposes, and the Commission has not interpreted it as embracing such con- tributions. Nor has the Commission ever recommended that the rule be so extended. It is difficut to see, however, why the actual contribution of cash does not fall more clearly under the head of "active part in political management or in po- litical campaigns" than do some of the things proscribed by the Commission. The failure of President Roosevelt to include the making of political contributions in the rule is doubtless to be explained by the fact that what appears to have been in his mind was principally the prevention of a public display of partisanship by the employee which he regarded as unseemly, rather than the suppression of political influence in the administration of the personnel system itself. It is interesting to note that in a letter to the Civil Service Commission under date of June 13, 1902, in which he first laid down in almost identical wording the principle which he afterwards incorporated into the rule, President Roosevelt advanced as the reason for prohibiting classified employees from political activity merely that they were "precisely the ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 165 same reasons that a judge, an army officer, a regular soldier, or a policeman is debarred from taking such active part." To point out the fundamental respects in which the ordinary clas- sified employee differs from a judge, or from any member of the armed forces of the state, in his relation to the political government, would be to expound the obvious. It is believed that so far as classified employees are concerned the only real justification for the drastic prohibition of political activity now found is the need for the complete suppression of all possi- bilities of the entrance of political factors. Did not the rea- son here advanced exist, that is to say, were the personnel system so thoroughly safeguarded from politics that political activity on the part of the employee could redound in no pos- sible way to his advantage in the service or the failure to be politically active work to his disadvantage, it is difficult to see why there would be any impropriety in an engineer, a phy- sician, a clerk or any other non-political employee of the fed- eral government taking fully as active a part in political life as any other citizen. Looked at from any angle, the limitations upon the rights of political activity now enforced in the federal service are an extremely severe infringement upon the personal liberty of the employee and are to be justified only by the overpowering necessities of the personnel system. The mere appearance of unseemliness would hardly constitute sufficient ground upon which to abrogate the political rights of several hundred thou- sand citizens. The Civil Service Commission from the first has been a staunch supporter of the rule under discussion, as may be judged from the comprehensive meaning which it has given to the term "active part in political management or political campaigns." The Commission has never published an ex- press statement of the reasons which it believes to justify the rule. It is believed, however, that were such a statement to be issued, the Commission's endorsement would rest rather upon the grounds here taken — the impossibility in the political conditions now surrounding the service of preventing coercion 166 THE FEDERAL SERVICE by superior officers by any means other than this rule — rather than upon the grounds apparently had in mind by President Roosevelt in promulgating the order. So long as the chief officers of the government, especially in the local establishments, continue to be selected upon a po- litical basis instead of upon merit, and so long as adequate procedures, particularly in the field of promotion, salary in- crease, removal, demotion, and the like have not been developed in the service to minimize the possibility that these processes ■will be governed by political considerations, it is difficult to see how the present restrictions on the political activity of classi- fied employees can be dispensed with without grave danger of a gradual but certain return of that political influence which the enforcement of this rule had undoubtedly done a great deal to suppress. The rule is thus to be regarded at the present time as a necessary evil.' The removal of all restrictions upon the political activities of employees is one of the demands of the National Federation of Federal Employees. It is not, however, a demand which has been or is likely to be pressed vigorously ; and one gathers the impression that it has been placed in the Federation's program rather as an expression of a sentimental objection on the part of the employees to any restrictions upon their political rights as citizens than to a well defined intention to effect their removal. Similarly the so-called reconstruction program of the American Federation of Labor, adopted at its annual con- vention in 1919, declared that public employees "must not be limited to the exercise of their rights as citizens." No prac- tical step has yet been taken, however, by either organization for the abrogation of present restrictions. In addition to the restrictions upon the activity of classi- fied employees and unclassified laborers there are certain re- strictions enforced upon the political activity even of the po- litical officers of the Government (other than those bearing upon the coercion of subordinates already reviewed). These regulations, which are in the form of executive orders, have a moral rather than a legal force. Their main purpose is to ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 167 prevent the exhibition by federal office holders of "offensive partisanship." Into a discussion of these regulations or canons of conduct it is not relevant to enter here ; for they are intended not to safeguard the personnel system, but rather to maintain the proper relation of the political administration to the citi- zenship. PART II THE PROBLEM OF FEDERAL PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION CHAPTER VI INTRODUCTION The technical, positive problem of personnel administra- tion in the federal service is, in many respects, merely a spe- cial phase of the general problem of personnel administration, as encountered in all large organizations, private as well as governmental. In public services, however, there are certain factors not encountered in private enterprises ; and in the tech- nical branches of the federal service special factors are pres- ent that are not encountered in states or municipalities. No program of personnel administration for the federal service can be successful which ignores these factors, and an attempt to force upon the service personnel methods derived from other and dissimilar fields, without giving due weight to these spe- cial factors, is doomed to failure. Special Factors in the Federal Personnel Problem,- — The need of shaping the methods of recruitment primarily with an eye to excluding political considerations in selection common to all public personnel systems, and the need still found in the federal service of safeguarding the exercise of administrative discretion in all other personnel matters, are not the sole re- spects in which the problem in the federal service differs from that of private enterprise. The absence of the profit factor in governmental operations is a prime difference. On the one hand, this makes for a less vigorous and ruthless appli- cation of the principles and methods dictated by an impersonal 1 68 INTRODUCTION 169 calculation of operating efficiency. The tendency, unless spe- cial measures are taken to combat it, will be for the admin- istrative officer in the public service to be influenced more largely by consideration for the employee than by considera- tion for the good of the service, if the two come into conflict. From still another standpoint the absence of the element of profit is of primary importance. The commercial enterprise in a competitive field must maintain a certain standard of ef- ficiency, which implies a certain standard of personnel, or it will cease to exist. Hence a private enterprise in a competi- tive field may not reduce the attractiveness of the conditions of service below the prevailing level without losing its better personnel and facing failure. A public service, however, may continue to exist almost indefinitely despite a sub-standard personnel. The public service thus possesses no automatic check against the development and persistence of sub-standard conditions; and such a development must consequently be ex- pressly and planfully guarded against. The monopolistic nature of many of the activities of the public service, which is especially characteristic of the federal service is another closely related matter. In competitive pri- vate enterprise if the conditions of employment become un- favorable, the better employees find other places, and thus a symptom becomes apparent which generally leads to correction. In many branches of the federal organization no such general withdrawal takes place. The personnel of long service in those organizations., however valuable to the government and how- ever deserving of reward at its hands, may be retained almost indefinitely, if the government chooses, though not, of course, at a maximum of usefulness, despite wholly unjust conditions of employment, simply because these employees have no other market for their peculiar experience. Unless special provi- sion is made to prevent such a development, these classes of employees in a public service almost invariably suffer in their conditions of employment over a long period as compared with those classes of employees whose experience in the public serv- ice is an asset, or at least not a liability, in the business world. 170 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The failure to take such special measures in the federal service is reflected in the wholly unjust relative conditions of com- pensation prevailing in the administrative and specialized cler- ical as opposed to the mechanical and labor positions in the federal service. The political appointment and the resulting short and un- certain tenure of the heads and assistant heads of the executive departments and of many of the bureau chiefs and local chief officers is a factor which makes of particular importance a principle of personnel administration which should control in all large organizations, whether public or private. Too much reliance should not be placed upon unwritten law, which leaves the shaping of practice and procedure largely in the hands of the administrative officer. If a practice has proved its worth, it should be published with due formality and made of per- manent record and should be regarded as constituting a part of the understanding of the management with the employees as to the conditions of employment, to be changed or departed from thereafter, especially if in any way unfavorable from the employees' standpoint, only for compelling reasons and under proper conditions of publicity. Because of the brevity of tenure of the political administrative officers and the need for protection against political influences and for enlisting pub- lic confidence in the fairness of the system, a greater degree of formalization of method may be required in respect to cer- tain personnel practices in the federal service than would be required in the case of private organizations. A further factor which distinguishes the problem of pub- lic employment from that of private employment is the popular feeling, deeply rooted, that the administration of the public personnel system should work with justice and fairness towards all members of the community. The outstanding phase of this belief is that every one has an equal right to enter public employment, and that consequently the methods of selection must be such as will not merely insure the selection of the most capable, but give to every person an equal opportunity to demonstrate his qualifications and to receive recognition in INTRODUCTION 171 exact accordance therewith. Not only in the matter of ap- pointment does this feeling manifest itself. In every phase of public personnel administration, in promotion, transfer, lay-off, and the like, it is equally general. Closely related to, and yet quite distinct from the require- ment of obvious distributive justice is the principle that in the selection of personnel for service at Washington the se- vere political divisions of the country should be given equal or proportional recognition. This principle has long had recognition in the federal personnel system, having been pre- scribed by the civil service law. In existing practice the state is the unit employed in thus apportioning geographically the posts at Washington, but the proposal has even been pressed that each Congressional district should be recognized as a distinct claimant for a share. There are doubtless reasons why the recruitment of federal employees at Washington too exclusively from certain sections of the country is undesirable, but it is equally obvious that if pushed beyond reasonable lim- its, this desire to apportion the membership of the adminis- trative personnel geographically may become a serious obstacle to efficient personnel administration. At its proper place the existing practice of the government in this respect is examined fully. Here it is desired merely to point to this as an addi- tional element which complicates the problem of federal per- sonnel administration. Finally, it is not sufficient merely that the personnel meth- ods of the government should work substantial justice as be- tween aspirants for appointment or promotion. The fact that they do so work must be made apparent to the public ; a gen- eral belief must be developed that the methods employed are as impersonal and fair as they are in fact. Such a belief is vitally necessary to the fullest development of the federal per- sonnel system. Without it the service loses immensely in its attractiveness to the self-respecting worker. Nothing is more trying to the government employee than to encounter in his daily contacts a belief that the system of which he is a part is overrun, or even tainted, with favoritism and injustice. 172 THE FEDERAL SERVICE That this belief may be without real foundation hardly makes its existence any less distasteful. Even more serious perhaps is its effect on recruitment. Unquestionably able applicants have been deterred in many cases from attempting to enter the federal service by an obscure feeling, generally arising from no just cause, that the cards, so to speak, were stacked against the applicant who possessed no "friend" or "backing." Hence in the formulation of federal personnel practice it is not enough that the methods laid down should insure fair- ness and impersonal judgment as between individuals. It is almost equally essential that all operations be conducted in the light of the fullest and freest publicity, so that all per- sons, whether applicants, employees, or merely interested mem- bers of the public may at all times satisfy themselves that the regulations and procedures laid down are being observed in fact. This fairly obvious requirement is here stressed with what may seem unnecessary length. The reason is that it has been, of all the non-technical requirements of a sound federal personnel system, the most sadly neglected up to the present time. The last and perhaps most fundamental difference between the federal service and private enterprise that requires special comment is that in private enterprise the higher officers are generally selected solely because of their capacity for their work and hence can safely be entrusted with a large meas- ure of authority in selecting and promoting their subordinate employees; whereas in the federal service they are often se- lected because of their past work for their political party, and if entrusted with authority in selecting and promoting the employees under their jurisdiction they will be guided more by the interests of the party than by the needs of the under- taking. So long as this method of selecting upper officers on political grounds is permitted to continue, the methods of personnel administration in the government service must dif- fer radically from the methods used in private enterprise. The complete revision of the compensation standards now prevailing for the important executive positions in the fed- INTRODUCTION 173 eral service and their more or less close assimilation to the standards prevailing for similar positions in private industry is an indispensable prerequisite to the improvement of the caliber of the executive personnel. But this alone will by no means be sufficient. Only if all the conditions of employment are correct, and particularly the conditions respecting security of tenure and congeniality of work, will the proper material for important executive positions be recruited and retained. To men and women of this type a large freedom of action, with a commensurate responsibility for results, is the chief ele- ment of attractiveness in their employment. As has been pointed out already, the basis upon which the entire federal administrative structure has been more or less consistently reared — that of detailed prescription by Congress, months in advance, of innumerable minutiae of administrative detail, and the centralization of responsibility for all final decisions at the highest practicable point in the administrative hierarchy — has a diametrically opposite tendency. Not until a thor- oughgoing reform has been effected on both these heads will the executive administrative positions in the federal service compete with those in industry in attractiveness to persons of the executive type. The Aim and Scope of Personnel Administration. — The aim of personnel administration may be defined as the recruit- ment of capable workers and their retention under conditions which will develop their maximum usefulness. From this obvious definition flows equally obviously the necessity, on the one hand, for establishing such conditions of employment as will attract to and retain in the service the class of personnel desired, and will maintain their zeal and good will; and on the other, for the use by the directing personnel of such meth- ods in recruitment, assignment, transfer, promotion, and re- moval of the employees under their direction as will insure that each individual is placed to the best advantage. Of these two phases, the first, relating to conditions of employment, may be termed the substantive and the second, relating to meth- ods of administration, the adjective. The first is fundamental. 174 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Unless the basic conditions of employment involving compen- sation, working time, opportunity for congenial work and advancement, security of tenure, protection against arbitrary action by superiors, and other like elements, are sound, no refinement of technique on the part of the personnel admin- istrator can save the personnel system from mediocrity, if not f rom, substantial failure. The methods of personnel administration, moreover, are themselves a part of the conditions of employment. Com- pensation and working time standards, methods of selecting for reassignment and promotion are of little value unless skillfully applied and administered ; and security of tenure and safeguards against arbitrary action, designed for the benefit of the efficient and loyal employee, in feeble or unskilled hands, may become a shield for the shirker and malingerer, resulting in a clogging of the service with deadwood and a basic impair- ment of its attractiveness to the desirable type of employee. Hence it is impracticable in examining the problem of per- sonnel administration, particularly as it presents itself in so large a system as the federal service, to consider separately the questions of employment conditions and of personnel meth- ods. With respect to each part of the personnel problem they must be considered concurrently. Procedure in Developing a Proper Personnel System. — In seeking to arrange the several parts of the personnel prob- lem for orderly presentation, it is difficult, if not impossible, to discover a sequence in which each part is based wholly on what precedes and is, in turn, fundamental to what follows. The various phases of a personnel system react upon each other. It seems best, therefore, to approach them in the order in which one would proceed were one planning, in advance of any actual execution, a theoretically complete personnel system and formulating all the principles and practices which should govern its operation. Needless to say, a personnel system is seldom if ever ac- tually thus developed. In most large organizations the sys- tem of personnel, like other phases of administration, is shaped INTRODUCTION 175 by current determinations, made in response to what seem to be current needs ; and when a particular defect appears a rem- edy is applied that may or may not be sufficiently general in scope adequately to correct the difficulty. Such has been pre- eminently the history of the federal system. On that account, doubtless, it will be all the more useful to approach the cur- rent system from the theoretical point of view, and thus to develop most clearly the manner and the extent of its diver- gence for the theoretical ideal. The first step in the construction of a well ordered per- sonnel system is the systematic classification of the personnel required and the determination of the compensation to be at- tached to each class. The next step is to determine which of the positions listed is normally to be filled by recruitment from outside the service, and which by selection from within the service, whether by promotion or transfer. This question of selection from within as opposed to recruitment from without is perhaps the most basic of all the general questions which the construction of a personnel system presents. Upon its solution will depend in greater or less degree the decision taken on each of the other major questions presented. Once settled, the methods and practices to be followed in applying each of these two methods of selection must be determined. After positions are assumed to be filled, the next question is what practices shall be adopted to stimulate the individual worker to zeal and productivity; and the cognate question of the measures to be taken to check positive inefficiency or mis- conduct. Next is the question, related to the last, but quite distinct from it, of the system to be provided to relieve the service of those disabled through age or accident. Finally, the question is presented of the measures which may be taken to elevate the general level of interest, health, contentment, and technical efficiency. These constitute the primary, positive problems of personnel administration, each more or less dis- tinct yet each intimately bound up with the others. Of no less importance than the development of the prin- ciples to be applied to each of the problems thus defined is the 176 THE FEDERAL SERVICE determination of who shall be charged with their formulation and application. To what extent should Congress itself at- tempt to do this, and to what extent should it be left to the President, to a central personnel agency, or to the depart- ments? And, in the case of each authority, to what extent should the body of the personnel itself, whether acting through officially constituted organs, or through organizations stand- ing outside of the official structure, be consulted with or given a share in the determination? The Problem of Personnel Control. — The need for the establishment of means of controlling administrative officers in respect to the appointment, promotion, or dismissal of em- ployees with a view to eliminating political and personnel administrators has been pointed out. The aggregate of such restrictions frequently goes by the name of civil service con- trol. Since such civil service control is negative and restric- tive, it obviously should be limited to what is strictly neces- sary. What those limits are will depend upon factors which differ from service to service and from time to time, such as the state of political morality, the character of the chief ad- ministrators and the method of their selection, and the im- portance of the work to be accomplished by the subordinate personnel. The degree of civil service control necessary at any particular point in the personnel system is thus variable. Unfortunately, civil service control, necessarily based upon laws, rules, and regulations, tends to become static and fixed, so that it is exercised for a considerable time after the con- ditions which called it forth have changed or disappeared. So long as its extent is substantially proportionate to the dangers of political and personal favoritism to be overcome, it ad- vances correct personnel administration; but once restrictive control goes beyond this point, it becomes a hindrance. The delimitation and the current readjustment of the proper boundaries of civil service control thus present one of the most difficult problems of public personnel administration ; and it can be solved only by a careful and continuing study of the actual conditions of political life which the civil service INTRODUCTION 177 control is designed to meet. In the present study of the fed- eral personnel system no attempt is made to define a priori the precise degree of such control which should be imposed. The effort is rather to study, in connection with each point of per- sonnel procedure at which political favoritism may enter, the past, present, and probable future conditions of political pres- sure at that point, and to make recommendations for civil service control accordingly. The Need for Special Organization for Personnel Ad- ministration. — A final characteristic of the problem of personnel administration, often lost sight of in public em- ployment, though gaining increasing recognition in private enterprise, is that it calls for specialized attention on the part of officers specifically designated for the work. Necessarily, of course, the final decision in matters of personnel must rest largely with the administrator responsible for results. He cannot be held responsible if he is compelled to employ peo- ple whom he deems unsuitable, or if he is unduly restrained from exercising his own discretion in promoting, removing, disciplining, and otherwise controlling the employees under his direction. In personnel administration, however, much more than this is needed. The administrative officer is prone to regard the employees under his jurisdiction merely as in- strumentalities for producing results. He does not have time or frequently, natural bent, to view them as potential re- sources of the service, whose development for higher useful- ness in the service is always to be kept in mind equally with their present utility. Nor is he likely to give sufficient con- sideration to the purely personal and human aspects of the matter, the desire of the employee for advancement, and his dissatisfaction with his employment conditions. Hence, he is as likely as not to overlook opportunities for devel- oping latent material and for adding to the contentment and happiness, and hence to the morale of the service. Nor in the formulation of personnel policies does he always consider long-time values for the service as a whole, as against im- mediate results. 178 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The employment manager or personnel manager, now so commonly found in private enterprise, has come into being, to give special consideration to personnel matters, in respect both to general policies and to actions affecting individuals. The specific functions entrusted to the employment depart- ment of a large private enterprise, and its organization within the several operating divisions of the enterprise, are matters which vary widely from one concern to another. But the gen- eral theory on which the expenditure for the services of the employment manager and his assistants is justified is the same — that it furnishes the necessary additional assurance that in the desire for immediate results in production, the interests of the enterprise in a well trained, advantageously assigned per- sonnel shall not be neglected. In the federal service, as will appear in the discussion of the specific aspects of personnel administration contained in the following chapters, the need for the employment, or per- sonnel manager, as herein conceived, as yet has received vir- tually no recognition. Some officers have titles which appar- ently imply that their function is that of an employment man- ager, but on examination it is usually found that their duties are confined to the maintenance of personnel records and to insistence on the observance of the rules and regulations re- garding their performance. Changes in practice and procedure are suggested at not a few points in the following pages. In hardly any cases can the advantages of the method proposed be realized merely by an amendment to the formal rules and regulations. They are the fruit only of consistent and zealous effort by an officer studious to improve the employment system. Unless the function of employment management is substantially developed in the federal service many otherwise curable defects will remain. On the other hand, should that development take place, a substantial improvement will unquestionably result, not merely in those respects to which attention is called in the succeeding chapters but over the whole field of personnel administration. INTRODUCTION tft Although in private practice the function of employment management is usually entrusted to a single individual who makes it his sole concern, it is by no means indispensable that such should be the case. In the federal service, doubtless, much can be accomplished merely by developing special com- mittees and bodies of administrative officers, either for formu- lating policies respecting personnel or for taking action in matters affecting particular individuals. The essential point is to make the function of personnel management distinct from operating administration and to develop a separate organiza- tion for the performance of that function, whether by utiliz- ing existing officers or by engaging special officers for this particular purpose. CHAPTER VII THE CLASSIFICATION AND STANDARDIZATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES The fundamental basis of an efficient public personnel sys- tem is a logical and systematic classification and standardiza- tion of all positions comprehended by such a system and of the compensations attaching to the several positions therein set forth. By this is meant that there must be established by statute or administrative action a formal enumeration of all positions required in order that the activities of the govern- ment to which it relates may be properly performed, with a description of the duties and responsibilities of each position, the qualifications required of its incumbent and the compen- sation attaching to it; that these several positions shall be classified in groups and sub-groups according to their charac- ter and within which they must be graded according to the relative degrees of experience, skill, and responsibilities re- quired of their holders; and, finally, that provision be made for the current revision of this classification as need therefor arises. Not until this is done, and done properly, is it pos- sible to handle in a satisfactory manner any of the major problems of personnel administration, recruitment, promotion, allocation of duties, determination of personnel needs, etc. In a small undertaking the determination of the qualifica- tions, duties, and compensation is commonly and satisfactorily made whenever occasion arises for filling a vacancy, making a promotion, or increasing a salary. In these cases the de- termining factor is the value attached to the services of the individual involved. As the organization expands, this method usually persists. It soon becomes apparent, however, that, despite the seeming common sense of this method, it results 180 CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 181 in wide variations in compensation for the same work and in undue discrepancies between the pay for different kinds of work. It is then found that, if these inequalities are to be avoided, the compensation rates to be attached to each posi- tion must be determined on the basis of duties of positions without regard to the individuals occupying them. A lin> ited variation in the precise pay for a position may be made, of course, to provide for clearly defined variations in efficiency and length of service, but the rates established and the re- quirements in respect to efficiency and length of service must be made without regard to any particular individual. As the organization becomes larger and its activities more varied it becomes increasingly necessary to fix compensation on the basis of duties and to determine and classify positions on this basis, if anything like substantial justice is to be done between individual employees and compensation rates are to conform to the character of work and responsibilities involved. Finally the time arrives when, if an efficient personnel system is to exist, it is imperative that a systematic classification and stand- ardization of all positions and salaries, as above set forth, shall be made. Especially is this so in a government where all personnel provisions, in the final instance, must be deter- mined by or have the approval of a legislative body. In the case of no undertaking or government in the world is the need for such a standardized classification of positions and compensation greater than in that of the national govern- ment of the United States. This results from the magnitude of its operations and the variety of its activities. It is thus a matter of great moment to determine the extent to which this fundamental requirement of an efficient personnel system has been met. Legislative Determination of Positions and Salaries: The Statutory Roll. — It needs but a minute's inspection of the personnel system now in existence to reveal that hardly a beginning has been made in this direction. To begin with the first requisite to the establishment of such a system is that uniformity shall exist in respect to the determination of the 182 THE FEDERAL SERVICE positions that shall be provided for and the compensation that shall attach to such positions. This uniformity is wholly lacking in the federal system. In some cases Congress itself attempts directly to determine the number, character, and com- pensation of positions. In others it leaves this to adminis- trative authorities, subject to varying limitations. The positions for which Congress establishes by statute the precise number at each title and compensation, although constituting but a small fraction of the federal service, are very numerous, embracing most of the important positions, and a host of minor ones. The positions of the heads and assistant heads of departments, services, and bureaus, local chief officers and a few other important positions, are gener- ally established x in the first instance by permanent acts, us- ually the organic acts relating to the service in which they fall. The salary rates fixed in such acts, however, are annually confirmed and occasionally altered by the annual appropriation acts in which provision is made for the payment of those salaries. Minor positions which Congress establishes by statute may be created in the organic acts or they may be provided for only in the annual appropriation acts. Legally considered, posi- tions established by appropriation acts only have no perma- nent existence but are confirmed from year to year. The following, taken from the act making appropriations for the sundry civil expenses of the government for the fiscal year 1919, illustrates the method of statutory establishment of positions by appropriation acts : Employees' Compensation Commission: Salaries: Three commissioners at $4,000 each; secretary and solicitor, $3,000; 'In the case of some of the local chief officers the statutes create a distinct position for each local establishment. Thus, there is not a general class of positions of "collectors of customs" established by Congress, but the position of Collector of Customs at the Port of New York, Collector of Customs at the Port of Boston, etc. In other cases, the statute merely creates a number of identical positions (the number being either fixed or to be varied by the President within limits) without designating the localities to which such positions must be assigned. Such is the case with collectors of internal revenue. (See Revised Statutes, Sees. 3141, 3142, and act of August IS, 18^6, 19 Stat. 152.) CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 183 chief statistician, $3,500 ; disbursing agent, $2,000 ; claim ex- aminers—chief, $2,250, assistant, $1,800, two assistants at $1,600 each; special agents — one, $1,800, two at $1,600 each; clerks — four of class three, eight of class two, eight of class one, two at $1,000 each; messenger, $840; telephone oper- ator, $720; in all, $63,510. In the higher levels of the service, as already indicated, almost all positions are statutory. With respect to positions below these levels, however, it is impossible to define with precision the principle which Congress, in framing appropria- tion acts, employs in selecting the positions to be placed on a statutory basis. Wide variations in practice are found, im- possible to explain on any consistent basis. In general it may be said, though there are exceptions even here, that it is the practice for Congress to establish by law all the positions, however minor, attached to the office of the head of a department or bureau. In the operating divisions of the several bureaus and services, including the whole of their field organizations, specific positions, other than heads and deputy heads of local offices, are seldom established by statute. In a few of the field services, however, the specification of "statutory" positions for each field station or office in the same detail as that employed for the central offices at Wash- ington is followed. No computation of the precise number of positions spe- cifically established by Congress is available ; probably 20,000 would not be over the mark. The Reclassification Commis- sion found that in the Book of Estimates for 1920 the posi- tions in the Washington service established by statute carry 583 different titles. These positions are found in every branch of the service. Manifestly, Congress, in establishing these positions, if it is to do its work properly, should be guided by a standard schedule of classes in which the duties of each class are defined, and an appropriate title and com- pensation rate attached to each. Manifestly, too, it should have at hand accurate information as to the duties performed in each position. It is perhaps , needless to say that Congress 184 THE FEDERAL SERVICE has never taken measures to meet either of these two require- ments. It has enacted no schedule of classes and grades of service. 1 It has not even attempted a definition of the duties of the specific positions, much less a comparative grading of those positions within each class, as a basis for the fixation of rates. The only standard by which the correctness or ade- quacy of the rates fixed for the thousands of statutory posi- tions has been measured in recent years has been the personal judgment of the members of the committees of Congress re- sponsible for appropriation measures. Nor have the congres- sional committees commonly had before them, in passing upon the titles and compensation rates for these "statutory" posi- tions, more than the most meager information as to the duties involved. For the most part the schedules of statutory posi- tions have been reenacted from year to year virtually without examination of the duties being performed or to be performed 1 In certain of the groups of statutory positions will be found a series of titles and compensation rates, which at first blush seem to approximate a true classification, even though lacking in express definitions of duties. Upon close examination, however, they will be found to have no definite relation to the duties of particular positions. A good illustration is found in titles and compensation rates provided for the examining force of the Patent Office. The examining corps proper is organized in a number of divisions, at the head of each of which is a principal examiner. Under each principal examiner are a greater or less number of assistant exam- iners. These assistant examiners fall into four grades, with correspond- ing salary rates. The several grades, however, do not correspond to well defined gradations in the difficulty and responsibility of the duties or work performed. An assistant examiner may pass from one grade to the next, as a vacancy occurs, without his duties changing in any respect; and the difficulty and responsibility of his duties may greatly increase without his receiving any advancement in grade. A similar grading is found in the Public Health Service. In both cases there is, of course, a natural prob- ability that long service necessary for advancement in rank, will entail advancement in difficulty and responsibility of duties; but this is not of the essence of the classification, which will be applied even in cases where the actual result has been a much less or much greater growth in difficulty or responsibility of duty than is usual. In a number of places in the ap- propriation acts containing statutory positions and rates, there will be found the title "Clerk, Class i," "Clerk, Class 2," etc. To the uninitiated these designations might seem to refer to a standard classification of duties elsewhere prescribed. Such is not the case, however. The reference is merely to the so-called "classification" of clerks, enacted by Congress in 1853, by which all clerical positions for which no specific salary was fixed by statute were to be paid either $1,800, $1,600, $1,400 or $1,200 and were to be designated as of Class 1, 2, 3 or 4, accordingly. A "clerk of class 1" is, therefore, merely another way of saying a "clerk at $1,800." Congress has never attempted to define, even in the most general terms, the grades of duty appropriate to each of these classes. CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 185 under the several titles, change being made usually only when an increase of salary for some employee on the statutory roll is urged -upon the committee, or when an administrative offi- cer succeeds in convincing the Committees that a different ar- rangement of statutory positions is in the interest of the gov- ernment. The consular service furnishes perhaps the only instance except in the postal service in which Congress has attempted and ordered classification of the duties of the service and the corresponding fixation of compensation rates for particular positions. The salaries of consuls are fixed not in the annual appropriation act but in a general setting up of eight consular grades with corresponding salary rates, and allocating each consulate and each consulate general to a specific grade, pre- sumably with reference to the difficulty and responsibility of the work attached to the several posts. While the principle of this schedule of grading is entirely sound, it is believed that the determination of the relative dif- ficulty and importance of the several consulates is one that should be made not by Congress but by the State Department. Here as elsewhere the crystallization of a classification or grad- ing made at a given time into a statute almost inevitably tends to make permanent or static the classification thus enacted despite the changes which may subsequently ensue. The pres- ent grading of consulates was enacted in 1906. It needs no argument that the relative importance of the several consulates has greatly shifted since that time, yet the grading remains the same. Administrative Determination of Positions and Salaries: Lump Sum Appropriations. — All positions and salaries not set up by act of Congress are established either by the Presi- dent or by the heads of departments. In a few cases Congress has specifically authorized the establishment of positions of a particular class in the discretion of the President. Aside from such exceptional cases, however, the power to establish posi- tions and salary rates, when not exercised by Congress, is vested in the heads of departments and independent establish- 186 THE FEDERAL SERVICE rnents, partly under certain express provisions of law, some of which are more or less obsolete and inapplicable, and partly under the implied power which an appropriation act confers upon these heads to take all steps necessary in the expenditure of the appropriations with which Congress has entrusted them. If Congress, in making an appropriation for a specific pur- pose involving the employment of personnel, does not specify the positions and salary rates at which such personnel shall be employed, the appropriation is commonly designated as a "lump-sum" appropriation. 1 As an example of such a lump-sum appropriation may be cited the following: To further enable the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce compliance with section twenty of the Act to regu- late commerce as amended by the Act approved June twenty- ninth, nineteen hundred and six, including the employment of necessary special agents or examiners, $300,000.* In the postal service Congress has adopted a practice in the establishment of positions different from that followed by it in any other service. It would be manifestly impossible, of course, for Congress to establish by statute the precise positions to be set up at each and every Post Office. On the other hand, Congress does not give to the Postmaster General an absolutely free hand in this regard even within the limits of his appropriation. Instead it has adopted the peculiar method of specifying the total number of employees of what- ever designation to be employed at a given salary rate. Thus it provides for the total number of clerks, carriers, and rail- way mail clerks at a certain rate to be employed throughout the service; the total number of foremen, money-order cash- iers, assistant cashiers, bookkeepers, examiners, and so on to be employed at a given rate. The compensation rates pre- vailing in the postal service, moreover, are based upon an or- 1 The term "lump sum" is also applied to certain appropriations which cannot be expended for personal services, but with these the present work is not concerned. */jo Stat., 649. CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 187 dered classification of the duties performed and a standard schedule of compensation rates attached to the several classes of duties. Without going into all the details of this classi- fication, which are not of general interest it may be said that among the lower grades of employees the definite classes of clerks in first and second class post offices, railway mail clerks, carriers in the city delivery service, rural delivery carriers, motor route carriers, and village delivery carriers are recog- nized. In each of these classes a series of definite rates of pay are provided and employees advanced from rate to rate after a given length of service, subject to certain standards of efficiency discussed in a subsequent chapter. The com- pensation of postmasters of all classes is graded according to the receipts of their offices. Again, in the first class offices, where supervisory officials are required in addition to the Postmaster, definite schedules are set up for each grade of post office within the first class, the grading being according to receipts, and no less than twenty different grades being recognized. Moreover, a separate grading is provided for the superintending of the stations within large first class post of- fices. This grading is according to the number of employees in the station, ten grades being recognized for this purpose. Similar gradings are provided for the divisional railway mail offices, the inspection services, etc. 1 Whatever the correctness of the details of this scheme or the adequacy of its compensation rates, it is at least a consis- tent, ordered system for the fixation of compensation that stands out in marked contrast against the haphazard system in the rest of the federal service. The acts, indeed, do not define the duties to be performed under the several titles, but these duties doubtless are defined sufficiently by the departmental regulations and tradition. The method applied in the postal service is applicable mani- festly only to a very large organization ; and has not been em- 1 The scheme of classification and grading here outlined is that estab- lished by the reclassification act of June 5, 1920. The classifications estab- lished by earlier acts which that act superseded followed substantially the same principles but were less consistent and harmonious. 188 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ployed in fact for any other organization. In the remainder of the service, where Congress has not left the entire matter wholly in the hands of the administrative officers, or has not itself fixed all the details, it has commonly established the maximum salary that may be paid for a given class of work; sometimes specifying also the maximum number who might be employed at such maximum salary, or at salaries over a specified amount. The total number of positions whose com- pensation rates are governed by restrictions of this type is not inconsiderable but they form a very small fraction of the total. It is only necessary to say that in fixing its maximum rates in these cases Congress, or its committees, have before them no more in the way of a standard schedule of classes and grades of service than they have in establishing statutory po- sitions. Over a vast area of the service, embracing, if the postal service be left aside, far the greater part of the federal per- sonnel, Congress has left the power to establish specific posi- tions and fix their compensation rates in the hands of the ad- ministrative officers largely without restriction. But here, as elsewhere, it has completely failed to provide any standard classification of classes and grades of service to guide and con- trol the action of the administrative officers in the exercise of the power entrusted to them. So far as the fixation of the titles and compensation rates of positions established by ad- ministrative action have been based upon sound principles of classification, the result is due wholly to the initiative and abil- ity of the administrative officers concerned. To attempt a general characterization of the situation pre- vailing over the whole service in this respect is at best haz- ardous; conditions vary greatly from department to depart- ment, and in some departments equally from service to service. It may be said safely, however, that over a considerable area of the service, the heads of departments and bureaus have ex- ercised their wide discretion in the fixation of rates for indi- vidual positions with but little more regard to correct prin- ciples than has Congress. In those services in which a clear CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 189 differentiation into classes is almost automatic because of the nature of the work, such a differentiation, of course, exists, and it would be improved in form rather than in substance by the formulation of a standard classification embodying explicit definitions of duty for each grade. In these areas the general failure of administrative officers to draw up a formal classi- fication is merely a technical delinquency. The same failure has occurred, however, with equal generality with respect to those services in which a clear-cut, complete, and formal clas- sification is indispensable to effective personnel administration. At best what' is usually found in these cases is merely a scheme of titles with a scale of compensation rates attached without any clear definition being attempted of the differences in the duties to be performed under the several titles. 1 At worst, there will be found, especially in respect to the clerical service, a failure not merely to adhere to, but even to develop so much as a consistent scheme of titles. In the actual application of rates based on titles instead of definition of duties, some more or less clearly defined rela- tionship between duties and compensation commonly guides the executives, and becomes a matter of tradition or under- standing among the personnel generally. Experience proves, however, that such a genial reliance on a general understand- ing of loose distinctions is a snare and a delusion. Even where a highly developed, formalized and published classi- fication exists, with the duties appropriate to each class ac- 1 In theory it is quite possible, though very inconvenient, to draw up a sound scheme of compensation rates without employing titles at all; but it is impossible (though sometimes apparently quite convenient) to draw up such a scheme merely by employing titles without employing definitions of duties. An apparent exception is found where the titles themselves accurately and fully describe the duties intended, an occurrence much rarer than might be thought without examination. In not a few cases there exist classifications based solely on titles, which superficially seem accurately to imply certain duties. On examination it usually appears that no such accurate definition is in fact implied in them. "The facts abun- dantly prove the contention that the present titles, despite their great number and variety, are of almost no value for identifying the nature of the work actually performed. It is apparent that the present appropriation, payroll, and common titles of positions cannot serve as a basis for a system of uniform and equitable pay for the same character of employ- ment." Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 49. IQO THE FEDERAL SERVICE curately defined, its correct application to particular cases is often difficult. Where no such classification exists, the inev- itable result is wide variations in compensation rate between individuals in the same branch of the service doing substan- tially the same work, and, conversely, substantially the same compensation rates for individuals in the same branch of the service doing work of widely different grades of difficulty and responsibility. 1 That such a result has actually ensued over large areas of the federal service has long been notorious. In 1907 the situ- ation in the clerical employments in the departments at Wash- ington was thus described by a committee of officials appointed by President Roosevelt to inquire into the methods of busi- ness of the government : It is a well known fact that through all the Departments peo- ple are sitting side by side doing the same class of work and receiving very different compensation. Some clerks doing the simplest kind of work are, by reason of length of service, re- ceiving high salaries, while young men only recently certified by the Civil Service Commission, whose general intelligence and ability soon cause them to be assigned to the most difficult work in the office, have to wait many years before they re- ceive the recognition in salary that the character of their work justifies. 2 Thirteen years later the Reclassification Commission draws an even stronger indictment : Sometimes employees working side by side doing the same work will be receiving rates of pay varying by 50 per cent, or even more. Often the more efficient employees are paid at the lower rates. Many instances can be cited where the clerk in charge of a section or other minor organization unit is receiving less than other employees working under his di- .„ * ^V s '. s not to sav that the mere existence of a paper classification will of itself prevent such conditions from developing; but in its absence they are almost certain to develop. * Report to the President by the Committee on Department Methods ; Classification of Positions and Gradations of salaries for employees of the Executive Departments and Independent Establishments in Washing- ton, 1907, p. 6. CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 191 rection. His compensation for the added responsibility lies in the fact that if one of his more highly paid subordinates re- signs his chances of getting the vacancy are excellent. 1 The clerical employments at Washington comprise by no means the only portion of the federal service in which these conditions exist. They exist also, though perhaps to a less pronounced degree, in the technical and professional employ- ments at Washington, and in the field services. As an im- portant instance of such failure may be cited the internal reve- nue service, where upwards of three thousand persons are employed under the wholly non-descriptive title of deputy collector, at salaries running from $900 to $3,000. Obviously there must be a world of difference in respect to duties between the officers receiving the upper limit and the employees receiv- ing the lower. The former are, in fact, assistants to the col- lectors in charge of the more important collection districts, and have important and difficult duties, both in the supervision of the office and field forces, and in the handling of difficult ques- tions of the application of the laws arising in their districts. The latter are in some cases clerks employed on low grade routine work, in others, detectives assigned to routine work in respect to infractions of the revenue laws applicable to liquor, opium, etc. Between these two extremes, moreover, are a small army of employees performing duties of many dif- ferent shades of difficulty and responsibility, susceptible, owing to the completely standardized nature of the work performed in the field by the internal revenue service, of precise definition and systematic classification. Perhaps even more inconsistent with sound principles is the setting-up of graded titles, apparently implying the ex- istence of a corresponding gradation of duties, when in fact the compensation rates affixed to the several titles overlap, thus on their face negativing the implication of a grading of duties. An instance of this type of classification is that prevailing in the Department of Justice where "attorneys" are found who 'Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 52. 192 THE FEDERAL SERVICE receive but $2,500', while some "assistant attorneys" receive as high as $3,500. Space will not permit the examination in this volume of all the inconsistencies and imperfections of classification which now obtain in this relatively simple matter of grading the du- ties embraced in each given type of service within a given de- partment or branch. It should be pointed out, however, that almost without exception there has been a failure accurately to classify and grade the duties involved in the general types of clerical work found in the federal service. Aside from such supervisory classes as are commonly designated in the practice of the federal service as "chief clerk" and "chief of division," almost all the clerical work of the government, in offices having a statutory roll, is performed under the single title of "clerk," with salaries ranging from $900 to $2,000. Not only, as already stated, has no attempt ever been made by Congress to define the grades of clerical duty which should attach to any given salary rate; so far as available informa- tion indicates no such attempt has been made by any head of department or branch, except to a limited extent in the Emer- gency Fleet Corporation and the Shipping Board. It is not surprising, therefore, that the condition of gross inequality in the relation between compensation and duty which was cited above as existing in the clerical employments in the depart- ments at Washington, and which exists to almost an equal de- gree in the larger organizations employing numbers of clerks in the field, should have come about. The responsibility for the failure to develop precise clas- sifications for each given class of service in each department or branch, which has ensued almost universally over the whole area of the federal service, rests doubtless in large measure upon Congress, but in no small measure also upon the Presi- dent and the Civil Service Commission. Under the general power of direction which the President possesses and under the power to make rules with which he is vested by the civil service act, he could undoubtedly have compelled the proper classification of the several services, either directly by the Civil CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 193 Service Commission or by the departmental officers under its direction and supervision. Lack of Inter-Departmental Uniformity in Titles and Com- pensation Rates. — But even if each department or bureau had developed and applied a consistent salary classification for itself, uniformity, the primary essential of a classification for the federal government, would not have been secured. The requirement of uniformity is simply that each kind of service, as for example, telephone switchboard operating, or mechan- ical drafting, shall be classified and compensated in a uniform manner in all the various departments, bureaus, and divisions of the government in which that service is employed. An inequality in compensation rate for the same service as be- tween one governmental establishment and another is, of course, far less serious in its effect upon morale, and upon the administration of personnel affairs generally, than is like inequality within a single branch,' but it is none the less highly undesirable. It is manifestly wrong in principle. At its worst it may represent an actual overpayment of the employee at the higher rate, and an actual underpayment of the employee at the lower rate. The inevitable result of the absence of any central control, coupled with the failure of most of the departments to develop a cognate departmental control over its several bureaus and offices, has been the development of wide divergencies between department and department, and even between organizations in the same department, in the compenastion for the same work. The fact has long been patent, though details have not been readily obtainable. So far as the departmental service at Washington is concerned, however, the investigations of the congressional commission on reclassification have now fur- nished abundant evidence. The Commission finds that the salary and wage rates for positions in the same class are different in different depart- ments and independent establishments. The scale of pay in some departments is markedly higher than the scale for the same class of work in other departments. 194 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The statistical evidence to support this finding is super- abundant. It is to be found in the figures for almost every numerically important class which is represented in two or more establishments. One of the instances that particularly impressed the staff of the Commission as it made its detailed examination of the figures, in connection with the recom- mendation of the Commission in respect to salaries, was that of the junior examiners. They are found mainly in the Bu- reau of War Risk Insurance and the Bureau of Internal Reve- nue, both of the Treasury Department, and in the Pension Bureau and the General Land Office of the Interior Depart- ment. In the Interior Department the most common rate for junior examiners was $1,200, whereas in the Treasury De- partment two rates were almost equally common, $1,400 and $1,800. The lower rate prevails in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the higher rate in the Bureau of War Risk In- surance. These figures are exclusive of bonus, but obviously such differences were not offset by either the bonus law which was operative on April 30, 191 9, nor are they offset by the present law. The Commission did not develop in its report any other major instance of diversity of scales between specific depart- ments, though unquestionably a great variety of such instances are to be found in the unpublished tabulations made by it. Coincident with the wide divergencies between the depart- ments in compensation scales has developed an even wider di- vergency in the titles employed to designate a given class of work. The investigations of the Reclassification Commission have made concrete what has long been a matter of general knowledge. Employees termed "Senior file and record clerks" in the classification according to the duties actually performed have been selected for the first illustration. This class embraces 2,400 employees. While many of them were described as clerks of the four classes and some as "clerk class $1,000," "clerk class $1,100," "clerk class $1,300," and some simply clerks, the positions of others were described by many dif- ferent titles, 105 being the total number of different titles now in use for this class. . . . CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 195 Junior examiners have been selected as a second illustra- tion. In this class some 500 employees are described at pres- ent by 48 different payroll titles. ... Examples of many different payroll titles embraced under a single class title are not limited to the services involving filing and examining work. They are found in nearly all of the services. Under the title "Junior civil engineer" as the correct occupational designation, were found positions carry- ing 33 different payroll titles some of which were: "Clerk, Class III," "Chief draftsman," "Valveman," "Assistant clas- sifier," and "Skilled laborer." In the class of positions, properly designated as "Associ- ate cadastral engineer" involving knowledge of United States laws and regulations governing public land patents as well as engineering, were found several employees whose positions now carry the following payroll titles : "Clerk," "Clerk, Class III," "Clerk, Class IV," and "United States surveyor on spe- cial detail." Among those correctly classed as "Carpenter" were found some 400 employees having at present 29 different payroll titles. These included "Mechanic," "Mechanician," "Night guard," "Orderly," and "Clerk, Class 1200." . . . An examination of the questionnaires of 1,283 employees whose salaries are appropriated for under the title of "Clerk, Class 1" showed that they are filling positions that call for the performance of 97 varieties of duties. A similar study of the questionnaires of 3,207 "Clerks, Class $1,200," brought out the fact that they are properly classifiable in JJ of the classes proposed in this report. This analysis, carried further, re- vealed the same condition throughout the whole range of pres- ent clerk classes. 1 The Work of the Reclassification Commission. — For- tunately the Congress has recognized the necessity for some action looking toward the proper classification of the govern- ment employees. In the so-called Legislative Appropriation Act, approved March 1, 1919, 2 it provided for the establish- ment of the "Joint Commission on Reclassification of Sala- ries," which was to consist of three Senators, members of the Sixty-fifth Congress, to be appointed by the President of the Senate, and three Representatives, members of the Sixty-fifth 1 Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, pp. 45-48. '40 Stat. 1269. 196 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Congress, to be appointed by the Speaker of the House. The duties of the Commission were thus laid down by the act : It shall be the duty of the commission to investigate the rates of compensation paid to civilian employees by the munici- pal government and the various executive departments and other governmental establishments in the District of Columbia, except the navy yard and the Postal Service, and report by bill or otherwise, as soon as practicable, what reclassification and readjustment of compensation should be made so as to provide uniform and equitable pay for the same character of employment throughout the District of Columbia in the serv- ices enumerated. The Commission was given an initial appropriation of $25,000, which was later supplemented by an additional ap- propriation of $50,000; and the heads of the various govern- mental services and the Commissioners of the District of Co- lumbia were directed to furnish office space and equipment, (detail officers and employees, furnish data and information, and make investigations whenever requested by the Commis- sion. The Commission began its work in April, 191 9, and sub- mitted its report to Congress on March 12, 1920. Working Organisation of the Commission. — The organ- ization of the Commission was as follows: all broad matters of policy and the fixing of the rates of pay to be recommended to the Congress were passed upon by the Commission as a whole. The three Representatives, appointed by the Speaker of the House, were not members of the Sixty-sixth Congress and thus they were able to devote all their time to the work of the Commission. They exercised constant general super- vision over all its activities and passed upon the many de- tailed questions that arose. To furnish advice on the technique of classification and to be directly responsible for the actual direction of the clas- sification work proper, the Commission retained a company of industrial engineers who had had experience in similar work in this country both in governmental and commercial lines, CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 197 The great body of the Commission's personnel was com- posed of employees detailed to it by the several departments. This force was divided into four principal divisions, the clas- sification staff which was concerned with the preparation of the specifications descriptive of the several positions, the re- search staff that made most of the economic and social studies specially desired by the Commission and prepared most of the salary recommendations for consideration by the Commission, the clerical staff that maintained the records, and the statis- tical staff that compiled the figures required by the Commission in respect to the service as it was on April 30, 1919. The employees detailed to the Commission were generally selected because of some special qualifications for their pro^ posed assignment. The organization thus brought to bear on the problems involved, the judgment in respect to matters of policy of six members or former members of Congress, the technical advice of persons experienced in the technique of classification, and the knowledge possessed by the detailed staff regarding the various governmental agencies, procedures, and positions. In addition the Commission organized and had the assistance of a great number of different committees made up of people not on the staff of the Commission. There were committees for each large organization, representative of the employees and the administrators, committees on each of the more important major subjects before the commission, rep- resentative of the public, the administrators, and the employees, and committees on each of the several types of service recog- nized by the Commission. These so-called "service commit- tees" were given formal hearings at which they presented their criticisms and suggestions regarding the specifications and their recommendations regarding salary scales. Many of these com- mittees devoted a large amount of time to their work for the Commission; and its report is based on the most far reaching investigation of the personnel of the United States Government at Washington that has ever been made. Method of Determining Position Specifications. — The method pursued by the Commission in developing its speci- 198 THE FEDERAL SERVICE fications was briefly as follows : each employee on the payroll on April 30, 19 19, was furnished with a questionnaire which asked, among other things, "What work do you actually per- form in your position?" When the employee had filled out his questionnaire, it was submitted to his official superior who was asked, "What is the work actually performed by the em- ployee to whom this questionnaire was addressed?" He was also asked, "What qualifications do you think applicants who seek appointment to this position should possess (a) As to education, (&) As to length and kind of practical experience, and (c) As to personal characteristics?" The questionnaires were submitted to the Commission in the order in which the names appeared on the payroll. Since in the government service there is commonly no relationship between organization units and payrolls, the first step taken by the Commission, after making sure that all questionnaires had been received and establishing its controlling records, was to arrange the questionnaires in true organization order, with each employee's card coming under that for his immediate superior together with those for the other employees in the same unit doing the same kind of work. Organization charts were then prepared, giving a graphic view of the various units and the lines of authority. The questionnaires were then symbolized, by the use of a numerical code, to show the distinct service or group of closely related services to which they belonged. These services were generally easily recognizable trades, crafts, vocations, or pro- fessions. In the clerical group the services recognized fol- lowed lines that reflected the functional organization lines ob- servable in many of the government departments. An account- ing service took care of most of the employees in the disbursing and auditing offices; a supply and equipment service provided for the employees of the supply divisions ; a publications serv- ice, for the employees of the publications division ; a mail, file, and record service for the employees of mail and file divisions ; and a personnel service for the employees of the appointment offices. Special services for stenographers and typists, statis- CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 199 tical clerks, mechanical tabulating machine operators, office ap- pliance operators, telephone and telegraph operators and mes- sengers, with a miscellaneous clerical service, provided a rough plan for bringing together employees doing like work. Until the questionnaires had been thus symbolized by services, they were kept in organization order so that the state- ments on the cards could be interpreted in the light of the in- formation contained on other cards in the same organization. When the greater part of the symbolizing had been completed, the questionnaires were sorted by services; and the question- naires for each service were turned over to the staff committee which was responsible for the preparation of the specifications descriptive of the different classes of positions in the particu- lar service. As a general rule tentative class specifications were drawn up by the various committees in advance of actually sorting the cards for any service into classes. For this purpose the committees drew on several sources of information. They scanned the questionnaires and since most members of the committees had come from the respective services concerned, they drew on their own knowledge of the positions involved. They consulted informally with officials and employees in the government service and others in whom they had confidence. Suggestions were also derived from study of titles and speci- fications printed in the reports of other modern classifications. These first drafts of tentative specifications were then tested and revised through the process of actually using them as a basis for sorting the questionnaires to classes. The tentative specifications as thus drafted and tested by the several committees were reviewed by the headquarters staff and, as a rule, by at least one of the House members of the Commission, and when they were regarded as reasonably satisfactory, they were mimeographed and submitted to the special service committees organized outside the Commission's staff from among the employees and the administrators who were engaged in or were especially concerned with the par- ticular type of work involved. These committees were asked 200 THE FEDERAL SERVICE to criticize the specifications and to make suggestions regard- ing salaries. Each committee was asked to submit a brief and was given a hearing on its brief. The specifications were revised in the light of these criticisms before their final adop- tion by the Commission. Scope and Character of Specifications. — For each class of positions recognized by the Commission there is provided: (i) a brief descriptive class title; (2) a statement of the duties of the position in the class, and generally a few specially se- lected examples illustrative of the duties; (3) a statement of the qualifications required for entrance into the class ; and (4) an indication of the principal lines of promotion to and from the position. These four items make up the classification proper and to them are added the compensation rates recom- mended by the Commission for the class. Primary Unit of Classification: the Class. — The Commis- sion thus defines its "class" which is the primary unit of its work: A "class" is a group of all positions which, regardless of their organization connection, or location, call for the per- formance of substantially similar duties or work and involve the exercise of responsibilities of like importance and therefore demand substantially the same qualifications on the part of incumbents, and are, for these reasons, subject to common treatment in the selection of qualified appointees and other em- ployment processes, and that can be aptly described by the same title. Under this system of classification, it will be noted, no effort is made, in the classification proper, to consolidate into grades employees doing dissimilar work, believed by the clas- sifiers to be of like value. Conceivably certain classes of ac- counting clerks or bookkeepers, filing clerks, statistical clerks, supply clerks, addressing machine operators, and mechanical tabulating machine operators may all be regarded as of like value and might be consolidated into a heterogeneous grade under some such common title as "clerk." The Commission deliberately rejected this suggestion. Any such grading sys- CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 201 tern assumes that in the different kinds of clerical work the lines dividing one class from another may be drawn arbitrarily at any point that will fit the standard grading scheme adopted, and that steps of exactly the same standard height are ap- plicable to all kinds of clerical work. The Commission was of the opinion that the facts regarding the different kinds of cler- ical work were incompatible with this assumption, and that the number and the width of the gradations would have to be determined on the basis of the facts regarding the specific work and not on the basis of a preconceived system of grades. Titles for a heterogeneous grade, too, were regarded as too indefinite to be really descriptive of the positions. The term "clerk" for example, is applicable to so many positions at Washington, over 50,000 according to the Commission's figures, that it has almost no descriptive value in estimates and reports regarding the work of the various offices. To make these estimates and reports specific and concrete, it was regarded as necessary that titles should be used that would give a much more definite idea of the work actually being per- formed. In the great majority of cases, therefore, the Commis- sion used as its primary unit a scientific class, made up of positions requiring like work, involving like responsibilities and requiring like entrance qualifications. Its main departure from , this principle is in its so-called "group classes" which are found mainly in the middle and higher ranges of the service and provide a single "group class" for positions alike in re- spect to duties, responsibilities, and general qualifications but differing in respect to the subject matter or the official pro- cedure of which the employee must have a thorough knowl- edge. Provision is made, however, that a parenthetical ad- dition shall be made to the group class title to indicate spe- cifically the exact nature of the work. Practically all objects which may be attained through a duties classification of positions may be secured through one that adopts as its primary unit such a true, scientific class. It would serve not only for salary standardization but for re- 202 THE FEDERAL SERVICE cruitment, promotion, and transfer, and, in a large measure, it would furnish a standard terminology to be applied in de- scriptions of organizations and procedures and in estimates and reports. It permits of the arrangement or the combina- tion of these units in a number of significant ways and thus it is a good classification for statistical and accounting purposes. Arrangement of Classes in Series and Services. — In the Commission's report the 1,762 classes it found in the depart- ments and offices at Washington are arranged first in "series," if series are applicable, and in "services." It thus defines its "Series" and "Services." Where a number of "classes" of positions are substantially similar as to the type of work involved and differ only in rank as determined by the importance of the duties, the degree of responsibility involved, and the amount of training and ex- perience required, such "classes" constitute a "series," and each is given a title containing a common term descriptive of the type of work, with a modifying term indicative of the relative rank. A "service" is a general aggregation of classes of posi- tions grouped regardless not only of departmental and organ- ization lines, but also regardless of rank, on the basis of out- standing common characteristics, selected more or less arbi- trarily to aid in the process of classification. A "service" includes positions belonging to a given occupation, vocation, calling, profession, business, craft, trade, or group of trades — a general line of work. The Commission did not employ the sharp division into Professional, Sub-professional, Clerical and so on that has been a feature of some modern classifications, and closely re- sembles the orthodox broad divisions long used in occupa- tional statistics of population. Its classes, of course, could have been thus arranged, but it preferred the less theoretical, less academic system of bringing together in one place positions in related work, whether they were professional, sub-profes- sional, or clerical. Incidentally this arrangement relieved the Commission of the difficult and more or less embarrassing decisions, necessarily made more or less arbitrarily, as to CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 203 whether certain border-line classes of positions are to be put under professional, sub-professional, or clerical; but its fun- damental purpose was to adopt an arrangement that would facilitate the subsequent use of the classification. If one is dealing with an accounting or auditing organization, one will find all the accounting and auditing positions in the same place ; and a like arrangement is adopted for statistics, engineering, library work, and other types of work. In considering many government units, one finds the positions typical of the or- ganization together instead of scattered through the book un- der the various broad divisions. On first inspection the scheme of arrangement adopted by the Commission is perhaps less quickly grasped, but after one has become familiar with it, it is far simpler to use. Method of Determining Compensation Rates. — After the tentative class specifications had been developed by the clas- sification staff of the Commission, they were submitted to the research staff, which used them as a basis for its study of what private employers were paying for similar work. The ques- tionnaires were tentatively assigned or allocated to classes and were then submitted to the statistical staff which compiled sta- tistics to show what the government itself was paying for the different classes of work in the different departments and in- dependent establishments. The committees representing the administrators and the employees in the several types of work were requested to submit what they regarded as the proper salary scales. At the request of the Commission, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics had made two budget stud- ies in Washington, the first showing separately for men and for women what it cost an individual to maintain himself or herself in Washington and the second what it cost a family of five to live according to a minimum standard of health and decency. General figures, of course, were available from official sources regarding the increase in the cost of living that has taken place over a series of years as well as wholesale and re- tail price indices, and statistics were compiled from the Official 204 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Register of the United States to show the movement of the salaries of the government employees in the District of Co- lumbia since 1893. After consideration of all these factors the research staff made a recommendation to the Commission. The entire Com- mission considered the matter of salaries and had before it the specifications and all the data that were available. The salaries recommended by the Commission represent the consensus of judgment of the Commissioners arrived at after considering all the available data. They do not repre- sent the results of an adoption of any particular theory for salary adjustments. Various theoretical bases of salary fix- ing may be urged, such as the competitive principle or paying what private employers pay, the minimum wage principle, and the principle of increasing old rates by a certain percentage to offset increased cost of living. None of these principles were adopted by the Commission; they relied rather on their own judgment after consideration of the facts. An examination of the rates recommended by the Com- mission discloses that in comparatively few cases has it sug- gested a rate below the minimum of subsistence for an indi- vidual, but that for the great majority of positions its rates are below, the comfort and decency standard for a family of five as found by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Its rates, as a rule, do not by any means offset the increase that has taken place in the cost of living, and old employees would not find the purchasing power of their salaries restored to what it was on their appointment if the new rates were to be adopted. For the lower paid positions the recommended salaries on the whole compare favorably with those in private employments. In the higher administrative, clerical, technical, and scientific positions, the recommendations are materially below the sala- ries in commercial enterprises. The salaries for technical and scientific employees are more nearly on a par with those paid in colleges and universities. The suggested rates for the clerical service closely approximate the salaries being paid by the government in the more conservative of the newer or the CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 205 war expanded government agencies. The Commission esti- mated that if its recommendations were followed, it would involve an increase of from eight to ten per cent over the salary rates that were in existence on. April 30, 1919, plus the $240 bonus. Provision for Minimum and Maximum Rates. — In com- mon with most modern classifications, that recommended by the Commission usually provides for each class a range of compensation from minimum to maximum with specific steps within the range. These steps give opportunity for annual advancement until the maximum is reached to those employees within the class whose efficiency records meet the standards of efficiency to be established for the different rates within the class. It was the intention of the Commission that the maxi- mum rates should be paid only to those who have served the specified number of years and have also reached the maximum standard of efficiency set for the class. The Commission thus provides for that vital distinction between advancement in pay, due to length of service and increased efficiency in the performance of unchanged duties, and promotion, due to the assignment to higher duties. Legal Determination of Specifications and Rates. — The Commission proposed that its specifications and salary ranges should be submitted to Congress and, with such amendments as the Congress might make, should be written into law. It never seriously considered recommending that Congress dele- gate to any administrative agency any of its present power over salaries. Its furthest recommendation in this direction was that if a new position should be created that could not be classified under the existing classification, the Civil Service Commission should by order prescribe the qualifications, du- ties, and rates of compensation for the additional class, ,with the proviso that the rates of compensation should be in har- mony with those established for comparable classes and that the Commission as soon as practicable should report its action to both Houses of Congress. The rates thus established would be in force until and except as altered, amended, or repealed 206 THE FEDERAL SERVICE by law. 1 This power, it will be observed, is far less than that now delegated to administrative officers under lump sum ap- propriations and specifically provides for publication and for an immediate report to the Congress. Installation of Classification.— After a classification estab- lishing standard specifications and fixing standard salary ranges has been adopted by legislative or administrative action, the next step is to put it into actual operation. The main task here is to say, in respect to each position, exactly where it falls in the classification on the basis of the duties which it involves. When its duties are identified with the appropriate standard description of duties, its class and title are fixed and the range of salary that is to be paid the position is automatically de- termined. Two terms have been used to describe this process, "allocation" and "appraisal." The Reclassification Commis- sion preferred "allocation." The initial allocation to the appropriate class, according to the recommendations of the Reclassification Commission, would be made by the Civil Service Commission, which would submit its designations to the department or independent es- tablishment involved, for criticism and review. The depart- ment would either accept the allocation to the class as made by the Civil Service Commission or would secure a hearing before that body for reconsideration. Final authority over allocation would rest in the hands of the Civil Service Com- mission. After the class into which the position belongs has been determined, the remaining point is to fix the exact salary rate, within the range established for the class, which shall be paid to the particular employee. Up to this point the classifica- tion processes are concerned with the position as distinct from the employee, but here the individual is taken into considera- tion. What is his length of service and what his efficiency? Under the bill proposed by the Commission the heads of the departments, subject to the approval of the Commission, would determine the exact rate to be paid and would certify their 1 Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 137, CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 207 findings to the Commission together with the facts upon which they are based. Current Administration and the Classification. — No mat- ter how comprehensive and definite the specifications, how just the salary scale, and how accurate the allocations, a classi- fication cannot be made self-operative. To some agency or agencies constantly at work must be given the task of seeing that the actual personnel administration is in harmony with the classification and that the classification and the salary ranges are well adapted to meet conditions, not as they were when the fundamental classification legislation was adopted, but as they are at the moment. The problem is dynamic, and little progress can be made through legislation that treats it as static. The Reclassification Commission clearly recognized the im- perative need for a central administrative agency, and being adverse to the creation of any new one, it recommended that the Civil Service Commission, enlarged and improved, be charged with the duty of administering and enforcing the clas- sification and with the responsibility of recommending to Con- gress changes in the established specifications and salary ranges. The Commission's recommendations in respect to the ad- ministration of the classification were not based on any careful analysis of the ideal distribution of functions among the dif- ferent governmental agencies, now existing or properly to be created, which are concerned with the various aspects of clas- sification. At the time it was preparing its report, many people regarded the prospects for the creation of a Bureau of the Budget and the adoption of a sound method of financial administration as fairly remote, and naturally the Commission did not wish to submit a report that would make reclassifica- tion contingent upon budgetary reform. Budget reform, re- organization, improvement in business practice, and reclas- sification are all necessary processes in putting the government on a business basis and they are closely interrelated. The Commission, however, probably very properly, interpreted its mandate from Congress as giving it jurisdiction over only one of them and it framed its recommendations so that they 2 o8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE would make classification effective with the least possible change in matters only indirectly related to personnel admin- istration. The classification proper, as recommended by the Com- mission, is unquestionably based on sound fundamental prin- ciples, and the Commission's general attitude in salary fixing was apparently eminently practical. No one would attempt, of course, to say that the classification is free from errors in detail and that there are no inconsistencies and inequalities in the salary scales. The Commission itself said, "The task as- signed to your Commission by the Congress was the largest of its kind ever undertaken, and your Commission is not suf- fering from any illusions as to the degree of perfection at- tained." The errors and inconsistencies, such as they may be, however, are in details which may be easily amended and cor- rected, and it would unquestionably be a distinct step in ad- vance if such a classification, amended and perfected in the light of the detailed criticism which has developed since its publication, should be adopted for the government service. Such a broad endorsement of the classification proper and of the general attitude of the Commission in respect to salary fixing, however, does not imply an endorsement of the recom- mendations of the Commission respecting its administration. At a time when the entire question of the administration of government is being reviewed, it would be well for the Con- gress to approach reclassification as one of several related re- forms and to make it as nearly as possible ideal rather than to attempt as did the Reclassification Commission to make it fit the existing system with the least amount of change in procedure. Classification and Appropriation Technique. — A fundamen- tal question which the Reclassification Commission report does not squarely face is the relationship between the classification system and the appropriation acts, a question which in its broader aspects is in reality, "What control shall the Congress exert over the expenditures for personal services?" The classification could be applied to existing lump sum CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 209 appropriations without any radical modification of the pres- ent practice. The administrators, in submitting their estimates of the needs for the following year, would use in their de- tailed supporting statements the . standard terminology of the classification, and the standard salary rates instead of the present undefined terminology and unstandardized rates. The administrators would be no more bound to follow the plan indicated in their supporting statements than they are at pres- ent, but if they departed from that plan, they would have to do so within the terms of the classification. Herein lies the marked difference between the two systems; the present one is one of uncontrolled lump sums whereas the proposed one would impose control through the classification. Difficulty would be encountered in applying the classifica- tion under the existing statutory system, because classification would deprive it of the little elasticity it now possesses. The administrator, though hampered in the conduct of his work by the rigid prescription of the exact number of positions he may have and the exact salary he may pay, manages to get along under the system because he is practically free to attach to any position any duties he may choose. If the appropriation act fixed the duties too, he would be bound absolutely by a law adopted several months in advance of the beginning of the actual performance of the work. The validity of the objection to a detailed duties classifica- tion, that it is inapplicable under a strict statutory system of appropriating for positions, depends in no small measure on the real value of that type of appropriation. In favor of it, the point is made that it gives Congress control over the ex- penditures for services. Attention should be called to the fact that it gives control to Congress over the salary the administrator shall pay for a position but it gives Congress no control over what kind of services the administrator shall get for the money. For its proper administration it requires that the Congressional committees each year shall go into the work of each office in fairly minute detail and have a thorough understanding of its precise situation, something 210 THE FEDERAL SERVICE for which the committees have no time and which, if they should attempt, would get them so lost in detail that they never would clearly grasp the larger issues. Not having time to do the work thoroughly, the committees are inclined to approve what was done last year with slight modifications, whereas what really may be needed is a radical revision of the whole situation. The Congress exercises rigid control but does so more or less perfunctorily. Whatever may be the opinion of members of Congress in respect to the value of this particular type of control, the al- most universal opinion among administrators and other gov- ernment employees is that it is at present one of the main im- pediments to good administration. Under it personnel administration degenerates into a mere game of keeping all the statutory positions filled all the time. From month to month the number of employees does not vary with the load which' the office is carrying. Failing to fill vacancies in a lull does not leave more money available, to meet periods of pres- sure. Any money saved by not filling vacancies reverts to the Treasury and it is a more or less generally accepted axiom of the game that if money is turned back the fact will be used as evidence that the appropriation is too large. The tendency, therefore, is to develop the statutory staff to the point where it will carry the maximum load and to keep it at this point re- gardless of the real requirement of the work. The statutory roll is peculiarly an impediment to good personnel administration, because under it salaries can. be ad- vanced and promotions can be made only when vacancies occur or when Congress creates new positions or increases salaries. The only immediate reward for the deserving and efficient employee is the moral satisfaction of having done a good job, and the hope that when a vacancy occurs his services will be recognized. If a position becomes vacant and two employees by working hard demonstrate their capacity to carry the work of the vacant position in addition to their own, they do not necessarily gain anything by it. The administrator cannot divide any part of the salary of the vacant position between CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 211 them. The statutory system offers little inducement to an employee to exert himself. When a vacancy does occur only one person of the cl^ss immediately below can be selected for it; and the administrator has to choose between several de- serving people. One gets the promotion and the others are disappointed. In each grade below the vacancy, one person ordinarily gets an advancement, not because that represents a fair distribution of rewards on the basis of merit or in the interests of the office, but because that is the only course open under the statutory system. A few years under this system is deadly to many employees, for it substitutes for a normal, healthy ambition to get ahead a peculiar type of governmental fatalism. Much of the individual inefficiency in the govern- ment service is the direct result of the statutory system of appropriations. Perhaps the greatest merit of a sound duties classification is that it would permit of the substitution of a controlled lump sum appropriation for the present indefensible statutory roll. It would likewise give control over the lump sum appropria- tions for services which are at present ineffectively controlled if controlled at all. The natural question at this point is, "How is the control to be secured through the classification?" The consensus of opinion undoubtedly is that some agency or agencies must be given at least inspectional powers to see that the classification is enforced. On first thought it might seem as if the question of whether a given position is necessary or not is really not one of clas- sification. The Congress, however, will doubtless take the position that some device must be created to prevent the de- velopment of top-heavy organizations with too many high po- sitions and not enough low ones. A weakness of some gov- ernmental agencies at present is that there has not been a sufficient division of labor and each employee performs all the processes, both high grade and low, that are necessary to the work. As a consequence all the employees must be quali- fied to perform the more difficult processes. A division of 212 THE FEDERAL SERVICE labor might permit of the employment of a relatively small number of highly qualified persons to devote all their time to the more difficult processes while a body^of less well qualified assistants relieved them of routine processes. If this^ ques- tion is not inquired into fairly regularly, a tendency may grow up to distribute the difficult work over a large number of po- sitions so that all the incumbents may qualify for the higher positions in the classification. The statutory roll does not pre- vent this defective type of organization at all, but it does pre- vent any large number of employees from being paid for the higher duties. To no small degree this failure to provide for any division of labor, combined with a statutory roll, accounts for the fact that in the same office one employee will be getting a very much larger salary than another for exactly the same work and that the lower paid employee may be the more efficient of the two. At present, responsibility for proper organization and pro- cedure rests primarily upon the administrative officers and secondarily upon the Congress, and more particularly upon its committees. The proposal is to give the function of review- ing the organization and procedure in detail to the Budget Bureau. The Budget Bureau apparently, therefore, would be the proper agency to say in the first instance whether or not a position is necessary for the prosecution of a given under- taking. Its findings and recommendations on this point, of course, would be subject to review by Congress and its com- mittees, but it should be the agency constantly > at work and adequately equipped to pass on questions of organization and management. If the Bureau of the Budget were charged with the admin- istration of the classification, the Congress could require that administrators hi departing from the estimates underlying lump sum appropriations should secure the approval of the Bureau of the Budget. The Bureau of the Budget could by general rule give authority for the numerous minor and more or less inconsequehtial changes that are eminently desirable, requiring merely a report of the action taken, while it reserved CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 213 for individual consideration the departmental proposals for really major changes. Although it would seem as if the Bureau of the Budget should ultimately administer the classification, it does not nec- essarily follow that it should have exclusive jurisdiction over its initial installation. Installation will be a large undertaking requiring a considerable temporary force and during the proc- ess many questions will come up requiring interpretation of the law. It will be a very different, undertaking from admin- istering the classification after it has been adopted and installed. To assign the initial installation to the Bureau of the Budget at the very outset of its career is to cause it no little embarrass- ment. It would also involve giving to one man authority to pass on questions that need the broader point of view that comes from a representative board or commission. One possi- bility that would seem worthy of consideration is that the in- itial installation should be made by a commission representative of the Congress, the head of the Budget Bureau and possibly of the employees, and that after the installation is completed the subsequent administration should be in the hands of the Budget Bureau. General Summary of Classification. — In concluding this chapter on classification, it seems desirable to summarize briefly the essential features of a good system. The first requisite is a good classification of all positions on the basis of duties and responsibilities. This classification should contain for each class of positions found (a) .a brief distinctive and descriptive title (&) a concrete, definite descrip- tion of the duties and responsibilities of the positions, il- lustrated' where necessary by selected examples, and (c) a clear statement of the minimum qualifications for entrance. The classification should avoid in so far as possible the consolida- tion of positions with unlike duties into non-homogeneous grades, believed by the classifiers to be of like value, and should use as its primary unit a class made up of positions involving like duties and responsibilities, and requiring like qualifications on entrance. 214 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The second essential is a fair and equitable salary scale, determined after a careful consideration of the various factors involved, such as (a) the training and skill required, (&) the degree of responsibility, (c) the salaries previously paid by the government, (d) the salaries paid for similar work in other employments, and ( establishing the system of competitive selection for presidential postmasters, President Wilson gave no recogni- tion whatever to the principle of selection from within; estab- lishing instead a system of open competitive examination. 1 No reason has been given officially for the adoption of the open competitive rather than the promotional method for these posts. The position of assistant postmaster, a position which is in the larger cities far more difficult and responsible than that of postmaster in the great majority of post offices, has now for some years been filled by promotion from within the service ; and the important and responsible position of division superintendent of railway mail is likewise so filled. The recognition of this principle in the selection of postmasters thus would not have involved, except in the case of the larger cities, any real raising of the level to which competitive em- ployees might rise. So long as the four-year tenure remains in force, it would be difficult, of course, to secure the whole- hearted competition of many of the most capable of the per- manent employees ; for some would hesitate to take the chance of being dropped at the expiration of the statutory term. The same difficulty is present, however, in securing the competition of the best qualified persons outside the service. The Presi- dent, therefore, pending the enactment of legislation placing all postmasterships in the non-presidential class, with indefi- nite tenure (thus making them a part of the classified competi- tive service), should convert the present system of open com- petition for postmasterships to one of promotion. The view here taken differs from that of the National Civil 1 Moreover the nature of the tests and standards which have been developed by the Civil Service Commission for the conduct of examina- tions under this order have not been such as to give any advantage to those with experience in the postal service. 230 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Service Reform League, or at least of its officers. In a letter to the President, written in 1919, called forth by certain rumors then current as to pending changes in the system of selection for presidential postmasterships, the officers of the League said: Objections lie against the promotion to the important of- fice of Postmaster without examination of an employee within the department. The fact that there is no promotion system worthy of the name in the federal service is not a valid reason why the executive should acquiesce in the free selection from within the service to an office of the responsibilities of presi- dential postmaster. Here again the proposed change would subject the President and the Postmaster General to importu- nities from Senators, Congressmen, and organizations of em- ployees for the appointment of particular individuals. 1 To follow this reasoning is difficult. The system of pro- motion from within is now applied and for some years has been applied to positions in the postal service far exceeding in importance the position of postmaster at many, if not most, of the presidential offices. The League has never taken ex- ception to this system of selection, except in so far as it has taken the general position that some system of promotion should be devised not only for the postal service, but for the federal service as a whole which would make certain the elimi- nation of political considerations in promotions. Consistency would seem to require that the same position should be taken with respect to presidential postmasterships. They are pe- culiarly positions to which the subordinate postal employees should be able to aspire. The correction of present conditions is not to be sought in the application of open competition where promotion is appropriate, merely because the present procedure in open competitive examination affords better protection against improper influences than does the present procedure in promotion. The remedy lies rather in the development of a procedure in promotion that is adequate. Nor is it entirely certain that even without any further 1 Good Government, vol. 36, p. 15. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 231 development of the promotion' procedure, the result apparently feared by the League would ensue. It is not generally un- derstood to be the fact that under present conditions the selec- tion of assistant postmasters or superintendents of mail or de- livery in the larger post offices is to any important extent the subject of solicitation or importunity by Congressmen or or- ganizations of employees on the part of particular individuals. It is difficult to see why these elements should be any more active in the case of presidential postmasters once those posi- tions are placed upon a merit basis. The fact that the confirma- tion of the Senate would be required for the promotion of a postal employee to a presidential postmastership may indeed be advanced as a reason why such a result should ensue. It is believed, however, that with a promotion system properly safeguarded as in the open competitive system now in force, the confirmation of the Senate would become a mere formality. So far as the available evidence indicates, no attempt is now made by the Senators in whose hands the confirmation lies to intervene on behalf of any one particular individual. The Civil Service Commission, in successive annual re- , ports, has gone on record as favoring the selection of all "presi- dential" officers on a merit basis. One of the principal con- siderations urged by the Commission has been that unless this action is taken it is impossible to make the service a "career," which would seem to imply that once the positions in question were placed upon a merit basis they would normally be filled from within. Respecting postmasterships, however, the Com- mission, in a recent public statement, 1 has taken the position that "there should be no iron-bound rule that all positions of postmaster should be filled through the promotion of subordi- nates. In the opinion of the Commission such a policy would not be in the best interests of the service and would not be sustained by public sentiment." 1 Letter to the Washington Evening Star, February 18th, 1920, com- menting on an article relative to the rilling of the postmastership of Boston by open competitive examination, and the barring of the assistant postmaster from the examination because of failure to meet the "ex- perience" requirement. 232 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The position has already been taken in the foregoing pages that an "iron-bound" rule requiring the filling of higher posi- tions through the promotion of subordinates is appropriate only in very few cases. It would be difficult, however, to find a class of positions to which such a rule could more properly be applied than the position of postmaster. The position is one which, in the nature of the case, cannot require a person with a specialized knowledge or experience obtainable only out- side the service itself. On the contrary it is only within the service itself that the specialized knowledge and experience re- quired can be obtained. If, then, the service is unable to d&- velop among its enormous resources sufficient executive ability to be equal to the demands of even the largest post offices, the difficulty is with the system of recruitment, compensation, as- signment, promotion, etc., and these radical difficulties, which would reflect themselves through the whole personnel of the service, "at all levels, could be ameliorated in no appreciable degree by the selection of a postmaster from time to time from without the service. In point of fact, despite the low level to which recruitment to the postal service is confined, despite the wholly inadequate compensation standards which have obtained in recent years, and despite the failure to provide sufficient opportunity for the subordinate administrative personnel to gain experience by progressing from smaller to larger offices, there is no warrant for believing that even at the present time sufficiently good ma- terial cannot be found in any of the larger offices to make the resort to general competition for the position of postmaster necessary. The restriction of recruitment to the postal service to the grade of carrier or clerk is believed to be undesirable in that it affords no opportunity for the entrance into the service of recruits of better educational equipment than are ordinarily likely to enter the positions specified, resulting in a smaller amount of suitable material for promotion to the higher admin- istrative posts. This aspect of the matter will be considered in a subsequent section of this chapter in connection with a con- PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 233 sideration of the general question of the proper levels at which recruitment should be permitted. Here it need only be pointed out that if the lowness of the entrance level in fact does pro- vide insufficient administrative material, the deficiency may be made up by resorting to open competition for some of the sub- ordinate administrative posts rather than for the very highest administrative posts in the service — those of postmaster. War and Navy Departments. — A special phase of the problem of selection from within presents itself in the case of the War and Navy department. Here is found a condition in which the advancement of the personnel is checked at a given level, not merely relatively, as it is by the resort of gen- eral competition, but absolutely by the filling of all the higher administrative posts by the designation of military and naval officers. Since entrance to the officers corps of either of thesa services is impossible in peace times except through the regular course of training early in life at the military or naval academy, 1 or through original appointment to the lowest grade after examination, the system of filling important administrative and technical posts in the staff branches of the military and naval establishments with military or naval officers necessarily results in an absolute stratification of the service. The question is presented, therefore, to what extent this system, so pernicious from the standpoint of personnel ad- ministration, is justified by the needs of the military and naval establishments. Properly to answer this question would in- volve a consideration of the whole theory of military versus civilian functions in the conduct of these two establishments. Some go so far as to assert that all functions of purchase and supply, from the point of initial estimating and planning to the point of actual delivery to the depots maintained by the forces in the field, are essentially civilian in their character, and 1 In both the Army and Navy the medical and dental officers are ex- cepted from this statement and in the Navy Department the so-called pay officers, who have to do with supplies and accounts, are likewise to be excepted. In all these cases, however, the tradition of entrance at an early age into the lowest rank and advancement only by gradual pro- motion through the grades is maintained, so that for the present purpose the result is the same. 234 ' THE FEDERAL SERVICE that no necessary purpose is served by treating these functions as a part of the business of the military establishment. Those who hold this view would create a distinct civilian organiza- tion for those functions and thus solve at one stroke the per- sonnel problem here under discussion, though, needless to say, the solution of this problem is the least of the advantages which these advocates urge for their proposal. Without neces- sarily accepting this radical view, it seems clear that certain at least of the functions now performed by the military estab- lishment could properly and profitably be placed upon a civilian basis. Civilian Engineers : War Department. — Particularly would this seem to be the case with the civilian engineering work now carried on under the direction of the Chief of En- gineers of the army, a field in which the personnel question here involved presents itself with especial force. These engi- neering operations, which as is well known have to> do princi- pally with river and harbor works (though embracing also the work of coast fortifications), are conducted upon a district basis, the country being divided for that purpose into 50 districts. The chief officers of each district organization are army engineers, and it was long the tradition that no civilian member of the force could ever rise to the position of engineer in charge of a particular operation or work; but this tradition was greatly weakened during the war owing to the demand for the services of the army engineers in active military duty. It is needless to point out that the best civilian engineers will not enter or remain in a service in which the door of promotion is closed so early and so absolutely. Numerous proposals have been made, running back into the eighties, and one is pending in Congress as these lines are written, for relieving the army engineers of responsibility for this purely civilian engineering work by the creation of a department of public works or some similiar civilian agency. With the more general arguments in favor of such a course the present volume is not concerned, but its advantages from the standpoint of personnel administration are obvious. These proposals, it should be noted, do not of PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 235 necessity imply that the employment of army engineers for this civilian engineering work of the government is to be dis- continued. They mean simply that the work would be upon a civilian basis, and that army engineers when employed in that work, while remaining members of the military establishment, would be regarded as on detail to the civilian department and as having there only civilian status. Even if it be assumed, however, that the responsibility for civilian engineering work should remain with the army engi- neers, and that it will always be necessary to operate certain of the staff functions upon a military rather than a civilian basis, the alternative presents itself of modifying the present system of selection of officers to the extent of permitting the commis- sioning in appropriate rank of civilians who by long service in these staff branches of the military and naval establishments have equipped themselves for administrative responsibility. Needless to say, this method was resorted to on a large scale during the war, and no small number of officers thus commis- sioned have been retained as part of the permanent establish- ment. The method should now be made a normal, instead of merely an emergency, one. Its adoption will require, of course, a break with the old tradition that any army officer must be regarded as qualified and available for any kind of administra- tive duty ; but this tradition has always been an absurdity from the standpoint of personnel administration, and has unquestion- ably resulted in enormous waste and inefficiency in the mili- tary establishment itself. There is no reason why the officers' corps of the army should not be recruited and maintained, at least in part, so far as the staff positions are concerned, upon the theory that obtains in every other type of organization, namely, that the best results are secured through the develop- ment of specialists and their constant retention in the work in which they have specialized. 1 1 Incidentally it may be pointed out that the traditions of the Army and the Navy have differed widely in this respect at certain points. Par- ticularly has this been so in connection with the officers concerned with supplies (other than ordnance and cognate material) and accounts. In the Navy these officers have been recruited as a separate class, have not been instructed in naval science, and have been constantly kept at work 236 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Attitude of Civil Service Commission. — It might be as- sumed that, in a matter of such vital and fundamental im- portance, the Civil Service Commission, by securing the pro- mulgation of appropriate rules by the President, would have remedied this major omission of the civil service law. But such is not the case. The civil service rules are equally silent upon the point. The Civil Service Commission from the be- ginning has taken the position, wholly indefensible from the standpoint of the interests of the personnel system as a whole, that the decision to resort to general competition for the fill- ing of a position lies wholly in the hands of the appointing officer. The failure of the Commission to take any interest in this matter as one concerning the personnel system generally is all the more remarkable in view of the position which it has as- sumed with respect to transfers from one department or estab- lishment to another. By the civil service rules (Rule X, 1) no transfer may be made to any position in the competitive service "above the lowest class in any grade" x unless the appointing officer certifies that the position cannot be filled adequately by promotion. The reason for this rule was stated by the Commission at the time of its promulgation to be that "injustice is done when a person is brought into a department over the heads of those deserving promotion." 2 It need hardly be emphasized that the injustice is far greater when the per- son so brought in comes, not from another branch of the along their chosen line. In the Army, pursuant to statutory requirements, the Quartermaster's Corps, as the officers of this class have been termed, has been recruited by a system of four-year details of regular officers of the line. It is at least an interesting speculation whether the admitted su- periority of the administration of the naval establishment in the matter of supplies during the war was not in a measure attributable to the supe- riority of its personnel theory in this field. 1 The terms "class" and "grade" are used in this rule in senses which seem precisely contrary to their ordinary uses, and to their use in this volume. The civil service rules (as well as the law itself) suffers in clearness at not a few points because of the lack of any standard nomen- clature in personnel matters. It is to be hoped that the reclassification of the employees in the District of Columbia now under consideration will begin an improvement in this respect. 'Twenty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1904), p. is. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 237 service — where the excellence of his work, the length of his service, or the absence of opportunity for further advancement there may make him even more deserving of consideration from the service than those over whose heads he is brought in — but from outside the service. It would seem then that the very least the Commission could do in consistency would be to rec- ommend to the President a rule providing that no position should be thrown open to general competition unless the ap- pointing officer certifies that the position cannot be filled ade- quately by promotion. But undoubtedly it should go much further. Especially since selection by open competition is peculiarly the Commis- sion's own province, and it may be expected to have expert knowledge of the results likely to follow from the use of that method in any case, the Commission, under the rule, should reserve to itself the right to say finally whether open competi- tion should be resorted to, or selection from within insisted upon. Such a rule is already found in several states and municipal jurisdictions, and is believed to have worked well. Were such a policy adopted and consistently enforced by the Civil Service Commission or other central personnel authority, it might shortly develop the highest value in an altogether dif- ferent direction — that of facilitating the elimination of politics from selection. Were the President, without changing the classification of excepted positions, to extend the proposed rule to them (including positions excepted by statute as well as by the rules) the result would be forthwith to establish the merit tradition for those positions. If the appointing officer could secure the consent of the Commission to fill the excepted posi- tion from outside the service, he would still be wholly un- trammelefl, of course, in his choice, as now ; but the mere fact that he had been able to secure the right to appoint in this way only on the strength of a representation that the interests of the service demanded it would be a powerful moral influence making for a reasonably meritorious selection. If, on the other hand, the Commission declined to permit selection from without, or the appointing officer failed to request it, the person 238 THE FEDERAL SERVICE selected from within the service would promptly come to enjoy substantially a competitive status, whatever his legal status. The policy contended for might even be applied, with modifications, to presidential positions. The Civil Service Commission, of course, could not control the discretion of the President as to the method of selection to be employed by him for these offices, but he could require the Commission, perhaps acting in consultation with the head of the department, to recommend to him the method to be employed. The recom- mendation of the Commission unquestionably would shortly ac- quire a strong moral force. It is not intended in the foregoing to propose that the Commission should intervene in this way in every individual case in the personnel system. In most services and at cer- tain points in every service, it is entirely feasible to determine upon the basis of experience a general policy of either restric- tion of selection to those within or of resort to general compe- tition, and no participation of any central personnel authority is necessary in, these cases when the general policy defined is observed. In this area, only the departures from the general policy require approval or check by the central personnel authority. At other points, however, owing to the relative infrequency of vacancies and the relatively small number of those within the service from among whom selection is possi- ble, it would be unwise to attempt to define in advance any general policy. Here the best results will be obtained if each vacancy as it arises is made the occasion for a separate de- cision as to the method by which it shall be filled ; and it is in these cases that the responsibility of the central personnel au- thority enters. In some cases doubtless only by an examina- tion of the available material for promotion will file Civil Service Commission be able to satisfy itself that the proposal of the appointing officer that general competition be resorted to is justified ; and if the result of such examination is adverse to the contention of the appointing officer, it has had the value of making certain that whatever person the appointing officer does appoint is sufficiently qualified. In other cases, without PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 239 formal examination, a mere appraisal of the available material within the service, based upon their service history and past performance, will be sufficient to enable the central authority to decide if resort should be had to open competition. Attitude of Reclassification Commission. — The recom- mendation of the Reclassification Commission on this head would seem to go even further than is here proposed. The Commission recommends "that when vacancies in the higher classes are not filled by transfer or reinstatement, they be filled by promotion of properly qualified employees as determined by competitive civil service examination, and that ordinarily open competitive examinations for the filling of such vacancies be held only when three such eligibles cannot be secured from those already in the service." * In the absence of any central requirement of the character here contended for, it might be anticipated that the principle of selection from within had received but scant observance in those branches of the classified service in which it is applicable. In point of fact, however, despite the absence of any statutory or other central requirement, and despite, too, the absence of any definite or clearly expressed policy, in the departments themselves, the principle of restricting selection to those within the service has been very generally followed in the classified competitive service. 2 This existing tendency to select from within, however, has been restricted generally to selecting from among the employees of the organization unit in which the vacancy occurs or from the employees of adjacent organiza- tions. The precise limits of the area of selection form the subject of a subsequent section. It need hardly be added that this characteristic of the ex- isting situation is subject to many, and in some cases important, exceptions. Since existing practice has been determined wholly by departmental action, usually of an informal kind, it has varied not a little from service to service and from time to 1 Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 124. ; As already indicated in a preceding chapter, the exception of a posi- tion from competition, whether by rule or by statute, has generally meant that it will be filled by the appointment of one outside the service. 2 4 o THE FEDERAL SERVICE time. Moreover, settled traditions may be discerned in any case, of course, only in those services which are well established. Recent years have witnessed the creation of a number of new services and organizations in the government, and in recruiting for these services the great majority of positions have neces- sarily been filled from outside the service. There thus exists in these services as yet no well defined tradition on this head; nor in the case of any of these services that has come to at- tention has the problem been grappled with in advance and a policy formulated and promulgated. Central Control of Selection by Promotion from Within. — In view of the prevalence of the practice of recruitment from within by a process of promotion, the question of the means employed for the selection of employees to be advanced is one of importance. The framers of the civil service act unques- tionably intended that there should be some control in respect to this matter. The act thus lays down the basic principle that "no person shall ... be promoted . . . until he has passed an examination or is shown to be specially exempted from such examination in conformity herewith." (Sec. 7.) 1 Comment- ing on this provision the Civil Service Commission in 1899 pointed out that "No classified clerk or employee who is not specially exempted in conformity with the provisions of the act can legally be promoted without examination. In other words, exemption from examination for promotion is not intended to be made general. The intention of the law is that to be eligible for promotion to any class or place the applicant must have shown fitness on examination appropriate for the class or place." 2 The Commission went on to point out, however, that despite the manifest intention of the act, up to that time it had not been found feasible to give it practical effect ; s and the 1 It will be observed that there is no requirement that the "examina- tion" provided for be competitive. 'Sixteenth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1899), p. 102. 'In its first report, in 1884, the Commission said that the need of caution in making great changes which a new system involved, and the fact that the Commission had too much work at the outset, were per- PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 241 same or other difficulties appear to have persisted down to the present time. 1 haps in themselves adequate reasons for not dealing at once with the difficult subject of promotions. In the second report it is stated .that the observations of another year had shown more conclusively the need of interposing some examination or test, both to secure to the most meritorious their proper claims to advancement as opportunities occur, and also to shut out the solicitations and influence of outside parties from securing or attempting to secure promotions without merit. It added that it had become obvious that notwithstanding the difficulty of devising a system which should give merit its just reward, and should yet leave the appointing officer his full right and responsibility for his office, some rules upon the subject of promotion by examination ought to be promul- gated at the earliest day practicable. In its third report the Commission again stated the need of promotion rules and the reasons for failure to provide such rules. 1 For the first thirteen years of the operation of the act, even the requirement of the act that there should be examination for promotion in all cases not specifically exempted was not observed. By the rules adopted May 6, 1896 (Rule XI, Clause 4), however, the Commission was instructed to promulgate regulations governing promotion, the rule declaring that "Regulations to govern promotions shall be formulated by the Commission after consultation with the heads of the several depart- ments, bureaus, or offices. It shall be the duty of the head of each de- partment, bureau, or office, when such regulations have been formulated, to promulgate the same, and any amendments or_ revocations thereof shall be approved by the Commission before going into effect." The rule, however, fixed no time limit within which such regulations were to be formulated. It provided that "Until the regulations here au- thorized have been approved for any department, bureau, or office in which promotion regulations approved by the Commission are not in force promotions therein may be made from one class to another class which is in the same grade, and from one grade to another grade, upon any test of fitness, not disapproved by the Commission, which may be de- termined upon by the promoting officer," thus leaving the matter vir- tually in the same situation as it had been in previously. But several provisos were annexed to this rule, the observance of which would have meant a very considerable participation of the Commission in the process of promotion. They were as follows : "Provided, That no promotion of a person shall be made, except upon examination provided by the Commission, from one class to an- other class; or from one grade to another grade, if for original entrance to said class or grade to which promotion is proposed there is required by these rules an examination involving essential tests different from or higher than those involved in the examination required for original en- trance to the class or grade from which promotion is proposed: And provided further, That no promotion of a. person shall be made, except upon examination provided by the Commission, to a position in which, in the judgment of the Commission, thereis not required the performance of the same class of work or the practice_ of the same mechanical trade which is required to be performed or practiced in the position from which promotion is proposed; but a person employed in any grade shall not, because of such employment, be barred from the open competitive ex- amination provided for original entrance to any other grade; And pro- vided further, That no promotion of a person shall be made to a class or grade from original entrance to which such person is barred by the age limitations prescribed therefor or by the provisions regulating ap- portionment." No procedure was provided, however, for the bringing to the at- 242 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Under the revision of the rules made in 1903, and still in force, provision is made for the promulgation of regula- tions governing promotion. Such regulations have been made, however, only for a small and irregular area of the service, 1 so that over almost the whole of the service, practice is gov- erned only by the provisions of the rules, which the rules themselves (Rule XI, 2) provide are to be applied "until regulations to govern promotions are made." These provisions, so far as they, bear on the subject under discussion, are as follows : . . . Promotions may be made upon any test of fitness not disapproved by the Commission, which may be determined tention of the Commission cases in which promotion might be made in violation of these provisos and, in point of fact, they never had much effect. Under the provision authorizing the promulgation of regulations by the Commission in consultation with the heads of departments regula- tions were provided from time to time for various classes of employees. The regulations generally provided merely that promotions should be made upon such tests of fitness as the head of the department, with the approval of the Commission, might prescribe, and under these regula- tions, a system of nominal examinations, purely non-competitive in char- acter, was for some time applied in several of the departments and serv- ices. 1 The portions of the classified service to which the Commission has actually promulgated promotion regulations as contemplated by the rules are: Treasury Department Mint and Assay Service Customs Service War Department Ordnance Department at Large Engineer Department at Large Quartermaster Corps Military Academy Navy Department Navy Yard Service Interior Department Reclamation Service Indian Irrigation and Allotment Service St. Elizabeth's Hospital Department of C&mmerce Lighthouse Service Coast and Geodetic Survey (in relation to persons employed on vessels) It need hardly be pointed out how utterly lacking in reason or con- sistency is the area of application of promotion regulations by the Civil Service Commission as thus outlined. In point of fact, the initiative" in promulgating such regulations would seem in most cases to have come from the departments or services concerned rather than the Commission. It hardly can be said that the action of the Commission in these areas of the service has been of much more significance than its complete in- action over the remainder of the service. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 243 upon by the promoting officer, subject to the following limi- tations: (&) In case of promotion to a position for which the en- trance tests are different the person to be promoted must first pass an appropriate examination before the Commission. 1 Substantially the same provisions are found in the several departmental promotion regulations which have been promul- gated in accordance with the rule. The provision requiring promotion to be made "upon any test of fitness not disapproved by the Commission which may be determined by the promoting officer" is a dead letter, as promoting officers do not advise the Commission of the nature of the tests, if any, which they employ in making selection for promotion, and the Commission has consequently no basis for disapproving such tests. As pointed out in the following chap- ter, no tests are applied over the greater part of the service. The essential provision is thus the one requiring that in case of promotion to a position to which the entrance tests are different from those fixed for the position which the per- son to be promoted then occupies, he must first pass an ap- propriate examination before the Commission. 2 This limita- tion, it will be observed, applies only "in case of a promotion to a position for which the entrance tests are different." The practical effect of this rule is to require examination by the Commission only where the proposed promotion is out of the ordinary direct line. As long as the promotion is in the direct 1 But Section (c) provides that "Any employee in the classified In- dian Service may, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, be promoted without examination to the position of superintendent of an Indian school, upon a statement of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that_ the employee possesses the requisite business and executive quali- fications to fill the position, and the Commission will on such statement issue the necessary certificate." ' Even this requirement, it should be noted, is not absolute, the Civil Service Commission having been authorized in 1907 _ "in its discretion, looking to the good of the service only, to waive requirements for exam- ination and to substitute for such examinations so waived such other tests of fitness and capacity as the Commission may decide." Executive Order, November 22, 1907. This order, however, is seldom invoked. No statistics as to its use are currently compiled; but it is stated that it was employed only four times during 1919 (Memorandum of the Sec- retary of the Commission to the Institute for Government Research). 244 THE FEDERAL SERVICE line no intervention by the Commission is required by the rule, no matter how much higher may be requirements which would be set on entrance examination, were one held, for the posi- tion to which transfer is proposed than for the position already occupied by the candidate for promotion. With respect to proposed promotions from one position to another in the natural line of advancement, however wide the gap between the lower and the higher position, or be- tween the position in which the employee promoted originally entered the service and that to which he is now promoted, pro- motion may be made by the administrative officer wholly with- out control or supervision by the Civil Service Commission. 1 Whether this condition is a desirable one is a question on which there will be a diversity of opinion. Some contend that a central control or supervision is in no case necessary — that the interest of the administrator in securing efficient service is suf- ficent to insure that recruitment will be resorted to where selection from within will not yield suitable appointees. At the other extreme is the view that every promotion should be subject to the vise of the central personnel authority to in- sure that the employee promoted is worthy of promotion. 2 To adopt either of these extreme views is neither necessary 1 The civil service rules (Rule X, 8, e) provide also "that where the promotion involves a transfer from one branch of the service to another the Commission shall be satisfied that the person proposed for such transfer and promotion possesses experience, qualifications, or training which are required for the proper performance of the duties of the position to which transfer is proposed and which render necessary in the interests of the service the filling of the position by his transfer, rather than by an original appointment or promotion in the manner provided by the civil service act." This rule is so infrequently applied, however, that its importance is negligible. ' This is the view in the regulations for promotion examination found in certain jurisdictions, in which examination for promotion is required to be held by _ the central personnel authority even where the number of employees eligible for examination is no more than the num- ber, usually three, from among whom the appointing officer has, under the rules, free selection. In such a case the examination can serve no purpose other than to bar from promotion the employee who fails to pass the examination. As will be more fully set forth in the following chapter, the Reclassification Commission has recommended that a sys- tem of competitive promotion examination be set up over the whole of the federal service. It is not clear from the Commission's report whether its recommendation contemplates the holding of examinations even under the circumstances just cited. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT M5 nor desirable. Some branches of the service have such a wealth of available material that it may safely be assumed by the central personnel authority that a fully competent employee can be found for any post which becomes vacant. In respect to other branches no such assumption can be made safely, be- cause of the small number of eligible employees, or the wide gap between one position and another, in difficulty and re- sponsibility. What is called for, therefore, is a detailed specifi- cation by the Civil Service Commission, after careful study, of the particular positions to which promotion may be made only with its approval, such approval to be given, where the Commission deems necessary, only after examination by the Commission of the person proposed for promotion. Were a general system of promotion examinations by the Civil Service Commission to be instituted, as recommended by the Reclassification Commission, such examinations while in- tended primarily as a means of selecting from among all the employees eligible for promotion the one best qualified for the promotion* would incidentally prevent the promotion of any employee not qualified as judged by the Commission's stand- ard. The whole question here under discussion is closely bound up, of course, with the methods employed in making selection for promotion, which form the subject of the follow- ing chapter. In that chapter the view is taken that generally speaking the most practicable method of determining promo- tions in the federal service is to leave the determination in the hands of properly constituted administrative boards, in which the Civil Service Commission would have ex-officio representation. Such representation would manifestly furnish a complete and effective safeguard over the whole service against the promotion of the unfit. Note should be taken here of a statutory provision aimed to prevent the promotion of the unfit which has never been given practical effect. In 1912 Congress authorized the Civil Service Commission to install in the departments at Washing- ton a system of efficiency records, and directed among other things that the system should provide for a standard of effici- 246 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ency failing which an employee would be ineligible for promo- tion. By subsequent enactment the responsibility for the estab- lishment of the system was transferred to the Bureau of Effici- ency. Because of inadequate appropriations, and for other reasons not here material, no progress worth mentioning to date has been made in the development of the system called for by the statute. It is believed, however, that even were it fully established the specific provision mentioned would be of little value. Only in the most exceptional cases, if even then, would an administrative officer attempt to promote an employee who had displayed so little capacity in the performance of his present duties as to be rated below a normal standard of effici- ency. In discussing any phase of the question of control or su- pervision of promotions by the Civil Service Commission, it must be borne in mind always that effective control or super- vision is out of the question unless the Commission has at its disposal adequate means for ascertaining what the duties of a given position actually are. Without such means, and their capable utilization, changes in duties may be made by the oper- ating departments without the knowledge of the Commission which are actually promotions, though in appearance mere re- assignments. Existing Conditions: Positions Not in the Natural Line of Promotion. — In every large organization and indeed in many fairly small ones, subordinate positions or groups of positions are encountered, the duties of which do not tend to fit those occupying them for any position more advanced in responsibility or difficulty or in the value of the work per- formed. The extent to which such positions exist in large scale enterprises is perhaps not fully appreciated by those who have not given the matter specific attention. The facile assumption is made that each employment leads naturally to the one above. There are two factors which may cause certain positions to become "blind alleys." The first is found in positions which are concerned wholly with subsidiary or auxiliary phases of the organization's work and thus do not give to those occupying PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 247 them any knowledge or experience in the substantive operations of the organization, which is, of course, indispensable to any worth while advancement. A limited field of advancement may, and usually does exist, of course, within the particular branch of the organization devoted to such auxiliary or in- stitutional activity; but this field is virtually negligible when considered in comparison with that presented by the operating branches. The other factor which operates to give certain classes of positions their "blind alley" character is that of education. The advanced positions may require an educational equipment, whether technical or general, which the work of the lower grades in no wise furnishes. In the technical branches illustra- tions of this condition abound. A mechanical draftsman in order to qualify for the higher grade of mechanical engineer must pursue a specialized course of instruction in mechanical engineering quite distinct from and, in many respects, in no wise related to, the duties which he performs as mechanical draftsman; the mere typist who aspires to become a stenog- rapher must pursue a specialized course of instruction in stenography and perhaps also in English; and the like is true of the laboratory assistant, who desires to become a physicist or chemist or bacteriologist, or of the clerk employed in a branch of the government in which legal services are required who aspires to become a lawyer. Nor is the situation confined to the technical branches of education; it presents itself also, though in a more debatable way, in respect to general educational equipment. This phase of the problem presents itself particularly in connection with the filling of the higher non-technical administrative posts, but it is found also in the case of not a few technical positions of the higher grades. The service may furnish ample oppor- tunity for the acquisition of the requisite technical informa- tion by the personnel in the lower grades; but it may be felt that the higher position requires in addition a background of general education and culture not likely to be possessed by the subordinate personnel. This particular phase of the problem, 248 THE FEDERAL SERVICE however, will receive fuller consideration in a subsequent sec- tion. These two factors cause the service to become stratified, with progress from one stratum to the next virtually impossi- ble. That this condition, both from the social standpoint and from the standpoint of the morale of the service, is undesirable is too obvious to require more than mere mention. Some hold, however, that this stratification, with its blind alley positions at the end of the lowest strata, must be accepted as inherent in the modern large-scale organization, and that it is futile for the framer of personnel policies to attempt to run counter to the powerful drift of economic processes. What- ever the validity of this view, social policy demands for the public service, at least, that every effort be made to escape from this condition or to moderate it so far as can be done without undue injury to the service itself. This can be done on the one hand by enlarging the opportunity for each sub- ordinate employee to acquire a well rounded familiarity with the operations of the organization as a whole; and, on the other, by assisting those in the lower grades -to obtain the educational equipment that is required for the work of the higher. This matter is one which hitherto has received but little attention in most branches of the federal service. The admin- istrative officers concerned have failed apparently to appreciate its importance, though it has long been a familiar theme oi discussion among industrial personnel managers and among those interested in personnel generally. The limited develop- ment which this feature has obtained in the federal service is strongly suggestive of the need already pointed out for the provision in each department and in each major organization unit of an officer specifically charged with responsibility for the development of personnel policies. To attempt to consider specifically all the numerous points in the federal service at which the question of granting pref- erence to those in the service for positions not in the natural line of promotion may arise, would be impracticable, and of PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 249 doubtful value, but a few of the points at which it presents itself in an important way may profitably be mentioned. Sub-Clerical Positions. — In the clerical service, a question arises at the very lowest level of that service in respect to pro- motion from the so-called sub-clerical positions — positions such as messenger, storekeeper, watchman, etc. — to that of clerk. The number of clerks required in the lowest grade is so great in proportion to the number of sub-clerical employees that recruitment from outside the service must be resorted to in any case for this grade, but the question is whether promo- tion from the sub-clerical grade to the lowest clerical grade should be permitted in any case. When the proposal to open the clerical service to promotion from the sub-clerical was first made in 1895, it was rejected by President Cleveland, who aptly declared : After a good deal of consideration I cannot make myself believe that messengers, etc., should be subject to the promo- tions provided for. The theory of the amendment may not be amiss, but I am confident that in practice we should have in the messenger, etc., grade persons who entered it for the pur- pose of promotion, and who would be looking for that instead of striving to perform well the work assigned. Every mes- senger and every watchman, after two years' service and ex- amination, backed and supported by Senators and Representa- tives, would make it very uncomfortable for the head of his Department until he obtained the increased salary he coveted; and in the meantime he would make a very poor messenger and watchman. I am certain the proposed amendments would increase the perplexities of the executive officers of the Government with- out any compensation in the way of better public service. In the following year, however, he was persuaded to change his mind, and a rule was promulgated permitting such pro- motion after two years' service ; promotion to be made by com- petitive examination within each department, with certification of the eligibles in the order of their grades in the same man- ner as for original entrance to the service. This procedure though no longer appearing in the rules, is incorporated in 250 THE FEDERAL SERVICE the departmental promotion regulations above referred to and is still in force. Clerical Positions. — Although the rule thus requires com- petitive examination, the great number of vacancies in the clerical service in proportion to the number of sub-clerical competitors makes it reasonably certain that any one who passes the examination will receive promotion to the clerical grade, so that the examination is in reality merely qualifying. The number of persons rejected by the Civil Service Commis- sion in these promotion examinations from the sub-clerical to the clerical grade is proportionately much larger than in any other type of promotion examinations, yet it is believed, never- theless, that many sub-clerical employees succeed in passing the examination and in securing promotion who would be al- together unlikely to pass the open competitive clerical exami- nation with ratings sufficiently high to secure them appointment under normal conditions of supply and demand. If this be so, the present practice in permitting promotion from the sub- clerical to the clerical grades on the basis of what amounts to a mere qualifying or pass examination may be assumed to result in the infiltration into the service of under-qualified persons, at first into the lower grades and hence, ultimately, by mere seniority or the absence of better material, perhaps into an administrative post of no little responsibility. The remedy is to be found in the proposal already made, that the promotion examinations in such cases involve a qualifying standard very considerably above that required for qualifying in the open competitive examination for these grades. Stenographic Positions. — Stenographic positions present a somewhat similar question. They usually offer more rapid advancement to the higher salary rates than do the clerical positions of the lowest grade, although the ultimate possibilities are frequently not so good, and consequently in most large per- sonnel systems those in the lowest clerical grade seek to secure promotion to the stenographic positions. The same is true of typists, adding machine operators, and other persons perform- ing clerical work of a mechanical nature, In the federal service PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 251 this type of promotion has never been permitted, but em- ployees have been required to compete in the regular open ex- aminations. If assurance can be had that the high examination standards contended for will actually be applied, it would seem desirable on the general principle of enlarging the opportu- nities for promotion within the service that promotion of this kind should be permitted in the federal service. Statistical Accounting and Legal Positions. — In the filling of posts in those technical services which lie close to the cleri- cal service — the statistical, the accounting, and the legal services — the practice in the federal service has varied widely. In a number of cases these positions have been filled by the promo- tion of persons from the clerical service. In others, recruit- ment from without the service has been resorted to. In the legal service, recruitment has unquestionably been resorted to far more widely than promotion. In the case of the other two classes of service a general statement would be very diffi- cult to make. Had the choice of one of the other of these methods of selection been based, in every case, upon a reasoned policy and supported by an actual appraisal of the material available, the absence of any uniformity would be no occasion for unfavor- able comment. It is believed, however, that examination would disclose that the varying decisions in this matter, varying not only from service to service but from time to time within the same service, have been based for the most part on no con- sistent policy or practice, but have been largely the expression of the varying or shifting views of the several administrative officers concerned. The service actually secured in this field through selection from within is believed to have been poorer, on the whole, than would have been secured by general competition. Ex- ceptions to this statement are numerous, and there is no reason why such a statement should be true at all if proper safeguards and methods are employed. Until they are applied, the service will continue to fill positions of the character in question in many cases by the promotion of persons originally recruited as 2g2 THE FEDERAL SERVICE clerks who do not possess even approximately the same de- gree of capacity as could be obtained by general competition or indeed by drawing upon the available material within the service as a whole rather than merely upon that immediately adjacent to the particular vacancy to be filled. Other Technical Positions. — The question of filling all technical positions, for which an extensive preparation is ordinarily required, from the ranks of lower technical posi- tions not involving such preparation, a question illustrated by the case of the mechanical draftsman who seeks promotion to the position of mechanical engineer of the lowest grade, is similar to that above referred to in connection with stenographic positions in the clerical service, though, of course, the levels of the service involved are considerably higher. From the standpoint of policy the matter is almost wholly one of the severity of the qualifying examination. In the federal service it has not been common to permit promotions of this kind, recourse being usually had to general competition. Occa- sionally, however, promotions of this character have been per- mitted. Given a sufficiently high standard of qualifying ex- aminations, they should be encouraged. Given the standard of examination which is believed to obtain at the present time, such promotions will, and to the extent that they are employed they doubtless do, result in a somewhat inferior class of service than would be obtained through the medium of general com- petition. Selection from Within as Affected by Educational Stand- ards at Entrance. — A phase of the. problem of selection from within, which though of primary significance has been mentioned thus far only in passing, is the question of the edu- cational standards applied at the entrance gate or gates to the service. The value of a well rounded general educational and cultural equipment for an administrative position in the public service is a question on which opinions may differ widely. In the business world, the widest variations of prac- tice are found. Instances can be cited of large and successful business organizations which draw their executives exclusively PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 253 from the ranks of college graduates, recruiting such gradu- ates indeed with the express purpose of developing them into executives as rapidly as possible. At the other extreme are equally large and successful organizations, of which certain railroads are outstanding examples, which admit recruits to their service only at so low a level as to preclude entirely the possibility of a college education and to make even a secondary schooling wholly unlikely, and which fill even the positions of highest responsibility exclusively by the advancement of those who have entered at that level. The tradition of the public service in this country has been averse historically to the restriction of public office of an ad- ministrative character to the "educated" classes. The his- torians of the Jacksonian democracy have justly pointed out that the doctrine of rotation in office had its roots not merely in the policy that as many as possible should have a share in the honor and emoluments of public office, but in the sincere belief that the average man was fully equal to the demands of office. To no small degree this historical attitude has influ- enced the practice even in those jurisdictions in which person- nel administration has been developed most fully, including the federal service. In the clerical service, in which the question is presented perhaps in its most important form, the general rule prior to the war had been to recruit only at the lowest level, that of clerk, typist, or stenographer at entrance rates of $600 to $1,000, and to regard those so entering, or rather the men so entering, for the tradition has been against the advancement of women beyond fairly low levels, as eligible through long service to the highest administrative positions of a perma- nent non-political character; and, generally speaking, to re- strict selection for those positions to those already in the service, in the particular bureau or service in which the vacancy occurs. While there have been occasional exceptions to the rule, it may be said that in normal times the permanent com- petitive positions of a purely administrative, as opposed to a technical, character have quite generally been filled in this 254 THE FEDERAL SERVICE way. 1 During the war the rapid expansion of some of the permanent services, and the creation of many new ones, in great part suspended this tradition ; and in the abnormal con- ditions which have characterized the months since the cessation of hostilities the situation on this head has remained confused. It may be assumed, however, that with the restabilization of conditions the tradition will regain most of its old-time force. The British Personnel System. — The tradition of thus filling the higher non-technical administrative positions ex- clusively by the promotion of those who have originally en- tered the service in the lowest clerical grades presents a sharp contrast to the practice prevailing in the British Civil Service. In that service, the higher non-technical administrative posi- tions are filled in perhaps 80 or 90 per cent of the cases by the promotion of clerks recruited not at the lowest grade but at an intermediate grade, through special examination. Those re- cruited in the lower grade are commonly termed second divi- sion clerks, 2 while those recruited at the upper grade are termed first division clerks. Those who enter as second division clerks may indeed advance to the higher grades of clerical work ; but to the administrative posts classed as "first division clerk- ships" they may advance (after eight years of service) only in the rarest instances. 3 These posts are normally reserved for the "first division" clerks who, though they perform routine work at entrance, are regarded as merely in training for ad- vanced posts. The theory responsible for this stratification is seen in ,'A recent illustrative exception to this rule was the filling of the position of Chief Clerk, Bureau of Education, by open competition. "It is doubtful if there is another position of Chief Clerk of an established bureau in the federal service which has been filled other than by selec- tion from within. • * There is a sti11 lower grade known as "boy clerks"; but employment in this grade is regarded as temporary, the boy, who must be between 14 and 17 years of age at entrance, being required to leave the service when the upper age limit is reached if he has not obtained appointment to the second division grade. 3 The second division clerks have been insistent for years in their demand that the opportunity for promotion to the first division be en- larged, and the tendency has been increasingly in this direction. It is not known at this writing what effect the war may have had, or may have, upon this situation. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 255 the age limits and in the character of the examinations fixed for the two grades. Second division clerks at entrance must be. between the ages of 17 and 20, the plan obviously being to recruit boys who have had substantially a secondary school education, and the examination for entrance to the second division follows fairly closely the course of instruction in the English secondary schools. The first division clerks, on the other hand, are required to be between 22 and 24 years of age, and the examination is closely fitted to the course of study in the universities. 1 The theory thus is that the higher posts should be filled chiefly by those who have had the advantages of a broad general education, and that only in case of very exceptional merit should those whose education has been re- stricted to the common or secondary school standard be per- mitted to advance to an administrative post of major or even intermediate responsibility. 2 Applicability of British System to American Conditions. — It would not be correct, however, to leave the impression that those who were recruited for clerical positions in the fed- eral service at the lowest grade before the war were invariably '"As a matter of fact, the papers in mathematics and natural science are based upon the requirements for honor degrees at Cambridge, and the papers in classical and other subjects upon those at Oxford; and thus it happens that by far the larger number of successful candidates come from one or the other of these two great universities." Lowell, The Government of England, vol. I, p. 163. The fact that the examina- tion favors those who come from Oxford and Cambridge and that these institutions are traditionally the institutions for the upper middle class and the aristocracy has caused the British system to be condemned as an aristocratic institution and, in practice, it doubtless is. So far as the theory here under discussion is concerned, however, the essential feature of the British system is merely that it sets a high educational standard for entrance to the first division. _ This theory; in no wise would be im- paired were the British Civil Service Commission so to alter the content and form of the examinations as to give those who have studied at the provincial (that is, traditionally the middle class) universities an equal opportunity with those from Oxford and Cambridge. Were this done, the system would be aristocratic _only_ to the_ extent that any re- quirement of educational qualifications is aristocratic. ' It should be noted that there is nothing in the_ rules to prevent a second division clerk who, by self -education or evening study, has mas- tered the subjects of the examination, from entering the first division examination on an equal footing with those who have studied at the universities. The facilities for study of this kind in England and the high standard of scholarship required by the examiners make it virtually impossible, however, for such a case to occur. 256 THE FEDERAL SERVICE inferior to the typical first division clerk entering the British service. Such is far from the case. The compensation for- merly paid at entrance to the lowest clerical grades was in excess of that obtaining for the same grade of service in private employment, and, as respects Washington, an added induce- ment was offered by the many opportunities in that city, for securing a professional or academic education of which oppor- tunities the federal employees are enabled to take advantage by reason of the favorable working hours in the departments. Owing to these factors the lowest clerical grades in the past contained a goodly percentage of persons of educational quali- fications not greatly, if at all, below the average of the first division clerks in the British service; and although many of the recruits of this type left the service after a relatively short period, others remained and, despite the influence which seniority exercises in the federal promotion system, have found their way to administrative positions. These factors have made possible the practice of filling the higher non-technical admin- istrative positions by the successive promotion of those re- cruited at the lowest grade. In view of the altered conditions in respect to compensation in the service at the present time, it is doubtful whether this policy can continue to give equally good results. It is thus a question whether a system, follow- ing in theory the British system, and encouraging the en- trance into the federal service, at a somewhat higher level, of persons of superior educational attainments may not be desirable. Doubtless some will urge that awarding a higher entrance rate to one merely because he possesses a superior general education is "undemocratic" or even "aristocratic." It is not believed, however, that the objection will stand examination. The requirement of a technical education where appropriate is everywhere accepted as unobjectionable on any grounds of social or political philosophy, and it is difficult to see why emphasis on an academic education, where appropriate, is any more open to attack on these grounds. The entire absence of class character in the student population of the United PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 257 States makes any analogy on this head drawn from British or other foreign experience wholly valueless. At one point, however, the British tradition should be sharply departed from. Under the British practice, the first division clerk has a first call on superior promotions, and it is only in case of extraordinary merit that a second division clerk is able to displace him. This is manifestly unjust. The two types of recruits should be placed upon an equality, and as each vacancy occurs the promotion should be made upon a fair competition (whether formal or informal) between all those eligibles, however recruited. If the theory be valid that superior educational attainments give to the employee a value equal to, if not greater than, that resulting from a longer appli- cation to and familiarity with the routine and detailed working processes of the organization, the employee who entered at the higher level because of those educational advantages in general should have no difficulty in demonstrating his superi- ority. If he is unable to do so there is, of course, no reason why, merely because of the superiority of the average of his type, he should be preferred to the employee who entered at the low level. The view here taken with respect to the run of non-technical administrative positions is applicable also to such specialized services as the postal service. Substantially the recommenda- tions here made have been made in fact by a former first assistant postmaster general, whose subsequent administra- tive success in other branches of the government service lends a special interest to his views. Discussing the problem of the higher supervisory positions in the postal service, and par- ticularly the question of the best method of filling postmaster- ships now that the merit basis has been established for these positions, after pointing out that the present requirements for entrance to the postal service cover merely a common school education, he says : 1 In the interest of the postal employees and those who are hereafter to enter the postal service, it should be recognized 1 The United States Post-OMce, by Daniel C. Roper, p. 284. 258 THE FEDERAL SERVICE that the increasing complexity of the service gives rise to the need for training in some way a superior class of postal em- ployees who may be promoted into positions of responsibility both as experts and as executives. The object of this would be to broaden the source from which the Government may secure men well prepared for the high positions, including that of postmaster. It is just as necessary that the army of postal employees should be officered by men of specialized training as it is that our Army and Navy should secure a large number of their officers from the graduates of West Point and Annapolis. . . . Those who enter the postal service as clerks and carriers should be eligible for promotion to any position in the postal service, but before rising above the rank of foreman they should be required to take an examination of a higher grade than that under which they entered the service. Another class of recruits to the postal service should be young men espe- cially selected, employed at a nominal wage, and trained in the Post Office Department at Washington and in model train- ing post offices. These young men should be required to pass frequent examinations, and after completing the course be available for appointment to clerkships in the Department and to any work in the field, including minor supervisory positions at post offices. It should be noted that the argument here is not for the present system of applying the principle of selection from within to all positions except those designated as "postmaster" and filling that by open competition; it is for the recognition of a level of recruitment higher than that represented by the average of the clerks and carriers now recruited, with special training provided for the capable recruits from both levels, and with both competing freely for the higher posts of the service. It proposes substantially the application to the postal service of the British theory, qualified as above, urged in the discussion of the clerical service. Provision of Educational Facilities. — In the foregoing sections emphasis has been placed upon the extent to which advancement in the service must depend upon educational equipment; and it has been pointed out that if the experience in the work of the lower grades in no wise furnishes such PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 259 education and is in no wise equivalent to it, it must be obtained by the employee, if at all, entirely apart from his working duties. In the case of many positions, however, the working conditions make it highly improbable, if not altogether im- possible, that their incumbents can acquire the education neces- sary for advancement. They do this, of course, in the first place, by requiring the employee's time. Even a normal work- ing day will prevent the employee from giving the time re- quired for the more difficult kinds of preparation. Frequently they deprive him of access to educational institutions both be- cause of hours of labor and of the place in which his duties must be performed, though the situation on the first head is continually improving, owing to the development of facilities for evening instruction. Finally, in some positions it is doubt- less true that the duties of the position tend to hinder the em- ployee from obtaining the necessary education merely by af- fording him so little opportunity for the exercise of his intel- ligence as to make concentrated mental effort outside of work- ing hours difficult. Consequently, the suggestion has been put forth in various guises that the government should rec- ognize an obligation toward those in the service who are sub- stantially cut off from advancement through lack of educational, attainments, to make it possible for them to acquire the neces- sary educational preparation with much less difficulty and hard- ship than is now the case. This is to be done, in part, by re- ducing the working time or adjusting the working hours where necessary to permit the employee to pursue further study and, in certain cases where existing facilities for study are not avail- able or appropriate, to develop new facilities. Closely bound up with these proposals is the suggestion that in certain cases the expenses of tuition of the employee be assumed by the service. Although these suggestions are based primarily on the anticipated benefits to the personnel system through increased attractiveness of the service and improved morale, they make a strong appeal from still another angle, that of equality, or rather equalization, of opportunity. So far as the lack of 260 THE FEDERAL SERVICE educational attainments on the part of subordinate personnel is due to a lack of opportunity resulting from financial causes, anything which the service may do in the way of helping the handicapped employee to overcome this disadvantage tends to neutralize the existing inequalities of opportunity for educa- tion and for economic success. It need hardly be said, how- ever, that meritorious as any effort in this direction undoubt- edly is, its effect on the social situation generally must be negligible ; nor is the matter one which the personnel adminis- trator is concerned with to the extent of allowing his policy to be materially affected thereby. Nevertheless, it is a considera- tion not to be disregarded, and where the balance of conven- ience seems to be about even, it may well be permitted to influence the decision in favor of providing the facilities for instruction. Once the principle is admitted that the service is under obligation to provide educational facilities through which those in lower ranks may equip themselves for promotion, the prob- lem becomes the practical one of determining the several points in the service where such facilities might be supplied. Against the cost of supplying the facilities and the cost of allowing the employees any necessary time for study must be balanced the returns to the service in better personnel in the lower ranks, better service, and morale, and, in addition, the social benefits of an equalization of opportunity. There is perhaps no theoretical limit at which the provision of educational facilities must stop. In the military and naval services in peace time, when the amount of productive work which must be accomplished is relatively slight, an enormous proportion of the facilities and of working time is devoted to the education of the personnel. In the civil service, however, where productive activity is the normal rather than the abnor- mal condition, there are obviously very severe limitations on the extent of the opportunities for education which can be pro- vided with reasonable economy of facilities and time. So far as the personnel at Washington is concerned, the existing facilities in almost every cotnmon field are fairly PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 261 ample. Not a few special fields might be found, however, particularly in technical branches, in which virtually no facilities are at present available. Here the government could, with a minimum of expenses and difficulty, develop facilities of its own that would not only be of the highest value for the per- sonnel system, but would make a unique contribution to the intellectual progress of the nation in all the fields on which governmental activities impinge and would be a most bene- ficial stimulus to the mental vitality and energy of the technical and administrative forces of the government. Possessing in its staff of technical workers the makings of a distinguished faculty, in its buildings, libraries, and laboratories a varied and amply adequate plant, and in the current problems of the several services living working material not possessed by any university in the land, the government could readily build up at Washington, at small expense, an institution as valuable as it would be novel, in which the government employee of native capacity and ambition could acquire, under the most favorable conditions, the specialized instruction thought necessary for his advancement to higher responsibility. Even with respect to existing facilities for conventional courses of instruction at Washington, much could be done un- questionably by the government, acting through some central personnel authority, and in cooperation with representatives of the various services and of the various classes of employees affected, greatly to improve these facilities, both in respect to quality of instruction and physical plant and in respect to preparedness for and responsiveness to the needs of the gov- ernment service. Up to the present time, it may be said that practically no action has been taken on this head. The gov- ernment has permitted a considerable number of educational institutions of all grades to exist in the Capital, supported chiefly and, in some cases, virtually solely by the government personnel, but has taken almost no interest in the quality or character of the instruction offered. This is not the place in which to attempt any specific suggestions as to what might be accomplished by such activity on the part of the government 262 THE FEDERAL SERVICE personnel authorities as is here suggested in any given field of education, but any one familiar with the conditions exist- ing in any particular major branch of instruction at the seat of government will find no difficulty in thinking of ways in which the current situation might be improved along the lines suggested. Outside of Washington there are few centers in which the number of federal employees would warrant the provision by the government itself of special facilities for the education of its personnel or for the intervention by the government on behalf of its personnel in the educational activities being car- ried on by non-governmental institutions. Consequently, ad- ditional interest attaches to the suggestion made at another point in this volume, that the service at Washington, so far as possible, should be recruited by the detail of employees from the field establishments. To the extent to which this could be done without detriment to the service, the departmental service at Washington, in conjunction with educational facilities super- vised and encouraged by the government, might be made the educational center for the entire federal service. The question of working hours as affecting opportunity for education is one which does not present itself in an im- portant way over most branches of the service. The hours of labor in the departments at Washington, and generally at the large centers of the country where alone the question really presents itself, are sufficiently short to make it possible for the ambitious employee to pursue all but the most difficult and exacting courses of study. It may truly be said perhaps that under existing requirements medicine, dentistry, and civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering are the only common vocations or professions preparation for which cannot success- fully be procured by the employee outside of working hours, and perhaps even the engineering courses should be excluded from this statement. So far, however, as the question does present itself, it seems desirable that a limited concession should be made by the service in the case of the deserving em- ployee whose working hours do not permit his pursuing an PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 263 appropriate educational course to the best advantage. Needless to say, this is a form of privilege which must be carefully safeguarded, both as to extent of allowance of time and as to the number of employees to whom it is extended. The same may be said with even greater emphasis with respect to any plan for the assumption by the government in whole or in part of the expenses of tuition of the employee. It may be said in passing that although the proposal that the government should in any wise concern itself with the educational advancement of its employees, or still more, should assume a portion of the expenses of such education, either by way of remission of working time or by actual contribution of tuition cost, may seem novel, yet precisely this policy has been followed in the military and naval services for years. In those services it has happened frequently that when a need arose or was anticipated for a particular type of technical service which could have been secured in the open market, the policy has been followed of taking officers, or even in some cases enlisted men, already in the service and giving them the necessary training at an expense far in excess of what would have been required to bring in civilian technicians and to in- struct them in whatever details of military practice or pro- cedure might have been necessary. Many hold that in the military and naval services this tradition has been carried to a wholly unnecessary extreme, and it is not by any means the intention here to argue that any policy which may be adopted for the educational advancement of the civilian personnel should be governed by the military tradition, but merely to point out that the proposition is more novel in appearance than in reality. In summary, the danger of educational requirements as related to selection from within is on the one hand that of con- fining recruitment to such low levels as to deprive the service of the possibility of securing persons of advanced educational equipment; and on the other that of emphasizing educational requirements to such a degree that at several successive levels recruitment from outside the service must be resorted to to 264 THE FEDERAL SERVICE secure persons with the required educational attainments, thus closing the door of promise in the face of the lower employees. The radical, and the only thoroughly satisfactory, solution of the difficulty is to be found, it is believed, not in lowering the educational standards fairly demanded by the needs of the service, but in making it possible for the employee in the lower grades to acquire the educational equipment necessary for his advancement to the higher. This is not to say that the gov- ernment is to proceed forthwith to provide higher education, in working time, for the whole of the subordinate personnel, but it means that so far as practicable those of the subordinate personnel who show sufficient promise should be provided with facilities, and with a certain allowance of time, for securing the advanced education needed for the posts in the natural line of promotion. What is here suggested is an entirely different matter from the proposal for training for the public service of which so much was formerly, and occasionally still is, heard. That pro- posal sees the service as a special field for which no adequate preparation is now afforded by existing educational institu- tions, or by business experience, and consequently aims to create training of this kind. In a subsequent section this view is examined and the conclusion reached that there are only a few positions in the public service which should properly be filled from without the service and for which adequate preparation cannot be had through existing institutions or through the ordinary course of business experience and that where such positions do exist there can be no better method of training than that of bringing into the service an intelligent and am- bitious young personnel and training it for the special work involved through the medium of the work itself. The Area of Selection from Within. — The foregoing dis- cussion has been confined to the principle of restricting se- lection to those within the service as against resorting to gen- eral competition. For the sake of simplicity in discussion, all consideration has been omitted of the fact that once the prin- ciple of restricting selection to those within the service is PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 265 decided upon a distinct but cognate problem is encountered in its application. Upon the answer which is given to this internal question depends in large measure the practicability of applying the principle as against general competition. Stated in its simplest terms, this question is to what precise area of the service shall selection from within normally be confined; and if suitable candidates are not forthcoming from so limited an area, what additional area or successive areas shall be drawn upon in the attempt to fill the position by selection from within before open competition is resorted to? To put the case con- cretely : a vacancy arises in the position of the chief accounting clerk of one of the federal services. The position is one which, in the nature of the case, might normally be expected to be satisfactorily filled by selection from within the service. In the federal service no system of formal competition for pro- motion obtains; and hence the question of the area of the service from within which the appointing officer is to be ex- pected to make his selection does not present itself as sharply as it does in those jurisdictions where formal competition for promotion does obtain. Nevertheless, the question is there; whether formally or subconsciously, the appointing officer manifestly has in mind in the first instance, a particular limited area of the service from within which his selection is to be made if a suitable candidate can be found at all. This area may be merely the particular division of the office concerned with the accounting work; it may be the accounting offices of the services both in Washington and in the field ; it may possibly include all the accounting offices of the department, including those of other services, and it may conceivably extend to the accounting offices of other departments having accounting prob- lems more or less cognate to those encountered in the service in question ; finally, it may embrace these several areas in suc- cession, the zone being successively widened as one after the other is found to yield insufficient material for selection. What, in correct theory, should be the original area of selection in this case, and what are the successive areas of extension ? What should be the final extent of the area of selection from within, 266 THE FEDERAL SERVICE beyond which the attempt to restrict selection to those within the service should be abandoned and general competition re- sorted to? Manifestly these are questions which go to the root of the whole principle of selection from within. Mani- festly, too, they admit of no facile or general answer. At first sight it might be thought that the principle of convenience, which dictates the restriction of selection to those already within the service unless substantial reason exists for the belief that better results will be obtained by resort to gen- eral competition, would also furnish the answer to the present question; that the natural rule would be that selection is to be restricted to as small an area of the service adjacent to the particular vacancy as is consistent with the probability of find- ing within that area a sufficient quantity of available material to make satisfactory selection possible, and that just as gen- eral competition should be resorted to only when selection from within seems unlikely to produce sufficient material of the de- sired quality, so the area of selection from within should be successively widened only to the degree necessary to insure an adequate quantity of material for selection. On further examination, however, it will be apparent that an additional factor of the first importance seriously qualifies the validity of this rule of convenience. This factor is the need for equalizing opportunity over the whole service. The various units of organization of the government, each of which might be designated logically as a distinct area to which selec- tion is to be restricted for any vacancy in a particular class of work occurring in that unit, vary widely in size, in their rate of expansion, in the opportunities for passage to private employment, and in various other respects, all affecting the frequency and character of the opportunity for promotion within their confines. If selection is to be normally restricted in each case to those within that unit, the mere accident of original entrance into or assignment to one or another branch of the service obviously will seriously affect the chances of promotion of the employee. The personnel administrator must consequently so apply the principle of selection from PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 267 within as to equalize as nearly as may be the opportunities for advancement of all those engaged in a particular class of work. Needless to say, there are serious natural limitations to what may be done in this direction without detriment to the service. Even though the class of work may be the same, the employee who has served in the organization unit in which/ the vacancy occurs obviously will have, other things being equal, a greater present value in the vacancy than the employee coming from another unit of the organization. The question of the balance of convenience thus presented between the need for equalization of opportunity for advancement on the one hand and the need for present economy in the service on the other is a nice one and cannot be answered, of course, in any case by the use of a formula. When the area for selection from within is extended be- yond a particular organization in which the vacancy occurs, the possibility arises and becomes greater as the area is ex- tended, that a person may be found outside that particular unit for whom appointment to the vacancy will represent not a promotion, that is, not an advancement from a lower to a higher grade of service, but a mere reassignment within the grade in which he is already employed. Even such reassign- ment, presumably, will represent an advancement for this em- ployee, or he would not seek it or be willing to accept it, but it will not be promotion from a lower to a higher grade. Clearly, viewed from the standpoint of the service as a whole, a favorable vacancy in a particular grade has been more fully earned, other things being equal, by one who has already seen service in that grade in a less favorable assignment than by one who is still in a lower grade. Nor is the desirability of equalizing the opportunity for promotion the sole reason why freedom of movement over as large an area of the service as practicable should be en- couraged. In the course of business, occasions frequently arise when reassignment or redistribution of duties has to be made; and situations arise too, where, in the interest of the service, it is desirable to change the duties assigned to a given 268 THE FEDERAL SERVICE employee. The occasions when such action may be called for are too familiar to need more than mention. Thus, a par- ticularly capable employee, with large promise of develop- ment, may be assigned by accident to duties in which he enjoys no opportunity to fit himself for more advanced work, a con- dition not only injurious to his own morale and efficiency but injurious to the service generally, since it represents a waste of potential ability, never too plentiful, which the service should conserve. Again, an estrangement may arise between an employee and a superior officer which impairs the effi- ciency of both, and which is yet the result either of accident or a temperamental difficulty not fundamental and not likely to be present with others. Finally, a situation not infrequently arises in which it is thought that a particular employee, be- cause of some special aptitude or interest, is more likely to produce results in a given specific set of duties than the em- ployee now performing those duties, though the latter may be, in general, a wholly satisfactory employee. Changes in assignments, in short although frequently made at the instance of the individual employee and in part for his benefit, at the same time may be demanded for the best inter- ests of the service. It is, consequently, in the highest degree desirable, in any personnel system, that as great a freedom in reassignment should exist as is consistent with other require- ments of personnel administration. The extension, rather than the restriction of the area of selection from within, commends itself from still another point of view — that of preventing stagnation in the service by mak- ing more frequent and more free the movement of individuals from one branch of the service to another. Since persons transferred to areas of the service more or less remote from their previous assignments have to spend some time in fa- miliarizing themselves with their new work, there is, of course, a limit beyond which the free movement of personnel and fre- quent changes in the personnel of the organization will be found hurtful to the efficiency of the service and the economy of operation: but it is not believed that under ordinary con- PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 269 ditions in the federal service there will be much danger of this, however widely the area of selection may be extended. The need for definite measures to prevent stagnation of the service is so great as to outweigh any slight danger of in- creased cost of service which may inhere in the extension of the area of selection. The problem of the proper limits of the area of selection presents itself, of course, with great variations in difficulty and importance. Some classes of work are located chiefly, if not exclusively, in a single branch of the governmental service, and here the problem is a relatively simple one. Such a case is that of the geologists employed by the Geological Survey. Virtually no other branch of the government service employs geologists except occasionally. The question of the area to which selection for any given vacancy should be restricted in this case is thus simply a question of whether it should be re- stricted to one or more of the administrative divisions of the Survey or should be extended to cover all its geologists. Since its administrative divisions are not entirely stable and the op- erating relations between them are intimate, and the geological work required in them is not radically different, the decision here naturally would be that the whole service should be con- sidered as a unit for the purpose of selection from within, ex- cept perhaps for a small proportion of highly specialized posts. At the other extreme are classes of work which occur in virtually every branch of the service. That of financial ac- counting or of maintaining personnel records and administer- ing personnel matters readily occur as examples of this class. Here a variety of questions present themselves. Selection may be restricted to those engaged in this work in the par- ticular service in the Washington office, or may be extended to include also those in the field establishments of the service engaged in that work. Again it may be extended to em- brace all services of the same executive department, whether to those employed in the central offices at Washington or in the field establishments. Finally, it may be extended to in- 270 THE FEDERAL SERVICE elude all, in whatever department, who are employed in a given class of work in Washington or perhaps even through the services the country over. In each case the decision will have to be made by balancing the advantage of enlarging the num- ber from among whom selection may be made and of opening to those in the least favored services an opportunity for ad- vancement which might otherwise be lacking, against the dis- advantage involved in filling the vacancy by one not familiar with the detail of the special problems or conditions of the particular service or branch in which the vacancy exists. So far as the latter disadvantage exists, it may be noted, it is not likely to be any more serious in many cases when the person appointed comes from a wholly different department than when he comes from another service of the same de- partment. In many instances the fields of work, and conse- quently the detailed problems of operation, of two services of the same executive department bear no more relation to each other than do those of totally distinct departments. The- oretically, of course, this should not be so, but that it is so no one familiar with the present distribution of functions among the executive departments will question for a moment. While, therefore, in theory it might appear that a more complete case ought to be made out for extending the area of selection to an- other department than for extending it merely to other serv- ices of the same department, the facts of the present situation lend little support to this view. From the various considerations just reviewed, it must be apparent that no precise formula can be developed by which the area of selection within the service desirable in any par- ticular case may be determined. All that can be offered in a discussion like the present one is that the problem is mani- festly one requiring close and continuous study ; that it cannot be met by arbitrary regulations designed to cover all cases; and that the central personnel authority should be ever in search of opportunities to extend the area of selection where desirable. None of these requirements is satisfied by the situation now obtaining in the federal service. The problem of the proper PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 271 definition of the area of selection from within for the several classes of service has never been studied in any comprehensive way. The current practice on this head is almost wholly the result of independent and uncoordinated departmental action. Attitude of Civil Service Commission. — So far as the Civil Service Commission is concerned, its action to date has not only been not constructive; it has been decidedly restrictive. At the instance of the Commission, the President has promul- gated rules, the details of which will be reviewed shortly, which materially limit the power of the appointing officer to enlarge to the fullest extent which he may deem necessary the area of selection from within. Not only is it believed that the restrictive regulations thus developed at the instance of the Commission have in many cases been unnecessary, but also that the theory which has been responsible for the Commis- sion's recommendations under this head is an incorrect one. In its current publication dealing with this subject, 1 the Com- mission repeats the statement first made by it some fifteen years ago as follows : No specific authority for transfers is found in the civil service act, and they are allowed only as necessary exceptions to open competition. The rules are intended to impose re- trictions which will confine transfers within the fundamental provisions of the act ; that is, that they shall be warranted by the conditions of good administration and have regard to the rights of competitors and employees without making a privi- leged class of the latter. To agree with the reasoning of the Commission in this matter is indeed difficult. In view of the circumstances under which the civil service act was passed and in view of the fact that the act itself specifically recognizes that "other things" may be included in the rules to be promulgated by the Presi- dent, there seems to be little reason for taking the position that the act should be given any force in the direction of re- stricting the possibilities of transfer beyond what would be "Information concerning transfers, United States Civil Service Com- mission, Form 30b, December, 1917. 272 THE FEDERAL SERVICE indicated by the needs of sound personnel administration if the act did not exist. Again, the principle of having "regard to the rights of competitors and employees without making a privileged class of the latter" finds no warrant in the civil service act itself. The act, indeed, does provide that all posi- tions, "as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant," shall be filled by open competitive examination ; but the act says nothing which negatives the possibility that it may be very much in the interests of good administration to make "a privileged class" of employees in certain cases, nor does the act anywhere define or indeed even mention the "rights of com- petitors." The purpose of the act was not to extend any "rights" to competitors for entrance to the service but to pro- vide a method of filling vacancies from without the service when it became necessary to fill vacancies in that way. The act cannot thus be fairly regarded as touching in any way on the question of the extent to which it might be desirable to fill vacancies from within, rather than from without, the service. Equally mistaken seems to be the general statement, made by the Commission in explanation of a restriction on freedom of transfer effected by amendment to the rules made in 1904, that "injustice is done when a person is brought into a depart- ment over the heads of those deserving promotion." * Al- though this statement had particular reference to the prohibi- tion of transfers to a position above the lowest grade in any class except upon special certificate, it may be taken fairly as representing a general attitude on the part of the Commission on the question of the proper extent of the area of selection from within. The difficulty with this view is that it fails to look at the service as a whole. It adopts the provincial outlook of the mediocre employee who can see no further than the particular branch of the service in which he happens to be at the time. To the capable and ambitious employee, however, it seems ho 1 Twenty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1904), p. 15. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 273 hardship that one is brought from another branch of the serv- ice over his head, provided, of course, his selection for that purpose has been fairly and honestly made, because he sees in this transfer a corresponding opportunity for himself to seize an opportunity in another branch of the service when it arises. The principle here contended for in effect converts the whole federal service into a single system within which free movement obtains, while the principle contended for by the Civil Service Commission in the statements quoted looks to the maintenance of the system as an aggregate of closed cir- cles with a transfer from one to the other possible only in the rarest instances. The net effect of the two theories would not be widely divergent were all the circles of equal dimen- sions, and opportunity for promotion within each of them equally frequent and attractive. Since such is, however, in no degree the case, the insistence of the right of each small group of employees to be treated as a service apart from all other groups in the service cannot but result in the grossest inequality of opportunity for promotion and advancement in the several branches of the service and the deterioration in the caliber of the personnel in those branches of the service in which oppor- tunity is slight. The theory here contended for opens up to every branch of the service, within the natural limitations fixed by the diversity of work, the material available anywhere in the service. At still another point the principle adopted by the Civil Service Commission is open to criticism. In concentrating at- tention on the injustice done to those "deserving of promo- tion" by bringing in one from another branch of the service over their heads, no account is taken of the fact that that one may be equally or more "deserving" at the hands of the serv- ice. The fact of the matter is that the statement of the Com- mission really implies that the selection of the person from another branch of the service in preference to those within that branch is not made solely with an eye to the good of the service but is in whole or in part dictated by the purely selfish inter- ests of the individual involved. It cannot be questioned that 274 THE FEDERAL SERVICE under current conditions prevailing in the federal service many of the transfers from one branch of the service to another have been open to this objection. The remedy, however, is not to oppose obstacles to the free movement of the personnel from one branch to another but to establish such methods of selec- tion of persons to be transferred from one branch to another as will insure that the transfer, in every case, is demanded by the interests of the service. The attitude taken by the Commission in this matter is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that it has never of- fered the slightest objection to the filling of a post by open competition which could satisfactorily be filled by promotion from within the service. Surely if injustice is done to those in a particular branch of the service by bringing in over their heads one from another branch of the service, the injustice must be all the greater when one is brought in over the heads from wholly outside the service. Attitude of Congress. — The action which Congress has taken on this subject is also wholly innocent of any construc- tive intent. The interest of Congress in this matter has arisen at various times from the competition between different serv- ices and departments for particular classes of employees, re- sulting in one service or department outbidding the other. Obviously this condition could not arise were there enforced throughout the departments and services a uniform standard classification of duties and appropriate compensation rates ap- pertaining thereto. In the absence of such standards, however, departments naturally have been able to offer very widely vary- ing figures for the same type of service. In the attempt to prevent this competition of departments with one another, Con- gress has enacted several restrictive statutes of wide applica- tion. The particular terms of these statutes and their inap- propriateness for meeting the situation in question are dis- cussed in the subsequent paragraphs in connection with the several types of restrictions. Here it is desired merely to point out that the action of Congress on this point has been brought about only by a wrong condition for which Congress PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 275 alone is responsible. Had Congress provided a means whereby uniform rates might be fixed for the same class of work throughout all branches of the service and enforced an impar- , tial application of those rates, it would be impossible for any employee to obtain a higher rate simply by moving from one organization unit of the service to another, while the work which he was performing remained the same. Were the work to be really higher in grade, there should be no proper ob- jection, of course, to the change. It should be welcomed, in fact. Disadvantages of Existing Restrictions upon Transfers. — The restrictions which are in force upon transfer from one department to another reveal themselves as especially perni- cious when a new service or agency is established. Little is to be looked for in the way of a multiplication of opportuni- ties within a given service by reason of its own rapid expan- sion. Not infrequently, however, the government enters an entirely new field of activity, and constructs a large new or- ganization therefor. In, such a case, opportunity is offered to build the personnel of the new service by selection from the ranks of the existing organization. In view of the nat- ural limitations on the opportunity for advancement in the federal service, it would seem clear that such an occasion for ' increasing those opportunities should be welcomed and should be availed of to the fullest possible extent. From the stand- point of the new organization, the desirability of obtaining an administrative personnel familiar with government methods is equally clear. But the statutory restrictions now in force make no distinction whatever between such a case as this one and that of transfer to a well established branch of the service. These restrictions apply only where the position to which transfer is sought is in the competitive class. Where the posi- tion is excepted from examination, whether by statute or by the rules, the appointing officer is free to fill it by the selection of whomever he wishes, so that manifestly no special restric- tion could logically exist which would in any way hinder him 276 THE FEDERAL SERVICE from filling it by the selection of one already in the service. 1 The requirements now in force, whether derived from statute or civil service rule, virtually without exception, are applicable only to transfers from one department or inde- pendent establishment to another. In theory, there is no rea- son why, even were the departmental organization of the gov- ernment wholly correct and consistent, a transfer from one department to another should be made any more difficult than one from one branch of a department to another. In either case, the transfer should be made, under proper practice, only where the employee transferred meets the requirements of the position to which he is transferred more completely than does any employee more nearly adjacent to the organization unit in which the vacancy occurs, or where the transfer represents to him an advancement in compensation, responsibility, or op- portunity which he has earned more fully than such more ad- jacent employee. If either or both these factors are present, it would seem immaterial whether the transfer involves a journey from one department to another or merely from one part of a department to another. 2 Especially would this view seem to apply considering the 'If the position to which transfer is sought be in the competitive class and the position from which the transfer is proposed be an ex- cepted one, the person proposed to be transferred must pass an examina- tion. This requirement is discussed in the following section. "The following from the report of the Reclassification Commission (Part I, p. 12) seems to endorse this view: "We are asking the Congress to remove the barriers which have been set up between the various depart- ments and which have made it extremely difficult for an employee in one department to secure a more lucrative place in another department. We believe the service should be regarded as an entity and that pro- motions should go to the best, qualified without regard to departmental lines." _ It is not entirely clear, however, how this is to be reconciled with the position taken at a subsequent point in the report (p. 127) that "a clear distinction should be made between transfer between departments and assignment to specific positions within the same department. The Civil Service Commission should have no authority over assignments, provided they are in accordance with the classification, the placing of individuals in specific positions within the same class coming entirely within the jurisdiction of the administrative officers in charge of the work." If it be assumed that the word department is here used in the sense of organization unit, the inconsistency disappears, as the sentence would then mean merely that the Commission would not exercise su- pervision over the division of labor among the employees of a class in any organization unit. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT iff existing departmental organization of the federal government. The present distribution of functions and services among the departments represents not the outworking of a comprehensive and consistent plan, but a more or less haphazard and acci- dental growth, characterized by many features wholly illogical, some very ill-considered, and not a few manifestly absurd. In a number of instances, the gap which separates a given service from another in the same department is far wider than that which separates it from a given service in another depart- ment. In fact, it is notorious that nearly all the proposals which from time to time have been put forward for the con- solidation of functions in the federal government have con- templated the consolidation of two or more services not in the same department but in different departments. Obviously, this lack of logic in the departmental organization of the gov- ernment renders all the more improper and vexatious the ar- bitrary restrictions which are interposed to hinder free move- ment from one department to another. The basic motive for these restrictions has been to check the employees in their attempts to obtain higher salaries by se- curing transfers from departments paying lower salaries to those paying higher salaries for the same class of work. The situation which led to their enactment was thus summarized in the report of the Quartermaster General for the year ended June 30, 1904 : 1 Under the provisions of the civil service rules relating to transfers, during the past year other Departments have ap- plied for and obtained the transfer from this Office of a num- ber of clerks — with hardly an exception . . . young men who, in addition to being competent clerks, are skilled stenogra- phers and typewriters, and who at the time of their respective transfers had been in the service just long enough to familiar- ize themselves with departmental methods. However valuable the system of transfers may be to the Departments drafting this class of employees, it is demoralizing to the Department from which the clerks are drafted. It is true that the latter 1 Twenty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1904), p. 15. 278 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Department can, under the rules, arbitrarily refuse to grant the requested transfer, but in every case the clerk whose trans- fer is asked is offered an increase in salary . . . and in the majority of cases more rapid promotion than can be expected in the office in which he is serving. When these facts are placed before the head of a Department, he approves the trans- fer rather than take the position of standing in the way of the material advancement of the clerk. The difficulty with this proposition is that the condition out of which the undue frequency of transfer arose, that is, the lack of uniformity in the salaries paid for the same kind of work in the several departments, was an improper one and one capable of being remedied. The undue frequency of trans- fers was merely a symptom of this disease and not a disease itself. The remedy should have been sought in a standardiza- tion of salary rates for similar classes of work throughout the departments and not in an arbitrary restriction upon the free- dom of transfer in cases where such transfer might be desired not merely by the employee for personal reasons but by the administration officers of both departments concerned for rea- sons solely connected with the good of the service. The most important restriction now in force limiting trans- fer from one department to another is that requiring that an employee "must have served for a term of three years in an executive department or independent establishment at Wash- ington before transfer to another such department or estab- lishment." This rule is merely a paraphrase of a statute originally enacted in 1906 1 and extended in its scope in 1917. 2 The drastic character of this provision needs no comment. 'Act of June 2i, 1906, 34 Stat. 449. "Act of October 6, 1917, 40 Stat. 383. The original act of 1906 ap- plied only to transfers from one executive department to another execu- tive department. The act of 191 7 extended the restriction to transfers from executive departments to independent establishments and wee versa and to transfers of employees from one independent establishment to an- other. Long before the statutory extension of 1917, the rules (under an amendment ordered September 23, 1907) had extended the three-year requirement to transfers between, to, or from independent establishments; but under those rules the requirement might be waived by the Commis- sion, while the statute made it mandatory. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 279 Taken in conjunction with the act of 1917, shortly to be men- tioned, which prohibits the appointment of persons under lump sum appropriations in any department at a higher rate of com- pensation than was received by them in any other department preceding their employment by the second department, it con- stitutes a more drastic restriction upon inter-departmental transfers than is to be found in any other public personnel sys- tem that has come to notice and one which, ' needless to say, is wholly foreign to the practice of private personnel systems. It is consequently all the more difficult to understand why the Commission felt called upon, in 1907, to extend this three- year requirement even further than required by the statute. The Attorney General ruled, shortly after the enactment of this statute, that it did not apply to transfers to or from the field services of the several departments, on the ground that the term "departments" as used in the act was intended to apply only to the departments at Washington. 1 The President presumably acting on the recommendation of the Commission, shortly thereafter amended the rules to apply the same restric- tion to inter-departmental transfers to or from field services, with the qualification that the requirement may be waived upon a statement of reasons satisfying the Commission that a transfer is necessary in the interest of the service. 2 In- formation is not available as to the frequency with which occasions arise for the application of this part of the rule, or as to the attitude which the Commission has taken towards applications for the waiving of the requirement. Whatever may be the facts on this head, however, it is believed that the rule itself is uncalled for and unsound in principle, and should be abrogated without delay; and that the Commission at the same time should urge upon Congress the repeal of the statutes of 1906 and 1917. 1 Opinion of the Attorney General, May 17, 1907, 26 Op., 254. 'Amendment of September 23, 1907, to Rule X, 8 (a). In point of fact the amendment, in its terms, requires the consent of the Commission to the waiving of the three-year requirement not merely in the case of inter-departmental transfers to or from field services, but even in all inter-departmental transfers. If this was the intent of the rule, how- ever, it has never been carried out. 280 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Official opinion, based on experience, accords with theory in recommending this course. In the year following the en- actment of the three-year law the following comment was made by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor : The law prohibiting transfers from one Executive Depart- ment to another until three years' service has not worked an improvement. The bright young man coming into the service at a small salary is largely influenced in his acceptance of the place by the hope of reasonably early promotion. In many offices he finds that there is but little opportunity. He cannot afford to wait three years for a transfer to some office where the chances are better, and he either leaves the service at the beginning of his usefulness or drifts into hopeless mediocrity. While it is probably true that some offices and Departments have suffered because of frequent transfers, it is believed that the proper remedy is a uniform reclassification of the service, as recently recommended by the Committee on Department Methods, and that any direct prohibition against transfers be- yond the period of six months originally fixed by the civil service rules, while affording apparent relief, does not remove the cause and cannot be regarded as the correct solution of the difficulty. The nucleus of this Department was formed by transfers from other branches of the service, and it would probably have been a severe drawback had the transfer limi- tation then been in effect: Were all the Departments classi- fied on a uniform basis, much, if not all, of the instability of the force in certain Departments and offices would disappear. 1 Again in 1910, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor ex- pressed his opinion of the three-year rule as highly undesir- able from the standpoint of personnel administration. The statement made by him at that time, and presumably prepared for him by an official in his Department thoroughly conversant with conditions in the Federal Service, so admirably sums up the considerations bearing on this question as to warrant re- production in full. There are many instances in which it is found to be im- practicable to make selections for appointment from the civil twenty-fourth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1907), p. 176. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 281 service registers. Prior to June 22, 1906, a department could select, after six months' service, an employee in another de- partment or branch of the service having qualifications to fit the needs of a particular position, thus leaving a vacancy which very often could be filled advantageously from the eligible list, but by legislation enacted on that date such a transfer is pro- hibited if both positions are in Washington, D. C, unless the employee proposed for transfer has served at least three years in the department from which transfer is desired. This ap- plies also to transfers to and from positions outside of the District of Columbia, unless the Civil Service Commission deems the action necessary in the interest of the service and waives the three-year requirement. That transfers, especially to positions requiring executive ability or scientific and tech- nical training, are occasionally desirable and even necessary to the best interests of the Government cannot be questioned. The transfer of an employee from a position not requiring the full use of his powers to one requiring a higher order of efficiency also is clearly not only in the interest of the service, but advantageous to the employee himself. It enables a de- partment to fill properly a position which requires a special order of ability or imposes a high degree of responsibility by the appointment of a person whom experience has shown to possess just the qualifications of mind and temperament de- sired, as well as to retain in the service a valuable employee who might otherwise become dissatisfied with his environ- ments and leave the service, but who, if given the proper en- couragement and opportunity, might rise step by step into the higher positions. A less direct, but by no means unimpor- tant, advantage of the privilege of transfer is that it offers inducements to ambitious young men who would enter the service if they felt assured of a fair chance for advancement. The civil service act contains no specific authority for trans- fers. Presumably for this reason the Civil Service Commis- sion considers the filling of a position by transfer such a de- parture from the general method of appointment prescribed by law as can only be justified when the conditions of good administration will be more fully met than by original ap- pointment. Apparently also the commission recognized the advantages of a certain amount of elasticity in the transfer rules, for it stated, shortly before the passage of the law es- tablishing the three-year limit, that it believed that transfers had been restricted to the fullest extent compatible with the best interests of the service, 282 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Experience shows that inter departmental transfers are per- haps unnecessarily hampered and restricted at the present time by the provision of law referred to. While its object was, unquestionably, to restrict the number of transfers made for personal and other reasons not connected with the best inter- ests of the service, and to prevent persons from accepting appointments to undesirable positions with a view to securing early transfer through improper influence, in actual practice it appears to be merely an arbitrary rule for which no suffi- cient reason can be found, and an obstacle in the way of busi- nesslike methods. ' It is not apparent why objectionable trans- fers could not be restricted by means less detrimental to the general service; why, if a time limit is deemed absolutely necessary, it should be placed at three years rather than at six months or one year; or why the Civil Service Commission should not be authorized to waive the requirement, even in transfers between departments in Washington, when the head of a department concludes and certifies that such action is re- quired in the interest of the service. In pleasing contrast to inter-departmental transfers, and as really convincing illustra- tions of their usefulness with proper cooperation between the departments and fewer arbitrary restrictions, are the transfers between the various bureaus of this department. During the past fiscal year there were 90 transfers of this kind. Many of these were made upon the application of the employee con- cerned; practically all were agreeable to the persons trans- ferred; and all (even those made as the result of the efficiency records taken last year) had in view the ultimate good of the There is not found in any subsequent pronouncement of the Civil Service Commission or of the departments any dis- cussion of *Jie wisdom of the three-year transfer rule, but it it is hardly to be doubted that a canvass of the officers of the several departments and bureaus which have to do with per- sonnel matters would disclose a fairly unanimous agreement among them that the present requirement is distinctly hurtful to the service. 2 1 Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1910), p. 139- 'In 1912 the President's Commission _ on Economy and Ffficiency addressed to all the principal administrative officers in Washington 1 a questionnaire calling for comment on various statutory provisions affect- PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 283 Unduly restrictive as the three-year requirement is, it proved itself wholly ineffective, in the complete absence of cen- tral provision for salary fixation and enforcement, to check the wholesale inter-departmental competition for experienced employees, and even for inexperienced, which developed promptly upon the declaration of war. Congress again met the situation, not with any fundamental plan for the central control and equalization of compensation rates, but with a wholly negative, restrictive enactment. At a time when it was of vital import to the government that every experienced em- ployee should be placed in that branch of the hastily improvised and hourly expanding war organization for which he was best fitted, Congress prohibited the transfer of any employee from one department to another at an increased rate of compensa- tion (or the employment at a higher rate of any person who had within the year been employed in another department, a provision obviously designed to prevent evasion through res- ignation and reappointment) ; and forbade any increase of the compensation of any employee transferred within a year after the transfer. 1 The Comptroller of the Treasury fortunately decided that the act was limited to positions in the depart- ments and independent establishments at Washington. 2 Adopted purely as an emergency measure, and embodied in an appropriation act, this ill-advised measure still remains on the statute books, chiefly because Congress is too much occu- pied with other matters to repeal it. 3 In connection with this legislation, mention should be made of the act of 1912 prohibiting the increasing of an employee's ing personnel. The replies (to be found in "A Budget for the Fiscal Year 1914," one of the Commission's Reports, pp. 207-335) in most cases mention the three-year statutory restriction on transfers and virtually unanimously condemn it. 'Act of October 6, 1917, 40 Stat. 384. It should be noted that the act in terms applies only to salaries paid out of lump sum appropria- tions ; but this represents far the larger, and an ever increasing, pro- portion of positions. 2 Decision of October 12, 1917, 24 Dec. Compt. 207. 'The case against the statute is conclusively and fully set forth in a report of the House Committee on Reform in the Civil Service, made August 8, 1918, recommending its repeal. Sixty-sixth Congress, 1st Ses- sion, House Report No. 272. See also Congressional Record, April 1, 1920, p. 5492. 284 THE FEDERAL SERVICE salary by shifting him from a statutory position to one paid out of a lump sum appropriation. 1 This act was not directed primarily against inter-departmental transfers but rather against abuses of the lump appropriations to make unwar- ranted increases of salary within the departments. It applies, however, as against inter-departmental transfers as well. Attitude of Reclassification Commission. — Discussing the several restrictions on inter-departmental transfers in relation to compensation rates just reviewed, the Reclassification Com- mission well says : Such restrictions, however good their intent, render trans- fers exceedingly difficult and tend to make the entire service immobile. During the last few years in particular they have worked a real hardship by preventing the more experienced and efficient employees from being transferred to other or- ganizations where salaries were higher or opportunities for advancement better, Whatever justification may have existed for restrictions of this sort in the past will be done away with in the future under the new classification. Providing similar pay for the performance of similar duties throughout the service will do away with the temptation that now exists for one department to bid against another, and will tend to limit the desire of the employees to be transferred to cases where there is some real reason for a change aside from the prospect of salary increase. Under these conditions the Commission sees no danger in the removal of the present restrictions on transfers. On the contrary, it believed that such action would prove beneficial by increasing the mobility of the service and making possible the placing of employees where they can serve to the best ad- vantage. General supervision over inter-departmental trans- fers would naturally be exercised by the Civil Service Com- mission under such rules and regulations as that Commission might prescribe. With the safeguards against abuse provided by the new classification and by the activities of the Civil Service Commission's representatives, it is believed that these rules might well provide that the initiative in a transfer could be taken by the employee concerned as well as by the head of the department to which the transfer is to be made. The ap- *Act of August 26, 1912, 37 Stat. 626, as amended by act of March 4. 1913, 37 Stat. 790. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 285 proval of the latter would, of course, be a prerequisite in all cases to favorable action by the Civil Service Commission; and the disapproval of the head of the department from which transfer is to be made should serve as a temporary bar to transfer, subject to appeal and final decision by the Civil Serv- ice Commission. 1 One further restriction on inter-departmental transfers, of a comparatively minor character, should be mentioned — that providing that "no transfer shall be made to a competitive position above the lowest class in any grade unless the ap- pointing officer shall certify that the position cannot be ade- quately filled by promotion." (Rule X, Section 1.) 2 This rule was promulgated by an amendment of 1904. The reason for this amendment as stated by the Commission was that "in- justice is done when a person is brought into a department over the heads of those deserving promotion." 3 This view, as already pointed out, does not take into ac- count the fact that while those in the department may indeed be "deserving of promotion," there may often be in another department one equally or more "deserving," whose transfer, moreover, is demanded by the needs of the service. Occasions may arise in which a position can satisfactorily be filled by pro- motion but it is nevertheless desirable to fill it by the transfer of a person who is either specially suitable or for whom pro- vision must in fairness be made because of conditions ex- isting in the branch from which he is transferred. The rule should require merely that the Commission should be satis- fied in each instance that the interests of the service will be subserved by filling the position by transfer rather than by promotion. Owing, however, to the absence of clearly de- fined grades over the major part of the service, and the fact that merely the certificate of the appointing officer, but no 'Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 126. 'The rule further provides that "The Commission may, with the approval of the head of any department, adopt regulations applicable to the service in or under such department declaring what class shall be regarded as the lowest in any grade." "Twenty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1904), p. IS- 286 THE FEDERAL SERVICE proof before the Commission, is required to effect the waiving of this rule, it is not of any serious consequence as a restric- tion upon transfer. The Reclassification Commission has taken a view on this point diametrically opposed to that taken by the Civil Service Commission. It has recommended that every vacancy in a higher grade be filled by transfer if possible; and that promo- tion be made only when there is no employee available for transfer. 1 While this proposal is doubtless in full accord with the theory of the extension of the area of selection from within urged in the foregoing pages, it is believed to go beyond the limits of practicability. To require an examination to be made in each case of the whole service for employees pos- sibly available for transfer would seem an unnecessary labor. If the normal areas of selection from within are properly defined, it will be sufficient if special occasions calling for. selection from without that area are brought to the attention of the appointing officer on the initiative of the Civil Service Commission in each individual case. Absence of Means for Locating Eligibles for Transfer. — Another factor limiting the area of the service from which selection is made, is the absence of any adequate machinery for bringing before the appointment officer information regarding the material available in the area outside his personal cog- nizance. At the present time there exists no special machinery or procedure in the federal service for bringing the job and the man together in such a case. If news of the vacancy hap- pens to come to the attention of a qualified person in the service, he may make application for a transfer, which will be granted on his securing the consent of the heads of both departments involved; but no official means or procedure ex- ists for bringing the job to his attention, or for raising the question of transfer without his being compelled to take the initiative. No attempt is made, "in advance of ordering an open competitive examination, to locate a possibly suitable per- son already in the service and bring about his transfer. The 'Report of Reclassification Commission, Part I, pp. 24, 138. PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 287 result is that every year large numbers of technical or quasi- technical positions are filled by appointment of persons from without the service which could as satisfactorily be filled from within the service, not only with less expense and delay but, far more important, with a resulting stimulation of ambition and enlargement of opportunity for the whole personnel — of first importance in improving morale and in improving also the caliber of the personnel that is attracted to and retained in the service. This condition, which applies principally to the higher cler- ical, office manager, type of position, and to statistical and routine scientific work, could be readily arid radically improved were the Civil Service Commission to develop such records as would enable it, when a vacancy arose in any service which could not to advantage be filled by promotion from within that service, to recommend for transfer to the vacancy one or more persons already in the service, to whom appointment to the vacancy would represent an advance in salary or responsibility. A special phase of the work of the central personnel agency in the control of transfers is the shifting of subordinate per- sonnel from department to department to meet the varying seasonal needs of the several departments. Exact data as to the possibilities of this feature of the federal service are not available, but it is more than likely that there are substantial possibilities for good. Advantages of Recruiting Personnel at Washington from the Field Service. — A practice which does not appear to be in effect in any of the Government establishments to which it would be applicable, but which would seem to offer many advantages, would be that of recruiting the personnel at Wash- ington, so far as practicable, not from outside the service, but from the personnel of the field establishments. Such a prac- tice, of course, would be most readily applicable to those serv- ices which have comparatively large field establishments and comparatively small forces at Washington, but if applied on a departmental basis, or, as would be practicable, even on an inter-departmental basis, it could be made applicable in greater 288 THE FEDERAL SERVICE or less degree to the recruitment of possibly a major part of the personnel at Washington. The advantages of such a system lie in several directions. In the first place, especially if appointments to Washington were regarded rather in the nature of a detail for a term than in the nature of a permanent appointment, it would result in a continuous interchange of personnel between the field es- tablishments and the departmental offices in Washington. An interchange of this kind is well recognized in large commercial and industrial organizations as in the highest degree beneficial. Where no such interchange of personnel obtains, it is almost invariably the case that the central office personnel fails prop- erly to appreciate the conditions and the difficulties under which the field personnel works and that, conversely, the field personnel tends to be impatient of the requirements laid down by the central office with respect to the accounting, reporting, and related matters, the importance of which, for the pur- pose of central control is not clearly apparent to those in the field. Hence it is that prompt and willing cooperation be- tween field and central establishments, one of the prime requi- sites of effective administration, is greatly facilitated by the practice of interchange of personnel here suggested. Another advantage to which passing reference has been made already arises from the fact that the present system of selecting the personnel for the departmental service at Wash- ington from the whole area of the country, as it necessarily does, frequently requires the appointing officer to select an eligible who resides at a considerable distance from Washing- ton only to find long before the expiration of the probationary period that the appointee is unsuited for the work. The ob- vious difficulty in dismissing an employee under these condi- tions, at or before the end of the probationary period, not in- frequently results in the retention of the incompetent or un- suitable employee beyond that period, which is equivalent to indefinite retention in the service. Under the system proposed, on the other hand, the appointing officer in Washington would not be compelled to select more or less blindly but would ob- PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 289 tain his personnel by selection from among the tried and tested employees of the field service who have been recommended by local superiors, familiar both with the work required at Wash- ington and with the qualifications of the individual employee. Moreover, in such a case there would be no occasion for the drastic dismissal of the employee who has been brought to Washington. If the employee, when actually tested out, were found unsuitable, the situation could be cured merely by a re- detail as soon as convenient to the local service. Closely related to this is the possibility that the application of this method would furnish a painless solution of the vexed problem of apportionment. Since the personnel of many of the field services is distributed over the country in approxi- mate proportion to the population, the method suggested would furnish for these services a very natural application of the principle without the necessity for any such rigid mechanical methods of enforcement as are now provided. From still another angle, the proposition is an attractive one in that it could readily be developed into a means of stimulating and rewarding the efforts of the local employees. The detail to Washington for a term of years could be made by attaching attractive salary conditions and by furnishing transportation to and from Washington, a prize to be con- tended for by the employee of the- local service. Particu- larly would this be the case were any positive measures taken to afford the employee at Washington greater opportunity for taking advantage of its educational facilities, as urged in an- other place.* Obviously there are limits and the branches of the service differ materially in respect to what may be done along the line here suggested. Inasmuch as the whole proposition is, so far as official recognition is concerned, almost entirely novel, 2 it has not been thought worth while to inquire more particu- J The extent to which the departmental and field services are now regarded as distinct is indicated by the fact that the Civil Service Com- mission regularly holds separate examinations for the position of field clerk and departmental^ clerk, though the scope and difficulty of the ex- amination is the same in both cases. 290 THE FEDERAL SERVICE larly, so far as such inquiry could be made short of actual ex- perience, what these limitations are in the several services. The political appointment of local chief officers is an impor- tant factor" in hindering the extension of the area of selection from within in the field services. Under the method of politi- cal appointment, it is, of course, natural that the postmaster, collector, or district attorney be a resident of the district under his jurisdiction. From a purely administrative standpoint, there is, of course, no reason why this should be so ; any more than it is thought necessary that an army officer placed in charge of one of the military departments into which the United States is divided need be a resident of that department ; or, in the For- est Service, that the forester in charge of a national forest be a resident of the district in which the forest is located. The practice of appointing the head of the office from the locality results in a tendency to view the office as a whole as very much a local one, the personnel of which is to be treated as a local organization rather than as an integral part of the great na- tional organization of which it forms a part. Only to a very limited, almost a negligible, extent is the subordinate officer in the local post office, the local custom house, or the local internal revenue office regarded as a member of a national service who may be assigned to service wherever his services can be used to the best advantage to himself and to the service. Only to a slight extent does he have any prospect of promotion other than what is offered within the particular station or office to which he is attached. It is difficult to conceive of a scheme of organization better adapted to deprive the personnel of incentive for good work, to stifle ambition for advancement within the service, or to. tie the hands of a central administration desiring to put its service upon a really efficient and economical basis. Once the head- ships of these local offices were placed upon a merit basis, there undoubtedly would develop in due course the complete "nationalization" of the whole service. 1 The chief positions 'It must be admitted that the merit selection of presidential post- masters does not as yet appear to have had any influence in this direction. The limitation of competition for the postmasterships, even of the larg- PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 291 in each office would be graded and classified with positions of comparable responsibility and difficulty in other offices of the service ; and provision would be made whereby one performing distinguished service in one office might look for promotion to any one of the other offices in the country which might offer greater opportunities than the one with which he happened to be connected. In this way a postmaster who had distinguished himself by a reorganization or by a particularly efficient ad- ministration of a post office in a city of 250,000 might be pro- moted to the charge of the post office in a city of 1,000,000 and so forth. With such a "nationalization" of the service joined to a placing of the higher positions in the central administra- tion at Washington upon a merit basis, the great field admin- istration services of the government — the postal, customs, rev- enue, public land, and similar services — would indeed become a field attractive to men of ability and ambition, a field offer- ing if not a "career" at least a distinct vocation. The complete and immediate destruction of the tradition of local residence is not necessary; it could be broken down at first only to the extent of permitting the transfer of a post- master to any post office in his state; and the area of selection would gradually be widened by districting the country. The program here suggested for the postmasterships is, of course, equally applicable to the other classes of local chief officers, as soon as the President or Congress shall place their selection on a merit basis. Before leaving the subject of the area of selection from within a word may be said with respect to the unclassified services which are on a merit basis — the Public Health Service and the Foreign Service. In the Public Health Service the reg- ulations regarding entrance are such as to make transfer into the service impossible. In the case of the Foreign Service, a person in the employ of the State Department at a salary of $1,800 (whether in a classified or unclassified position) may be est cities, to residents of the post office district has undoubtedly been a factor in sustaining the tradition of "localized" postal personnel. The fact that the system of selection has been one of recruitment and not of selection from within has been an equally important factor. 292 THE FEDERAL SERVICE transferred to any grade of the Diplomatic Service, and a per- son so employed at a salary of $2,000 or more may be trans- ferred to any grade of the consular service above that at which entrance to the service from outside is made ; that is, above that of Consul, Class 8. The diplomatic service and the consular service are re- garded as distinct branches of the foreign service and transfers from one to another are not permitted "unless upon the desig- nation by the President for examination and the successful passing of the examination prescribed for the service to which such transfer is made. Unless the exigencies of the service imperatively demand it, such person to be transferred shall not have preference in designation for the taking of the exami- nation or in appointment from the eligible list, but shall follow the course of procedure prescribed for all applicants for ap- pointment to the service which he desires to enter." It is rather difficult to perceive the reasons for this appar- ent desire to prevent movement from one to the other of the branches of the foreign service. Technical Obstacles to Selection from Within. — It re- mains to consider certain technical obstacles to the application of the principle of .selection from within which have developed in the federal service not out of considerations of general per- sonnel policy, to which they are indeed in every case directly opposed, but out of technical or financial conditions. The effect of the technical obstacles is, in some cases, not merely to com- pel a resort to general competition where selection from within would equally well or better serve the interests of the service but actually to make impossible selection from within, in effect awarding a preference in selection to those outside the service. The first of these obstacles to selection from within is the line of division between the competitive and the excepted posi- tions. It obviously would be violative of the principle of com- petition if one who entered the service in an excepted position were permitted to be promoted or reassigned to a competitive position, and except in one or two insignificant special cases the rules consequently do not permit this to be done, Thus PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 293 it may result, and occasionally does result, that though the in- terests of the services would in the particular instance best be served by a promotion or reassignment of this kind, it cannot be made. Except in the single matter of the promotion of unclassified sub-clerical employees to competitive clerical positions to which reference already has been made, the law and rules recognize no method by which one holding an unclassified position may be given a classified status by any method other than original entrance; and again, within the classified service, with minor exceptions, no person holding an excepted or non-competitive position can be given a competitive position. Again the converse situation may present itself, and since the excepted position is more commonly found in the higher levels of the service this is indeed more likely to occur. It may be desired to promote or reassign a competitive employee to an excepted position. There is, of course, no rule whatever preventing this. But should the employee accept the position or reassignment he would lose his classified competitive status and the protection against removal, both legal and traditional, which this implies. Hence the result is not infrequent that the competitive employee declines a favorable reassignment rather than incur the risks attached to the loss of competitive status. Being designed to protect the competitive principles against evasion, these restrictions, of course, are wholly justified and some may even think them not sufficiently rigid. They must be borne with as a necessary evil so long as the competitive principle receives only limited acceptance in the federal per- sonnel system; but they furnish an additional reason for the contention already advanced on other grounds, that the present division of the service into classified and unclassified groups, and competitive and excepted groups, is an impediment to effective personnel administration and should be eliminated. Another necessary restriction on free movement within the classified competitive service itself arises out of the apportion- ment principle. That principle which is laid down in the civil service law (Section 2, Second, Third) requires that "as nearly 294 THE FEDERAL SERVICE as the conditions of good administration will warrant ... ap- pointments . . ." to positions in Washington "shall be appor- tioned among the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia upon the basis of population." It is to be noted that the act refers specifically to "appointments" ; but the rules endeavor to apply the principle also to transfers from a "non- apportioned" to an "apportioned" position. Where the state of which the person proposed to be transferred is a resident has already received an excessive share of appointments (or trans- fers) the transfer can be effected only by the special permission of the Commission on certificate of the appointing officer that the transfer is required in the interests of good administration, setting forth in detail the reasons therefor. (Rule X, Para- graph 8, B.) The Commission, in an official circular, has further interpreted this requirement as follows : * It must be shown that the employee possesses qualifications not possessed by persons tested by competitive examinations,, or some unusual or highly technical knowledge, ability, or skill which is required for the most efficient performance of the duties of the position to which his transfer is sought, which '"Information Concerning Transfers." United States Civil Service Commission, Form 305, December, 1917, page 5. The distinction between apportioned and non-apportioned positions and the method of applying the rule of apportionment in original appointments are discussed in the chapter dealing with recruitment methods in the classified competitive service. The following rulings of the Commission relative to the appli- cation of the apportionment rule in transfers are of interest here. "When an employee is proposed for a transfer involving a charge to the quota of a State or Territory already in excess under the law of apportionment the transfer may be allowed so far as the apportionment is concerned (1) if at the time of the proposed transfer the State or Territory of residence of such employee is within reach of certification irom the register appropriate for the position to which transfer is pro- posed; or (2) if transfer is requested during the life of the register from which he was appointed to the non-apportioned service and if the State or Territory of his residence is reached." (Minute of Commission, March 7, 1910.) "In view of the necessity for change of climate after service in the Tropics, as shown by the orders and practice of the War Department, and as recognized by the Commission in transfers from the Philippines, such orders and practice will be regarded as indicating that such trans- fers are required in the interest of good administration where employees proposed for transfer from the Isthmus have rendered three years or more of satisfactory service and are otherwise eligible. The apportion- ment will be waived in all such cases." (Minute of Commission, July 18, 1910.) PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT i% it would be difficult or impossible to obtain through the usual methods of filling such positions. This showing must be made to the satisfaction of the Commission. A final limitation upon the freedom of the appointing officer to select from within the service arises from the distinction be- tween statutory positions and those the salary of which is paid from lump sum appropriations. In a preceding chapter this distinction was explained and the view taken not only that the actual application of the distinction was wholly illogical and not explainable upon any consistent basis but that the whole theory of statutory positions was radically incorrect from the standpoint alike of personnel and of financial administration. In the present connection the additional fault is found that this useless and improper distinction is made the basis for a limitation upon the freedom of the appointing officer in select- ing from within the service, and may even necessitate a resort to general competition where selection from within the service would be wholly adequate. By Act of August 26, 1912, 1 it was provided as follows: "Nor shall any person employed at a specific salary be hereafter transferred and hereafter paid from a lump sum appropriation at a rate of compensation greater than such specific salary." 2 The term "specific salary" in this act has been construed to have the same meaning as "statutory" salary. The effect of this provision is consequently virtually to close to the employee so unfortunate as to be appointed to a statutory position aU hope of advancement except by promotion to another statutory posi- "36 Stat. 626. This act applied only to the fiscal year 1913. By act of March 4, 1913 (37 Stat. 790), the provision was made permanent. "The section also requires that "heads of departments shall cause this provision to be enforced." In the same section is contained the re- striction already referred to in the chapter dealing with compensation, prohibiting the payment of personal service at a. rate of compensation in excess of that paid for the same or similar service during the preced- ing fiscal year. The section also contains a proviso "that this section shall not apply to mechanics, artisans, their helpers or assistants, laborers, or any other employees whose duties are of similar character, required in carrying on the various manufacturing and construction operations of the Government." While in terms this proviso applies to the entire section, its specific application is chiefly if not solely to the provision just referred to regarding payment at rates in excess of those paid in the preceding year. 296 THE FEDERAL SERVICE tion, in which case his situation as respects subsequent promo- tion is again the same. It is exceedingly difficult for him to obtain from Congress an increase in the statutory salary which he enjoys and it is against the law for his administrative su- perior to promote him to a position at a higher salary, which is paid out of a lump sum appropriation. Under these circum- stances, it is not surprising that not a few incumbents of statu- tory positions found the sole avenue of escape in entering open competitive examinations and securing original appointment to the service at increased rates of compensation. As applied to appointment within the same department, however, the Comp- troller of the Treasury soon ruled that this procedure was an evasion of the law when, as was almost always the case, the position to which appointment was made was paid from a lump sum appropriation. As respects appointment to other depart- ments, on the other hand, Congress, in 1917, enacted the statute to which reference has already been made, prohibiting the pay- ment out of a lump sum appropriation, to any person hitherto employed in another department, of a higher salary than he re- ceived in such department, within one year after the cessation of his service in the first department. In short, in the attempt to prevent possible minor abuses in the fixing of compensation rates by administrative officers, made possible only by its own complete failure to provide a standard classification of duties and a standard scale of compensation rates, Congress, by suc- cessive enactments, has built up around the unfortunate in- cumbent of the statutory position a prison from which there is hardly any escape except by resignation from the service. One may derive a certain satisfaction in the contemplation of this sorry history from observing how completely Con- gress has failed to place any restriction whatever in the way of reassignment from one "lump sum" position to another. As was set forth in the preceding chapter, the number of positions and the payroll totals paid from lump sum appropriations greatly exceed those on the statutory rolls. The apparent fail- ure of the Congressional- committees to appreciate the incon- sistency in the legislation which they have developed on this PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 297 head is indicative of the lack of comprehensive study and planning which has been so characteristic of nearly all Congres- sional action in personnel matters. CHAPTER IX METHODS OF SELECTION FROM WITHIN: REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION To consider methods of selection from within before con- sidering methods of recruitment may at first sight appear il- logical. In the life history of the employee, recruitment must precede promotion or reassignment; and in the construction of a new personnel system, the first step must be that of re- cruitment. In a well established, going organization such as the federal service, however, recruitment should be resorted to only when selection from within does not promise satisfactory results. From the standpoint of a going concern, therefore, a discussion of the methods of selection from within logically precedes a consideration of methods of recruitment. Promotion and Reassignment Distinguished from Increase of Compensation. — At the outset promotion and reassign- ment should be clearly distinguished from a mere change in compensation. The former, in their proper senses, are methods of selection from within the service for a particular post, and imply selection for a position which is rated as of a different grade than the one formerly occupied. A mere salary change, on the other hand, has nothing to do with selection for a vacancy. There is no selection of a particular employee for a particular post. The employee continues to perform the same duties in the same position, but at a different rate of compensa- tion. Obvious as this distinction is, it has been necessary to point it out, since it is one that must be kept in mind constantly in endeavoring to think clearly about matters of personnel, and because, despite its obviousness, it is so frequently lost sight of in discussions on the subject. Methods adapted for deter- mining salary increases are wholly unsuitable for determining 298 REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 299 selections for posts of greater responsibility. The absence of well defined titles with precise descriptions of duties is the con- dition primarily responsible for a failure to appreciate this distinction. Where such a classification exists, the difference between a mere increase of salary within the same class of duties, and a change in duties involving a clearly higher re- sponsibility, is clear to every one. At this point, therefore, as at so many preceding and subsequent points the fundamental value of a clear classification of positions again reveals itself. Reassignment versus Promotion. — The consideration of reassignments together with promotions may not be clear at first sight. To the employee, a promotion generally means a much greater advance in compensation than does what com- monly goes by the name of a reassignment ; but looked at as operations of the personnel system, both are designed to move an individual to a position in which he will be of greater value to the service. The primary difference between the two is that, in promotion, the position to which the employee is moved is recognized as being so much higher in responsibility or difficulty as to be in a higher grade, whereas, in reassignment, the dif- ference is not sufficient to constitute a difference in grade. Again a notion of permanency is associated with promotion, whereas reassignment carries with it no such element. A final distinguishing feature of reassignment is that it may involve, in some cases, a mere change of position and duties without any change in the degree of responsibility or in the difficulty of the duties. Even in this case, however, the process, from the standpoint of personnel administration, has the same object; that of selecting an employee for a position in which he can render better service. Reassignments of another type are sometimes encountered, especially in large services with a considerable number of per- sons performing the same services on a standardized basis. An employee may be moved from one part of the organization to another where he continues to perform the same duties. Such reassignment may be made to meet changes in the needs for service or they may be made to meet the personal preference 300 THE FEDERAL SERVICE of the employee. Reassignment to a position involving the same duties and responsibilities in another branch of the or- ganization, made merely to meet a change in the flow or load of work, is generally a purely administrative matter outside the field of personnel administration. Reassignments to meet the personal preferences of the employee involve questions of maintaining the general morale and individual efficiency and will receive consideration in the chapters dealing with this subject. In approaching the subject of the methods of reassignment and promotion mention should be made again of the numerous restrictions in current statutes and rules which limit the power of administrative officers formally to reassign personnel from one branch of the service to another. Those restrictions have been fully discussed already in the preceding chapter and need not be reviewed here. Reassignment Involving No Change of Compensation or Grade. — No adequate organization or procedure has been developed in the federal service for studying the special qualifications or preferences of individual employees or the special requirements of particular positions with a view to a matching of the two. Nor in few, if any, services are vacancies in the several divisions subjected to systematic scrutiny by the administrative officer for the purpose of selecting the most deserving employees for the positions which hold greatest promise of promotion. In a small bureau, a single central personnel officer is able to keep watch over the whole of the personnel and organiza- tion. In the larger bureaus or services, however, such a single central officer will not be sufficient. Responsibility for study- ing the personnel and the current changes in organization must be developed at lower levels. In each major division, and, if the size of the organization justifies, in each unit of each di- vision, such a study should be the definite duty of some capable assistant ; and those so detailed should be brought together in a central organization for conference and decision, headed, perhaps, by the chief personnel officer of the bureau or service. REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 301 Through such machinery far greater assurance can be had than under present conditions that the work and the employees will be properly matched ; and that opportunities for reassign- ments making for greater efficiency or more harmonious work- ing relations will be revealed and utilized. Reassignment from one bureau or service of a department to another is naturally much less common than is reassign- ment within a given service or bureau, and, as already seen, the restrictions upon such reassignment are more severe. Here, too, however, an elaboration, for the, department as a whole, of the machinery suggested for a single bureau or service for developing opportunities for reassignment is greatly to be de- sired. A periodical conference of personnel officers of the several bureaus or services of a department would be an ef- fective way of accomplishing this end. Such a conference, however, need not consist of a single officer from each unit. If the personnel falls, as it usually does, into distinct classes, it may be desirable to designate an officer for each group, and for the officers interested in cognate groups only to meet for interchange of opinion or for joint decision. This latter type of organization is especially adaptable to the federal service as a whole. With respect to so large a group as the clerical services, an organization of this kind would be confronted with a fairly sizeable task but one which, if the ' lower units were functioning properly, would be readily man- ageable. In other services, however, as, for example, in the chemical and medical and engineering services, the area covered would be so small as to make any elaborate or expensive organ- ization of such central group unnecessary. The several departments having developed no organization for their individual use have not cooperated, of course, in de- veloping an organization for the reassignment of the person- nel from one department to another; and under the existing restrictive regulations, designed to prevent the free movement of personnel from one department to another, it must be ad- mitted that such an organization or procedure could find but little scope for usefulness. 302 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The failure of the several departments up to this time to make any greater progress than above indicated in the develop- ment of definite organization and procedure for handling mat- ters of reassignment of personnel is to be charged primarily to the departments themselves and perhaps especially to the per- sonnel officers of those departments. The office of appointment clerk in the several departments has been regarded as in the nature of a clerical rather than an executive, administrative, or even consultative post. Had this not been the case it is cer- tain that this important matter would have received attention. The Civil Service Commission, however, must bear its share of the responsibility. Had it construed its functions properly it would have taken the initiative in assisting and urging the de- partments towards the development of an organization of this type. In this connection should be considered the desirability of giving special attention to the assignment of new recruits. In some cases duties are so specialized and vacancies so infre- quent that the process of selection is designed solely with an eye to those peculiar duties. The persons selected are thus automatically assigned to those duties ; and if they fail to suit, cannot be turned to other use. In other cases, appointments are so frequent and numerous that considerable latitude is left for administrative discretion in determining the particular duties or place to which each recruit is to be assigned and, more especially, for observing the performance of the recruit during the first few days or weeks of employment with a view, if necessary, to reassigning him or Tier to more appropriate duties. It is the well nigh universal experience in personnel manage- ment that the mere interest of the administrator in securing the effective performance of his work does not suffice to insure that he will give adequate attention to this matter. Unless special means are taken to insure that the work of the recruit is carefully observed and consideration given to the desir- ability of reassignment, the matter will be substantially neglected. Special measures to be taken under this head consist in REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 303 the institution of a procedure for a regular report by the im- mediate superior of the recruit, at frequent intervals during the first few months of the recruit's service, to the administrative officer charged with responsibility for the work of locating each member of the force at a point where he will be of greatest service. Reassignments Involving Increase of Compensation. — In respect to the methods to be used in selection, reassignments involving increase of compensation do not differ materially from reassignments involving no such increase. The applica- tion of correct methods is, however, in such cases, more im- portant. A reassignment involving increase of compensation is, from the standpoint of the personnel system, merely a se- lection of the employee best qualified for the new assignment. From the standpoint of the employee, however, it is also a reward for previous faithful and efficient service., In many cases the employee most fit for the reassignment is also the most deserving of recognition as a reward for previous service. Not infrequently, however, cases arise where the employee peculiarly fitted for the vacancy is not, from the standpoint of length, or even efficiency, of service, the most deserving. His selection, though seemingly advantageous, may thus re- sult also in a loss of zeal, or even discontent, on the part of other employees. The administrative officer is here confronted with two opposing considerations, and the choice between them must be made purely on the basis of the balancing of the two. The same considerations apply, though perhaps even more sharply, in the case of promotion. To devise any mechanical procedure for this purpose would be difficult if not impossible. The Case for Formal Promotion Methods. — Where, how- ever > the increase in responsibility and compensation is as great as is usually the case in a promotion, the case for restrict- ing the free discretion of the administrative officer by some formal method of selection for promotion is much stronger. There is thus presented one of the mpst difficult questions en- countered in the whole field of personnel administration — that of formal methods in selecting for promotion. That the use 3 o4 THE FEDERAL SERVICE of such aids to judgment is highly desirable need hardly be stated. A mistake in promotion is, generally speaking, far more serious than a mistake in recruitment. An error in re- cruitment, especially in the lower grades, may usually be more or less completely remedied by the reassignment of the in- dividual selected, or in extreme cases by his dismissal before or at the end of the probationary period. In the case of pro- motion, however, a selection once made is generally difficult to unmake. The officer having responsibility, therefore, should employ whatever aids suggest themselves to him as worthy to assist his judgment. The use of service records or efficiency records, covering the service of the employees from among whom selection is to be made for a considerable period, is manifestly highly desirable. Unless the employees are few in number, the administrative officer without such aids is apt to overlook or forget past incidents, facts, or pieces of work, which may have an important bearing upon the determination of relative merits of the several employees for promotion. It is evident that aids to the administrative officer in select- ing employees for promotion may be of two kinds : those volun- tarily established by him and those required by statute or some superior authority. It is with the latter only that the considera- tion that follows has to do. In the later discussion of formal methods of recruitment, it will be pointed out that, although those methods originated solely in the desire to restrict the discretion of administrative officers, for the purpose of preventing the familiar abuses that develop in the absence of formal methods, they are- basically justified by the inherent requirements of recruitment itself. Even if the discretion of the administrative officer in respect to recruitment is left unhampered, he must, unless his selections are to be determined wholly without reference to the needs of the service, employ methods not unlike those developed in re- sponse to the demand for civil service reform. In promotion, however, the situation is entirely different. Here, in all but the largest organizations, the administrative officer is in such close touch with his subordinates that a formal process of se- REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 305 lection for promotion is not imperative. When a vacancy arises which may be filled by promotion, the administrator usually knows almost as a foregone conclusion the employee most suitable for promotion. Even if the administrator is without personal knowledge of the eligibles for a given pro- motion, they are seldom so numerous as to make impracticable selection by a personal canvass of their relative merits. The imposition of formal methods of selection can thus be justi- fied, if at all, only on the ground, either that they tend to re- sult in a better selection than would the informal exercise of judgment by the ' administrative officer, or that some more or less mechanical restriction on the discretion of the latter is necessary to prevent the abuse of that discretion for political or personal reasons. The employment of formal methods of selection for promo- tion thus, in hardly any case, springs from any real need for such methods inherent in the process itself. Their use can be justified, therefore, only on the ground of the necessity for some restriction on the discretion of the administrative officer. The chief reason why such restriction may be deemed desir- able is, of course, the need for preventing the entrance of politi- cal or other improper considerations in making selection for promotion. The exclusion of political or personal considerations from promotion is no less important than their exclusion from re- cruitment. Where the entire system of recruitment is domi- nated by politics, the whole personnel system is, of course, poisoned at its source. Where, however, politics does not completely control the appointment process, but merely oc- casionally influences a selection for appointment, the conse- quences are, in most tases, not nearly so serious as in the in- jection of political considerations in matters of promotion. The reason is obvious. The political appointee merely prevents the appointment of one, who while actually more deserving, has nevertheless no special claim upon the position ; but the politi- cal selection of one employee for promotion as against other employees actually deserving of the promotion, deprives the 306 THE FEDERAL SERVICE deserving- employees of perhaps the chief reward for which they have been striving during long years of service. Even an occasional political promotion is thus a severe blow at the integrity of the personnel system. The elimination of political consideration from promo- tion is not, however, the only purpose for which formal meth- ods of selection may be instituted. Closely related to it is the desirability of giving the employees that assurance of im- personal fairness in making promotions which the use of for- mal methods provides. Though administrative officers may not be actuated by personal or political considerations, neverthe- less a feeling not infrequently arises among the employees that such motives do have weight. Incidentally it may be remarked that, in not a few instances, the employees in daily working relations with the person selected for promotion are in a better position to form an estimate of his capabilities and limitations than the superior whose contact with him has not been so intimate. Whether this is so or not, the fact remains that in most large organizations, public or private, the uncontrolled exercise of discretion in selections for promotion almost in- variably tends to result in general dissatisfaction. For this reason the use of formal methods of selection for promotion may be regarded as inherently desirable. The extent to which formal methods of selection for pro- motion should be employed in the federal service depends, therefore, upon the answers to two questions: the extent to which present conditions in the federal service warrant the belief that formal methods of selection for promotion are necessary to prevent improper considerations in making promo- tions and the extent to which it is practicable to impose for- mal methods of selection for promotion which will be actually effective in securing a selection of the most deserving. It is not to be assumed, as is so often done, that rigid restrictions on the discretion of the administrative officer in making promo- tions are per se desirable and beneficent. In point of fact, as is common knowledge among those who have given the subject any first-hand study, the development of safeguards of REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 307 this character, which will not impair the efficiency of the se- lective process, is a matter of extreme difficulty. Particularly is this so if such safeguards take the form of positive mechani- cal methods of selection — as by seniority, efficiency records, or examination. Existing Promotion Methods. — In seeking an answer to the two questions that have been propounded it is desirable first, to determine the current situation in the federal service, both as to the existence of formal methods of selection for promotion, and, where such methods of selection do not ob- tain, the extent to which political «or personal considerations now tend to influence, if not control. The slight provision now found in the federal service for substituting formal methods of selection for promotion, in whole or in part, for the discretion of the administrative offi- cer falls under two heads : central and departmental. The cen- tral restrictions are imposed upon the departments by statutes, civil service rules, or executive order, and are beyond the con- trol of the department itself. ' Central Restrictions. — In the preceding chapter mention was made of the requirement in the classified service for ex- amination by the Civil Service Commission when a person is proposed for promotion to a position the entrance tests for which are different from those for the position then held by the employee. In that chapter, this provision was considered from the standpoint of its effectiveness in ensuring that, if the ad- ministrative officer selects from within, the person selected shall be at least of a minimum capability. This provision, of course, is also in effect a restriction upon the discretion of the administrative officer in making selection for promotion. It is, however, of a wholly negative character, merely preventing him from selecting one so wholly below a proper standard of capacity as to be unable to meet even the qualifying rating set for the examination. In subsequent sections dealing with positive methods by which the actual selection of the particular employee is determined, discussion will be had of efficiency records and also of competitive examinations for promotion. 308 THE FEDERAL SERVICE The use of either of these methods as a positive means of se- lection may, and almost invariably does, imply the setting of a minimum standard of attainment either on efficiency record or on the competitive examination, which is a prerequisite to selection for promotion. Again, even where the system of selection by seniority exists, a minimum requirement may! be set. In all these latter cases, however, the existence of a minimum requirement is of secondary importance since the method itself involves a more or less complete suppression of the discretion of the administrative officer by a more or less mechanical method of selection; so that it is not highly ma- terial whether there is also incidentally a negative restriction in the form of a minimum requirement. Wholly logical as is the requirement of a minimum stand- ard of efficiency for promotion, it appropriately finds its place chiefly in a personnel system which has not yet emerged from the stage of political domination in its grossest form. Once that stage is passed, it is altogether unlikely that the admin- istrative officer will so far set at naught the requirements of efficiency as to select for promotion one so devoid of capacity as to have been unable to obtain even the required minimum on his efficiency rating or on the qualifying examination. The civil service rule bearing upon promotion (Rule XI) enjoins upon the Commission the principle that "competitive test or examination shall, as far as practicable and useful, be established to test fitness for promotion in the classified service." (Section i.) The Commission in 1910 stated that "in promotion from one grade to another it is believed that examinations now prescribed by the rules may profitably be made competitive where there is a sufficient number of em- ployees to justify it." * Nevertheless the Commission, in no single case, has required that an examination for promotion within the competitive service shall be competitive. The only instance in which the competitive method, involving competi- tive examination by the Commission, is now employed, is in •Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1910), p. 27. REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 3^9 connection with the promotion of persons in the labor class, in the so-called sub-clerical capacities of watchmen, messengers, and the like, to the position of clerk in the classified service. Under the regulations, competitive examinations are held for such promotions, to which all persons within the departments eligible to promotion compete and a single eligible list is established for the entire department. The competitive fea- ture of these examinations is, however, rather more nominal than real. Inasmuch as the number of candidates is always small in comparison to the clerical requirements of the de- partment, virtually every sub-clerical employee who passes the examinations is eventually appointed. The only effect of the examination is thus to determine the order of priority in which promotions shall be made, not to select for promotion one from many, as would be the effect were the competitive method applied to the more important promotions in which the supply of eligibles is far in excess of possible demand. In the unclassified services, the statutory or other central requirements regarding promotion methods are equally minor. The most important are found in the case of the commissioned officers of the Public Health Service and the Coast and Geo- detic Survey. In the Public Health Service there is a statutory restriction which provides that : "No officer shall be promoted to the rank of passed assistant surgeon (the second grade of the service) until after four years of service and a second examination as aforesaid ; x and no passed assistant surgeon shall be promoted to be surgeon until after due examination." 2 No statutory provision exists with reference to promotion to the rank of senior surgeon or assistant surgeon general. In the Coast and Geodetic Survey the law requires examination prior to promotion to any grade lower than the head of the organization. 3 In the foreign service, the executive order of 1906, estab- 1 The reference is to the provision for entrance examination made in the preceding section, which requires "a satisfactory examination in the several branches of medicine,_ surgery, and hygiene before a board of medical officers of the said service." 'Act of January 4, 1899 (25 Stat., 639). •40 Stat, 88. 3 io THE FEDERAL SERVICE lishing the present system of examinations for admission to the consular service, makes the following provision relative to methods of promotion in that service (Section 10) : * No promotion shall be made except for efficiency, as shown by the work that the officer has accomplished, the ability, promptness, and diligence displayed by him in the performance of his official duties, his conduct and his fitness for the con- sular service. In the diplomatic service it is enjoined by the order of 1909, which established entrance examinations for this service (Sec. 2), that "there may be no promotion except upon well estab- lished efficiency as shown in the service." These requirements have in both cases manifestly only a moral value. 2 Over the remainder of the foreign service no central regulations are applied. It need hardly be added that in the various agencies whose personnel is excepted in whole or in part from require- ments of the civil service law there exists no statutory re- strictions regulating promotion, nor is any procedure imposed by civil service rule or executive order. Deportmented Restrictions. — Passing now to the provi- sions which have been made by the departments themselves for regulating promotions, it may be said with substantial ac- curacy that such regulations exist over an area of the service so small as to be almost negligible. In the departmental service at Washington orders are to be found in most of the depart- ments calling for the maintenance of service or efficiency rec- ords for most classes of employees. The forms provided for the maintenance of these records and the regulations governing the making of the entries themselves are extremely diverse. 'It is also provided in the section (Sec. 1) providing for the filling of all grades above that of consul class 8 by promotion, that such promo- tion shall be "based upon ability and efficiency as shown in the service." "The unregulated discretion in making selection for promotion in the consular and diplomatic services now vested in the President is not qualified even to the extent of requiring that a consul or secretary serve a given length uf time in any one grade (or any time whatever) before promotion to the next higher grade. The policy represented by such a regulation, however, is adhered to in practice^ except under very special circumstances. (Report on the Foreign Service, National Civil Service Reform League, p. 61.) REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 311 Consideration of these variations, so far as it is practicable, is reserved for a subsequent section in which the place of efficiency records in the process of selecting for promotion is separately discussed. For the present purpose it is sufficient to say that in virtually no case is controlling force accorded to these rec- ords. They are regarded almost invariably as a mere guide to the discretion of the administrative officer. 1 In the foreign service, in the student interpreter corps, a system of qualifying examinations is in force as a prerequisite to the advancement from the grade of interpreter to that of interpreter qualified for the post of assistant Japanese, Chinese, or Turkish secretary, and again from that rank to the rank of interpreter qualified for the grade of consul or for the post of Japanese, Chinese, or Turkish secretary, and, subject to such examination, promotion to these grades is by seniority. Within the consular and diplomatic services proper, however, no formal promotional procedure is prescribed. In the Public Health Service, by departmental regulations, promotions from the grade of assistant surgeon to that of passed assistant surgeon, and from the grade of passed as- sistant surgeon to that of surgeon are governed by seniority, and must be awarded at the end of a given period of service (fixed at four years in the first grade and at eight years in the second grade), upon the passing of a qualifying examina- tion. As will be pointed out subsequently, however, the man- datory and well nigh automatic promotions thus found in this service do not in themselves represent actual selection for ad- vancement but merely the attainment of a higher rank and salary. The regulations of the Public Health Service provide for the periodic promotion of the noncommissioned staff known as the scientific personnel, which is divided into six 1 In the examining force of the Patent Office is encountered a system of efficiency records and competitive examinations which, in conjunction with length of service, are actually given controlling force in determining the selection for advancement from one grade to another. The grades, in question, however, do not represent changes in duty but merely in com- pensation rate, and the system in question, therefore, is not regarded as a system of selection for promotion but merely as one of selection for increase of compensation and is accordingly discussed in a subsequent chapter dealing with that subject. 312 THE FEDERAL SERVICE classes. Promotions from Class VI through the intermediate grades to Class III are made after certain years of service and after passing a satisfactory examination. Promotions to Classes II and I are made only when a vacancy exists and after a review of the officer's record by a board of regular com- missioned medical officers. Within each grade the promotions are governed by seniority. As in the case of the commissioned officers the promotions do not represent selection for advance- ment hut merely the attainment of a higher rank and salary. With the minor exceptions just reviewed, therefore, it may be said that the system of selection for promotion now pre- vailing in the federal service is that of substantially complete discretion in the hands of the administrative officers, qualified only in the competitive service by the requirement of a qualify- ing examination by the Civil Service Commission where the entrance tests for the position to which promotion is proposed are substantially different from those which the employee passed in obtaining his existing civil service status. The promotion system thus presents a strong contrast to the re- cruitment system prevailing over the major portion of the service. As opposed to that system it offers but few and weak safeguards, in the shape of restrictive law or surveillance by the Civil Service Commission, against the entrance of politi- cal considerations or of personal favoritism. In the absence of such safeguards, it is important to de- termine the extent to which such improper elements actually enter in the promotion process. Such information is neces- sarily preliminary to any discussion of the need for additional safeguards in this direction. Political or Other Improper Influence in Selection for Promotion. — It has been pointed out that the two major factors in the federal personnel system, which make for the persistence of political considerations in personnel matters are : the .political selection of the higher administrative officers; and the intervention in personnel matters of politicians out- side of the service, and more particularly of members of Con- gress. Were both these factors eliminated, that is to say, REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 313 were the administrative officers and all subordinate employees throughout the services selected on the basis of merit, and were an effective embargo placed upon attempts by persons outside the service to influence the action of administrative officers in personnel matters, the need for guarding against the intrusion of political considerations in promotion would virtually disappear. So long as these obvious steps for the exclusion of political considerations from the personnel ad- ministration of the federal government remain to be taken, the possibility of political influence as affecting promotion is one which must be reckoned with. To meet it appropriate re- strictions upon administrative discretion must be devised of a form and extent proportionate to the danger thought to exist. It is unfortunate that the facts regarding this matter are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain; and, where obtained, necessarily have application only to the particular branch of the service covered. Any attempt to appraise, in quantitative terms, the extent to which considerations, other than those of the good of the service, actually enter, or gov- ern in the manifold divisions and services of the federal service, would obviously be futile. There is no method avail- able to the individual inquirer of getting at the facts or any significant portion of them. In 1899, the Civil Service Commission commented as fol- lows on the situation then existing with reference to the intrusion of political or other improper considerations in selec- tion for promotion : At the time of the organization of the Commission the need of promotion regulations was considered so important that in its first report the following language was used : The principal causes of unjust promotions, in the absence of examinations,, are (1) importunate solicitation and coer- cive influence from the outside, and (2) prejudice, favoritism, or corruption on the part of the appointing officers. We need not stop to inquire which class of these abuses is the most fre- quent or pernicious. . . . The outside interference is far more indefensible, if not more pernicious, in regard to promotions than in regard to original admissions, for the importunate 314 THE FEDERAL SERVICE backer of a new man may perhaps know something of the merits of the friend he pushes; but it is sheer presumption for an outsider, ignorant as he must be of the duties of those in a bureau, to assume to instruct the officer at the head as to the merits of those who have served under him for years. Never- theless, and in plain repugnance to the spirit of the tenth sec- tion of the civil service act, the duty of promoting is now seriously embarrassed by solicitations and the coercive influ- ence of persons having no right of interference nor means of judging of the usefulness of the candidate. This subject is so closely related to good administration that it has since been discussed in nearly all of the later reports of the Commission. While the civil service act provides for promotion examinations, and provisions to this effect were in- cluded in previous civil service . rules, practically no progress was made in putting general promotion regulations into force until 1896, when the Commission suggested that a rule gov- erning promotions be incorporated in the revised rules. Rule XI was accordingly promulgated by the President, arid the Commission thereupon proceeded to formulate promotion regu- lations, which were submitted to the several Departments. Promotion regulations have been adopted by some of the De- partments while others have thus far taken no action on the suggestions of the Commission. As appointments to classi- fied positions are now made as a result of tests of fitness and without regard to influence, it has followed that the influence which was formerly exercised to control appointments as well as promotions is now directed to the control of promotions, in the absence of regulations requiring that they shall be made only upon merit. It is to be regretted that more progress has not been made toward adopting promotion regulations. . . . Promotion regu- lations cannot be put into force as required under the civil service act and rules without the full cooperation of the officers in the different branches of the service, and it is deemed proper to state that the Commission has not met with that cooperation which is necessary to a fulfillment of the requirements of the law in this respect. It is hoped that the need of promotion regulations, which has already been recognized in a number of the branches of the service, will result in their being put into operation throughout the entire service, so that promotions may be made only upon merit. 1 1 Sixteenth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1899), p. 13. REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 3*5 This statement represents the most recent positive char- acterization by the Commission of the actual condition with respect to political pressure in promotions. In 1906, the Com- mission stated that "while it is undoubtedly true that a bureau chief or the head of any office may be able to decide better than any examination can the relative fitness of em- ployees in his office, it is unfortunate that he is not always allowed to exercise that discretion unhampered, owing to pres- sure exerted by outside influence." * Except for this some- what intangible characterization, the Commission, though it has on several occasions discussed the problem of promotion methods, has never ventured, since its report of 1899 just quoted, any direct statement as to the extent to which political or other improper elements actually enter into selection for pro- motion. As has been set forth already, where the problem of the elimination of political consideration from selection is con- sidered, the postal service has been historically the chief con- cern of the civil service reformer. The process by which the system of competitive selection has gradually been extended over virtually the whole of the enormous personnel of that service has been traced in some detail. It is all the more re- markable that there has been so little development in this great service toward a formalization of the methods of selection for promotion, so as to insure the elimination of political considera- tions and to promote the morale of the service. In a subse- quent chapter mention will be made of the methods now in force in the postal service and in the railway mail service for controlling increases of salary within grades. All those meth- ods have reference, however, solely to the increase of salary within grades or within a given class of positions. So far as present information shows, no progress has been made for the development of similar methods in determining selection for promotion; that is, for example, for determining which of a number of clerks shall be made superintendent of mails, or 1 Twenty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1906), P- 5- 316 THE FEDERAL SERVICE superintendent of deliveries in a city post office; or, which of a number of senior foremen in the railway mail service shall be made a division superintendent. In the absence of such formal methods, it is probable that the political tradition which so long dominated the postal service has not been entirely eliminated in this field. That some consideration is still given to politics in this service would seem to be frankly recognized by President Wilson's Order of February 16, 1917, 1 providing that, in the promotion of postal employees to , the position of Post Office Inspector, the Postmaster General should ap- portion the promotions fairly between the two chief political parties. The evidence available points to the same conclusion, as would be suggested a priori, that the extent to which political considerations control promotions varies widely in the several services. In some branches, especially those where the work is distinctly scientific and technical, the discretion allowed in no wise has been abused but has been governed uniformly by considerations directed solely to the good of the service. In the other branches political influence undoubtedly plays no small part. Nevertheless, it would seem fair to say that, although existing conditions point to the need of some meas- ure of limitation on the discretion of administration officers to prevent the intrusion of political considerations in promotion, the situation does- not call for any such rigidity or restrictive procedure as has been applied in the case of recruitment. A need undoubtedly exists, varying widely from one branch of the service to another, and from one class of employees to another, for formal methods of promotion. The employ- ment of such methods is, as has been pointed out, inherently desirable in order to improve the morale of the service. The question remaining is to ascertain the extent to which it is actually practicable to devise formal methods that will result in the promotion of the most deserving and best qualified. To that inquiry the remainder of this chapter is devoted. 'Thirty-fourth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1917), p. 118. REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 317 The Technical Problem of Formal Promotion Methods. — The devising of formal methods of selection for promotiori which shall effectively pick out the best qualified is one of the most difficult problems in the whole field of personnel administration. The difficulties are far greater than those en- countered in devising formal methods of recruitment; and the consequences of improper selection far more serious. If the methods of recruitment result in the selection of a less capable as against a more capable applicant, the fact is known, if at all, only to the few concerned in the work of recruitment. But if promotion methods fail, the fact is known to all the per- sonnel affected, and, more surely and universally than any other defect in personnel methods, breeds discontent, diminu- tion of incentive, and general impairment of morale. The necessity for not merely efficient but for highly accurate methods of selection is thus substantially more important in promotion than in recruitment; and from this it results that rigid or mechanical methods can be much less confidently and generally employed than in recruitment. Once it is determined to restrict in any way the discretion of the administrative officer in the making of selection for pro- motions and to draft regulations giving effect to such restric- tions, a logical and comprehensive classification of the service becomes essential. In the first place, what change of duties con- stitutes a promotion as distinguished from a mere reassign- ment must be defined, and even this primary decision may be fraught with great difficulty if no well thought out scheme of titles and no clearly expressed definitions of the duties ap- plicable to each title has been prepared. Again, it is neces- sary in formulating such regulations to determine the positions from among which selection for promotion to any given vacancy shall be permissible ; and this again is obviously diffi- cult unless the several types of work have been clearly dis- tinguished by appropriate titles and descriptions of duties. Indeed, unless such clear differentiation and designation exists, it is impossible even to tell when a given change in duties is in fact a promotion requiring the application of a promotion 318 THE FEDERAL SERVICE procedure. To the failure to develop a workable classification of employments in the federal service is due, in large measure, the failure to develop any ordered promotional procedure. Types of Formal Methods of Promotion. — At least four types of formal methods of selection for promotion may be distinguished clearly: seniority; competitive examination; ef- ficiency records; and the method which mingles with or sub- stitutes for the judgment of the administrative superior, the judgment of an administrative board. In the first three the play of judgment is qualified partially or wholly by factors of a mathematical or rigid character, whereas in the fourth the number of minds brought to bear on the problem is greater but no mechanical method is employed. Any two or more of these four methods may be employed, of course, in combina- tion. Seniority. — As is well known, the promotion system of mil- itary services, in respect to commissioned officers, is one based primarily on the principle of seniority, qualified by non-com- petitive examination at certain points. 1 Until fairly recently the same system was used in the naval service. In the civil establishments a similar system is found in the' commissioned officers and scientific personnel of the Public Health Service and the commissioned officers of the Coast and Geodetic Sur- vey. In neither of these services does the system of promotion by seniority extend to the higher ranks. In the Public Health Service the assistant surgeons general' are chosen by the Sur- geon General from among the commissioned officers above the grade of assistant surgeon, the lowest rank. The Surgeon General is selected by the President without restriction, al- though it has been the practice to appoint an officer of the Service. In the Coast and Geodetic Survey the assistant direc- tor is designated by the Secretary of Commerce on the recom- mendation of the Director, from among the hydrographic and 1 The question of the substitution or qualification of the system of seniority promotion in the regular army by a system of selection by boards of superior officers has been agitated recently before Congressional committees. Military opinion, as expressed by the higher officers, appears to be fairly evenly divided on the question. REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 3*9 geodetic engineers — the highest rank below that of Assistant Director. The Director must be selected from among the officers of the Coast and Geodetic Survey not below the rank of commander. 1 Despite these qualifications the system of promotion in the Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey is basically one of seniority. The considera- tion given to this factor in the military services and the Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey is sugges- tive of the possibility that, in a hierarchically organized, homo- geneous professional service, in which care is exercised in the initial recruitment, the system of promotion by seniority is not without merit. 2 The arguments in favor of this system are : that the length of service of employees determines in great part their techni- cal qualifications; that under this system internal strife for advancement is eliminated; that those responsible for making promotions are relieved from political or other outside pressure, and the feeling that is engendered in the service that promo- tions are being made with an even-handed justice tends to promote good feeling and thus promote general morale. It is held, furthermore, that the greater certainty of promotion that 1 The Act of May 22, 1917 (40 Stat. 88) provides that hydrographic and geodetic engineers receiving $3,000 or more but less than $4,000 shall rank with commanders in the Navy. ' In appraising the success which the system of promotion by senior- ity has achieved in the Public Health Service, it must always be borne in mind that that system is not properly speaking, a system of promo- tion but rather a system of advancement in rank and salary. The advance-, ment of an officer to a higher rank does not of necessity involve a change in his duties and conversely the assignment of a member of the service to duties which are actually in the nature of a promotion, except in the two highest grades, does not involve any advancement in rank or compen- sation. It may consequently be said that the system of promotion in the Public Health Service is in large measure different from that obtaining in the other civil branches in that promotion in that service does not involve necessarily any change in duties. The net result of this situation is that the executive of the service has a large measure of discretion if not a free hand, in selecting for any particular position which may become vacant in the service any of the great number of members of the service of the appropriate grade. Moreover, as has been pointed out already, once the level is reached in the Public Health Service where advancement in rank implies also a definite advancement in the type of duties, namely, the rank of Assistant Surgeon General, and Surgeon General the system is entirely one of free selection (or, as it is called, "detail" in the case of the Assistant Surgeons General and "nomination" by the President in the case of the Surgeon General). 320 THE FEDERAL SERVICE is held out to the individual employee attracts a better class of men to the service and retains in the service many valuable employees who would otherwise leave it. The obvious evil of a system of promotion by seniority is that it does not bring the best material to the top, that the young and brilliant member of the service is kept in a subor- dinate capacity for an undue period, while older members, of less ability, fill the higher places. The proper application of the system of promotion by seniority carries with it, as a nec- essary premise, that all employees below a superior standard of efficiency will be ruthlessly eliminated from the service lest they, in due course of time, reach the higher posts for which they are not qualified; or, barring this, that use is made of, efficiency records or pass examinations in determining whether the principle shall apply in each particular case. If the stand- ards of entrance are high and raise at least a presumption of ca- pacity for promotion, selection by seniority, with proper safe- guards, may be resorted to; but if the conditions of the service require that large numbers of subordinates must be recruited who do not necessarily have to possess qualifications for advanced responsibility, such a system could only be disastrous. The Public Health Service is an illustration of the first type, and only because it satisfies that description so completely does the system of promotion by seniority in that service work so successfully. On the other hand, the clerical employments in the departments at Washington or in the postal service furnish an illustration of the second type. No presumption whatever is warranted that the ordinary clerk possesses a sufficient measure of executive ability to justify his promotion by mere seniority to a post of even intermediate executive responsibility. The prevailing practice regarding the elimination of the inefficient, including those whose inefficiency is due merely to superannuation, is thus a factor influencing the . effective- ness of a system of promotion solely or chiefly by seniority. Where the rigid elimination of the inefficient does not prevail promotion by seniority frequently elevates to higher rank per- sons below a reasonable standard of efficiency. Particularly REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION . 321 will this be so with respect to persons whose. efficiency has been impaired through superannuation, as they will have, in most cases, a longer record of service than their juniors. A system of promotion by seniority is to be thought of, therefore, only where a fairly severe policy prevails in respect to elimination of the unfit. The policy in most branches of the federal service is one of undue liberality, or even timidity, on the part of administrative officers, in this respect. Under present condi- tions, therefore, the method of promotion based solely or even largely upon seniority can be recommended only for a very few places in the federal service. Except in the Public Health Service, in the examining force of the Patent Office, and in the Coast and Geodetic Sur- vey, seniority has not, so far as the writer has knowledge, been a controlling influence in making promotions. In all other branches of the service seniority is merely one of the many factors which the selecting officer may take into consid- eration, giving it such weight as he sees fit. Although no binding regulations or standards have been established, a very strong tradition has grown up in not a few governmental organizations, however, which awards to seniority a very heavy weight in determining promotion. This tradition of seniority in promotion perhaps flourishes most in those departments which have gained a reputation for stagnation and inefficient administration. It is hardly necessary to say that this condi- tion is almost wholly bad. Except in the few special cases that have been mentioned, and under the safeguards thus pro- vided, consideration should only be given to seniority when other determining factors are substantially equal. Efficiency Record. — When the attempt is made to reduce to order a promotion procedure previously wholly informal, resort is almost invariably had to "efficiency records." Ordi- narily a scheme of this kind takes the form of a periodic rating or appraisal, by superior officers, of all the employees under their jurisdiction, with respect to certain fixed elements, and in more or less closely prescribed terms. An administrative officer entrusted with complete discre- 322 THE FEDERAL SERVICE tion in making selection for promotion, as has been said, may maintain an efficiency record and use it merely as a guide in exercising his unrestricted discretion; and it is perhaps gratui- tous to urge that every administrative officer entrusted with such discretion, or with discretion in personnel matters gen- erally, and having any considerable number of employees under supervision, should maintain such records as a check against lapses of memory and against the danger of exaggerating the importance of recent as against long time impressions. Such records also furnish the administrative officer a strong weapon for resisting improper pressure which may be brought to bear upon him on behalf of one or more of the persons eligible for promotion. The maintenance of such records, however, does not in anywise change the essential character of the system of promo- tion, which is still one of unrestricted discretion. Only when such records are given an official status, and are made definite and recognized factors in promotion, is the nature of the pro- motion system affected. The efficiency record then becomes a controlling restriction upon the discretion of the administra- tive officer. The extent of that restriction will be measured by the weight attached to such record in the final determination of the selection for promotion. If any form of restriction upon the discretion of the ad- ministrative officer in making selection for promotion is to be imposed, the use of efficiency records is obviously one that commends itself as most nearly approaching the result which would be obtained by the honest, unrestricted exercise of such discretion. Indeed the determination of promotion by effi- ciency records currently maintained is, in ideal theory, not a limitation on the discretion of the administrative officer in selection for promotion but is merely a guide to him. If the efficiency records are correctly designed and properly main- tained, the individual whom they indicate as properly in line for promotion should be the same as the one who would be selected by the unshackled judgment of the administrative superior when that judgment is based, as it should be, upon REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 323 a full knowledge of all the facts of past performance of the sev- eral employees from among whom selection must be made. The record thus serves at once as a guide to the administra- tive officer, and as an impartial and irrefutable indication of the soundness of his choice. Needless to say, this beneficent theoretical function of the efficiency record cannot be realized fully in practice. The several obstacles, well nigh insurmountable, which stand in the way of even its imperfect realization will warrant full ex- amination. In considering the problem of devising proper efficiency records for the federal service for use in promotion, and of securing their proper maintenance, it is important at the out- set to take note of the notion which is very commonly held with reference to this subject, namely that uniformity, over the whole service, in methods of rating efficiency is desirable. In its report for 19 10 the Civil Service Commission stated * that "a uniform system of estimating and recording the rela- tive efficiency of employees" should be adopted, and state- ments of similar import are to be found in other reports of the Commission. If this means, as it seems to, that the same, or substantially the same, records should be employed through- out the service, embracing the same factors and terms of rat- ing uniformly weighted, it is difficult, in the light of the ex- perience with efficiency record systems in other jurisdictions, to agree with the Commission. So far as experience may be used with confidence to fur- nish any lessons regarding efficiency records, it has demon- strated the immense difficulty, if not the impossibility, of apply- ing to a large and varied service a uniform system. In most cases where an attempt has been made to cover a large service by a comprehensive system of efficiency records, the central agency, usually the civil service commission, has made the ef- fort to impose upon, or at least to hand down to, the whole service a ready made system. A single central body naturally 1 Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1910), P- 28. 324 THE FEDERAL SERVICE attempts in such an outgiving to apply a single uniform system to the whole service. The almost uniform failure of this pro- cedure seems conclusive proof that the method is wrong in principle.! Failure indeed might have been predicted from the nature of the case. A system of efficiency records, like any other device of personnel administration, or of. administration gen- erally, so far as, possible, should be indigenous in the soil in which it is to flourish. Concretely what is needed in so large and varied a service as the federal government is not the im- position from above of a system elaborated in the closet, but the development, by the administrative officers directly con- cerned in each branch of the service, of a system of records that, in their judgment, meets their peculiar needs. In this development they should have the assistance of a central agency competent to criticize and suggest, and the benefit of co- operation and interchange of suggestion among the officers whose problems are similar or related ; but the development, nevertheless, should be from the periphery of the service toward the center, rather than contrariwise. One reason why in some jurisdictions it has been thought necessary to extend a uniform system throughout the whole service is that transfers from one organization unit to an- other are rather freely permitted; and consequently it be- comes necessary, when an employee is transferred, to take into consideration in any subsequent promotions or other matters for which efficiency records are employed, the record made by him in the department from which he came. Obviously, unless that record was made in terms equivalent to or uniform with those employed in the records of the department to which he is transferred, confusion and difficulty result. Real as this consideration is, the number of cases involving transfer from one department to another in the federal service are probably not sufficiently numerous to warrant laying so much stress as has commonly been laid in public personnel systems on the necessity for uniformity in efficiency record systems as between departments. The case of the transferred employee may well REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 3 2 S be taken care of by re-valuation of his record in the terms of the record used in the department to which he is trans- ferred. In any case, the desirability of uniformity for this purpose extends only to records designed for the same kind of work. Under no consideration can a clerk be transferred to the position of physician, or vice versa; hence, under no circumstances can a situation arise where it is necessary or even desirable that the records of the two employees be ex- pressed in like or equivalent terms. Failure to appreciate this simple fact has, been responsible for endless difficulty in the construction and maintenance of efficiency record systems. The report of the Reclassification Commission clearly rec- ognizes this principle. The system of records it recommends can, it declares, 1 be as varied in character as the needs of the different organ- izations and lines of work require. Obviously no single sys- tem can be devijsed that will be applicable to the entire serv- ice. Moreover, in the present formative stage of efficiency rating systems it is highly desirable that considerable latitude be allowed for experimentation with different systems, even in the same or similar lines of work. The Commission does state, however: "that in order to secure uniformity and to give each organization the benefit of the experience of others, the general supervision of some central agency is necessary," and that "full authority to in- stall efficiency rating systems and to provide for their applica- tion in such ways as it may deem wise should be given to the Civil Service Commission, which would naturally seek the fullest cooperation of the various departments in the prosecu- tion of the work." This central authority, it is believed, should take the form of providing that an adequate system is estab- lished by each service rather than by prescribing the details of such system. Only when services performing substantially the same kinds of work fail to agree upon a uniform system should any compulsory power on the part of the Commission be exerted. 1 Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 121. 326 THE FEDERAL SERVICE In examining into the values and limitations of the effici- ency record as a method of determining selection for promo- tion, it is essential to appreciate that no system of records can be substituted for human judgment; that where the relative merits of individuals as workers, or their relative fitness for advanced responsibility, can be determined only by the ex- ercise of judgment, a record cannot displace such judgment; it can merely record it. In certain employments it is possible indeed to establish and maintain current records of work accomplished, not only as to quantity but even as to quality, in terms of errors made, materials or forms spoiled, etc. It must be evident, however, without much elaboration, that the field in which this kind of record can be employed is very limited and, moreover, it is the one in which the least difficulty is experienced, even in the absence of records, in making promotions. The real difficulty in placing any check upon the discretion of an administrative officer occurs in those lines of work in which the value of an employee is not measurable in terms of quantity or any other element and consequently must be appraised on the basis of the administrative officer's judgment. In some discussions of efficiency records much has been made of the desirability of requiring that the judgment of the rating officer, in respect to employments of this character, be based upon "facts," as evidenced by "supporting records." When this principle is run to earth, however, it is found that the supporting records are almost invariably themselves mere expressions of opinion on the part of the rating officer. They may indeed be expressions of opinion of specific jobs or acts of the several employees, and to this extent they unquestionably furnish a more reliable basis for rating, and for reviewing ratings, than would mere general opinions covering the con- duct or performance of the several employees over a long period. It must be remembered, however, that even the selec- tion by the rating officer of certain specific acts or jobs rather than others, for praise or blame, itself represents an act of judgment of a very fundamental kind. In short, as to REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 3*7 employments in which efficiency or capacity is not capable of objective measurement, and such employments obviously greatly preponderate in the federal service, an efficiency record, how- ever detailed, can in no wise reduce the element of personal judgment. It can and should, however, help to eliminate from that judgment all factors not properly entering into or influ-s encing it. Slight as is the difficulty which most rating officers, like other men, find in rationalizing their predilections, the making of a detailed record compels periodically a whole- some self-examination and a searching of heart by the rating officer. The necessity of taking into account of the prospective capacity of an employee for promotion gives rise to another of the cardinal difficulties in the design and administration of efficiency records. So great is this difficulty indeed that in many systems designed to serve as the basis for promotion this factor is entirely left out of consideration, and it is presumably assumed that an employee who successfully carries on the duties of his present position possesses the degree and type of capacity requisite for a position of higher grade. How incorrect such an assumption is with re- spect to a great area of the service need hardly be pointed out. It might be thought that the difficulty could be overcome readily by providing in the record that the rating officer shall make a periodical estimate under this head, but experience proves that it is next to impossible to obtain from rating off- cers periodically a reasoned and considered judgment on a question necessarily remote in its application and in some cases not likely ever to be used. In many services and organization units promotions do not follow a single prescribed line; and hence an employee reported as suitable for promotion because of his fitness for one line might be much less suitable for promotion in another line which the rating officer might not have had in mind at the time he made his report. The considerations reviewed up to this point are applicable to any efficiency record to which a definite participation in 328 THE FEDERAL SERVICE determining selection for promotion is awarded, irrespective of its form. It becomes advisable here, however, to take cog- nizance of the two distinct types into which systems of effi- ciency records fall. In the first type, the rating officer is called upon simply to frame relative ratings for the several employees under his jurisdiction. The system may require him to record his opinion of every employee with respect to each of several selected elements or factors of efficiency. But the determination of the final rating lies wholly in his hands. A system of this kind is thus in no degree a restriction on his freedom in arranging the employees under his jurisdiction in any relative order he may desire. The record is merely the arbitrary formalized expression, in percentages or letters, of the uncontrolled judgment of the rating officer. For this reason, those responsible for the formulation of efficiency records have generally felt that the system should go further — that it should be such as to limit the freedom of the rating officer in determining the order of the several em- ployees. Consequently, these designers have provided systems in which the several factors or elements of efficiency, upon which rating is to be based, are expressly enumerated; the terms in which the ratings on each of them may be expressed are specified; the weight to be assigned each such factor or element, and the method of computing the final rating from the ratings on the several factors are minutely predetermined. The rank or order of the employees is then determined by the final rating. This system is open to serious objections. It is to be questioned whether any system of efficiency records, in which the final grades are obtained by averaging the rat- ings given on specific elements or factors, even though such factors have been weighted with specific reference to each particular position or class of service, is to be generally rec- ommended. As applied to large groups of minor employees, particularly those performing routine or standardized opera- tions in which the elements of quality or self-direction are insignificant, and in which work results are readily measur- able in terms of quantity, such records are unquestionably prac- REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 329 ticable ; but even here the greatest care must be taken in the selection of factors, terms, and weights of rating, if the records are to reflect the actual relative values of the services of the several employees rather than a purely arbitrary appraisal of those values. 1 For employees at all above this class, where any subtler elements of efficiency become involved, a mechanical system, if not wholly impracticable, is so fraught with difficulty that it should not be applied except for the most substantial of reasons — as to destroy a deeply rooted tradition and practice of political influence in promotion, or the belief in the ex- istence of such a practice. 2 In summary it may be said then that an efficiency record system, which, by periqdic percentages or other quantitative ratings attempts to determine mechanically the person who shall be selected for promotion, while theoretically attractive, pre- sents such great difficulties in actual operation that over most of the service it cannot be relied upon to select for promotion the employees actually most fit. The limit of practical appli- cation of efficiency records for most of the service is repre- sented by a system in which the rating officer is required to ex- press periodically, in percentages or other standard relative terms, his judgment of the relative competency of the employees under his judisdiction in their present duties and of their fit- ness for promotion to the next higher grade in the same class of work, or to the position immediately above in the direct and usual line of promotion, such records to be ordinarily control- ling upon the discretion of the administrative officer, when 'For an illuminating illustration of the incorrect relative ratings .of a group of employees of this type produced by a system in which the several factors and weights had not been selected wisely, see President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency, Report on the System of Effi- ciency Records in the National Bank Redemption Agency, 1913. a Even then a system should be applied only after careful and cau- tious experimentation. It is not the least of the difficulties which sur- round the development of a system of efficiency records that once such a system has been applied, it is difficult to avoid making use of the rat- ings produced, however mistaken those ratings may prove the whole rating scheme to have been. Those who have received favorable ratings, albeit undeservingly, feel, not unnaturally, that they have a sort of vested interest in the use of such ratings in determining subsequent pro- motions. 330 THE FEDERAL SERVICE a promotion to the specific grade or position so contemplated is to be made. But even when restricted to this area of promotion, the extent to which the efficiency record is actually to control in determining selection must be limited. It should always be open to the administrative officer to obtain permission from the Civil Service Commission to set aside the records upon a proper showing that the promotion to be made, although nominally falling within the class of the promotion contem- plated by the system, does not actually so fall owing to pe- culiar conditions of the organizations or of the duties to be performed. Again, an administrative officer, after a minimum period in office, say a half-year, should be permitted, upon the approval of the Civil Service Commission, to disregard the ratings made by his predecessor in office, whose admin- istrative incapacity, as reflected in those judgments, he may indeed have been called in to supersede. Such a privilege would doubtless but rarely be invoked by an administrative officer, but its existence would seem to be indispensable if the officer is to be held responsible for the work under his jurisdiction. 1 Even as thus qualified and limited, the system described, while capable of practical application over the greater portion of the service, in but relatively few branches of the service, will currently yield sufficiently valuable results to warrant the cost of its maintenance and the rigidity which it of necessity induces in the system of personnel administration. A question of great importance in devising a system of effi- ciency rating is that of the provision, if any, that shall be 1 In this connection mention should be made of a variation of the system of promotion by efficiency record which has been suggested. This proposal would require the appointing officer to promote the em- ployee having the best efficiency record unless he were able to present to the head of the department or other superior authority a satisfactory reason why, despite his _ better record, that employee should not be promoted and the promotion should go to an employee with an inferior efficiency record. A system of character is not properly a system of selection by efficiency record. It is a combination of such a system and a system of free discretion in superior administrative officers which is described in a subsequent section. REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 33* made for the right of employees who believe that ;their rat- ings are not fair, to appeal to a superior authority. In seek- ing to meet this point the designers of certain systems have provided for appellate tribunals having the power to reverse the ratings given by the administrative officer upon appeal by the employee. The character and implications of this system of appeal should be clearly understood. It should not be con- fused with the provision found in some systems by which the ratings made by the several administrative officers are reviewed and equalized by a committee or board before final promulga- tion. What is here referred to is the recognition of the right on the part of the employee who feels himself aggrieved by the rating given him, even after such reviewing and equalization by the administrative board, to appeal to a board which, at his complaint, will sit in judgment upon his administrative su- perior, and, if he succeeds, secure an amendment of the rating in his favor. That many of the most deserving employees hesistate to resort to a board of this kind in antagonism to their superior officers is the least of the objections to this procedure. Its radical defect is that it sets at naught the whole principle of administrative responsibility. For an administrative superior to be placed upon the defensive as against his employee, and for the employee to be the victor, and for the two to continue in the relation of employee and superior is a result to be avoided at all costs. In a correct personnel system, where the employee does not feel that he is receiving justice at the hands of his superior, machinery and procedure should be provided by which such employee may be transferred to another branch of the organization. In due course it will appear whether the employee is one who cannot get along with his superiors or whether the superior is one with whom his employees cannot co- operate, or who does not govern his employees with an equal hand in the matter of promotions, reassignments, and the like. But so long as a given employee remains subordinate to a given superior the employee should not be permitted, except for the very gravest of reasons, to go over the head of his 332 THE FEDERAL SERVICE superior officer and obtain an action which his superior has denied. The Reclassification Commission has recommended that authority be vested in the Civil Service Commission to review ratings and, if necessary, to withhold its approval. The Com- mission thus recommended : That the Civil Service Commission be authorized and di- rected to arrange for the installation of efficiency rating sys- tems in the various government establishments; that the ap- propriate administrative officers be required to rate all em- ployees under their direction in accordance with these systems and under such rules and regulations as the Civil Service Commission may prescribe, all such ratings to be forwarded to the Civil Service Commission for review and final approval, and that the ratings of individual employees be open to the appropriate administrative officers and to all other employees in the same class. It is very much to be questioned whether any such system of central control is either desirable or feasible. The trans- mission to the Civil Service Commission of all efficiency rat- ings would entail an enormous amount of work. Nor does it seem proper that it should have general authority to with- hold final approval in respect to such ratings. It would seem to be sufficient if the Commission had authority to make full investigation wherever it has reason to believe that an efficiency rating system was not being properly carried out in good faith and to report the result of its investigation to the superior departmental officer, to the President, and to Congress. Competitive Examination. — The value of competitive ex- aminations as a means of selection for promotion varies ac- cording to the number of employees who enter the competition. In systems of public personnel administration 'where the method of competitive examination is used as either the sole or a principal factor in making selections for promotion, the appointing officer is almost invariably permitted to select for promotion one of the three employees rated highest on the examination. Where the number of employees competing REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 333 is large, as in the case of the lower grades, this freedom of choice is of little significance, as even the selection of three from among the large number is a substantial, if not a com- plete, restriction upon the discretion of the appointing bfficer. As applied to the higher promotions, however, the option of selection of any of the three rated highest frequently gives the appointing officer virtually a free hand ; for, in these higher grades, it happens frequently that not more than three em- ployees can be considered, by any possibility, as eligible for the promotion in question. Under such circumstances a com- petitive promotion examination is more or less of a formality except in so far as it debars from selection one who is in- capable of obtaining even a qualifying rating. The advantages claimed for the system of competitive examination in the matter of determining promotions are that it requires a test of relative abilities, that it imposes a wholesome check upon the display of favoritism on the part of recommending or appointing officers, that it constitutes a safeguard against outside political or other pressure upon the appointing officer, and that it contributes to the general morale of the service through the apparent guarantee that it affords of fairness in handling this important branch of personnel administration. No one can question the validity of these claims. Op- posed to them are, however, other considerations which, under certain conditions at least, may go far toward offsetting these advantages. The most obvious of these is the limitations upon any examination system in determining the personal qual- ities, as distinguished from the attainments of the. competing employees. In many cases the former may be of more im- portance than the latter. And these are qualifications which can be determined only by the exercise of personal judgment. It has been pointed out already that the system of com- petitive examination finds a far stronger justification in the field of recruitment than in selection from within. Even the warmest defenders of the rigidly competitive system, as ap- plied to the former field, do not maintain,' however, that that 334 THE FEDERAL SERVICE system, always, or even nearly always, arranges the com- petitors on the eligible list in precisely the order demanded by their relative abilities and qualifications. All that is urged is that, as a whole, and over a considerable period, those selected are substantially as capable and meritorious as those who would be secured by a system involving a greater element of personal judgment on the part of the appointing officer; and that to the extent this is not true, the sacrifice entailed is outweighed by the exclusion of all possibility of the en- trance of political or other improper considerations. The system of selection for promotion, however, has to meet a far more exacting standard. On pain of impairing the morale of the working force, it must select accurately. In promo- tion, improper selection, except under the most severe pres- sure of political forces, cannot be condoned on the plea that the mechanical methods employed for selection were neces- sary to insure _the exclusion of political considerations. The competitive examination is arbitrary. In the selection of subject matter for questions, and in framing them, there is obviously opportunity for accidentally favoring one candi- date or another in a matter which has no specific relation to the requirements of the work, or the position to which the promotion is to be made. Expert and careful examining service will tend to reduce this accidental element to a min- imum, but it cannot be eliminated entirely. The examination, moreover, is given on a^ single day or on two or three days; and at that particular time the several employees may not be relatively in their normal mental and physical condition. The final element of accident arises in fixing numerical ratings rep- resenting the examiner's appraisal of the questions and the value of the answers made by the several candidates. Such a process is inherently artificial. It becomes all the more so when the examination is divided into several subjects, each assigned an arbitrary weight by which the mark of the competi- tor is to be multiplied in order to obtain, his final average which determines his standing on the eligible list. These possibilities are present, of course, in any competi- REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 335 tive examination; but, in a competitive examination for en- trance to the service, they are less important, since a candidate has no vested right to entrance and must take his chances with the process of selection for entrance which the best interests of the service demand. In the case of an employee already in the service, however, it is wholly unjustifiable to require him to take chances with his chief reward of service merely in order to satisfy some extraneous requirement of the personnel sys- tem. In summary, it may be said that the method of competitive examination may be used profitably where large numbers of subordinate employees are all eligible for a promotion to a higher grade, itself minor. 1 Even in such a case, however, selection by competitive examination is, at best, unreliable and should certainly be qualified, to some extent, by the considera- tion of efficiency records. In the more important promotions, however, a written competitive examination, consisting of set questions, is wholly unsuitable. To make an important promo- tion depend primarily, or even largely, upon the more or less accidental results of a written examination on a set paper is to introduce into the administration of the personnel system an element of hazard and capriciousness unjust alike to the effi- cient employee and to the sincere administrative officer. This conclusion is reached in the face of respectable authority. In 1910 a special committee appointed by the National Civil Service Reform League reported in favor of the general application of promotion examinations in the federal service. The substance of the committee's report is contained in the following paragraphs : 2 We have now considered various known methods of pro- motion and come to the question of the practical application of a promotion system to conditions existing in the federal service. Of these methods "free promotion" must be re- 1 Twenty-seventh Report; of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1910), p. 27, "In promotion from one grade to another it is believed' that examinations now prescribed by the rules may profitably be made competitive where there is a sufficient number of employees to justify it." 'Proceedings, National Civil Service Reform League, 1910, pp. 84 and 85. 336 THE FEDERAL SERVICE jected, as it has been already shown to be unsuited to these conditions. Seniority, efficiency records, and competitive ex- amination all have their value as elements which should enter into consideration in making promotions. The question would seem to be how they can best be combined? In our opinion seniority should be made a / determining factor in promotion only when the application of other tests of efficiency show that two candidates are practically equal. Efficiency records as they do not bear directly on the main question — the ability to perform the duties of a higher position — should not be given a preponderating weight. Competitive examination, as going most directly to the root of the matter and providing an impartial test of ability to per- form the duties of a higher position, should be given at least a weight of 50 per cent. Despite the distinguished personnel of this committee * it is believed that few who have had practical experience with the use of competitive examinations as the means of selecting for promotion will find themselves in accord with the committee. That competitive examination would constitute, of course, a well nigh ideal method of selection for promotion if it actually succeeded in selecting the person best qualified for, or most deserving of, the promotion, is self-evident. The essential question, which the committee completely escaped by assuming an affirmative answer, is whether it is at all practicable to de- vise for any of the more difficult promotions, particularly those involving even minor administrative responsibilities, a type of competitive examination which will actually be effective. The Reclassification Commission has likewise gone on record as favoring the employment of competitive examination in selection for promotion. After discussing measures looking to the enlargement of the opportunity for advancement in the federal service, the Commission says : 2 "Since the only fair method of determining who are best qualified is by ex- amination, appointment to the higher classes should be made only as the result of competitive examination, open to all those r. l ^ s W ~ W ot 'r~ C1 jairraan Joseph P. Cotton, Jr., Richard H. Dana, William Dudley Foulke, and Elliott H. Goodwin. 'Report, Part I, p. 124. REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 337 of the service who are qualified under the class specifications." Apparently fearful, however, that exception would be taken to the use of competitive examinations because of the wide- spread belief in their impracticability, the Commission goes on to say: "Such examinations need not, of course, be academic in character, but may be based on actual accomplish- ment and demonstrated ability for the work of the higher class." Just what the Commission means by this is not clear. "Actual accomplishment" cannot be tested by examination. Any opinion on this head must be based upon records of past performance; and to the extent that these are employed the method of selection is not that of competitive examination but of the efficiency record. Again, "demonstrated ability for the work' of the higher class," that is, for the position to which the x promotion is to be made, cannot be tested in the great majority of cases except by actual trial of the employee, which is, of course, inconsistent with the proposal of a com- petitive examination, besides being wholly impracticable un- der ordinary conditions. Some years ago when promotion regulations were first applied to the Custom House service in New York City, competitive examination was employed in determining promo- tion from one clerical grade to another. In 1909, however, ' the use of the competitive examination for this purpose was abandoned, and a system of efficiency records instituted. Un- fortunately there is no official statement available as to why this step was taken. The report of the Civil Service Commis- sion merely states that it was taken "better to meet existing conditions." 1 Combination of Efficiency Records, Competitive Examina- tion, and Seniority. — It remains to consider to what extent the combination of any or all of the three methods of restriction upon the discretion of administrative officers, just reviewed, may offer advantages not found in the use of any one of these methods singly. 'Twenty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1909), p. 29. 338 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Since the opinion has been expressed that both the meth- ods of efficiency record and of competitive examination are un- reliable in their operation except within restricted areas of the service, it is not believed that any greater reliability can be secured by combining them in an arbitrary manner. In those parts of the service, however, in which either would properly be applicable singly, their combination, with the proper assignment of weight to each, is desirable. On the one hand, the examination tests the capacity of the employee for performing the duties of the higher position, in a way that is not done by efficiency records; while, on the other hand, the record serves to prevent a brilliant, but not altogether steady- going, employee from obtaining promotion merely through a good examination. In view of the fact that the seniority factor furnishes ,so slight a test of merit, little use should be made of it, except as between two employees whose records or examinations, or both, are substantially equal. General Summary of Formal Promotion Methods. — In the foregoing review of formal promotion methods the conclusion has been reached that the effective use of these methods, either singly or in combination, is limited to restricted areas of service, and more particularly to the lower grades; and that, except as to these areas, their limitations are such as to make their employment unwarranted as controlling factors both from the standpoint of administrative efficiency and that of doing justice to the capable employee. To state this in an- other way, the general conclusion is that, valuable as mechanical or formal methods of selection may be as aids to the personal judgment of those responsible for taking action, they should not be erected into substitutes for the exercise of such judg- ment. Substantially this conclusion has been reached by one of the ablest administrators who has occupied a Cabinet position in recent years. In his report for 1910, the Secretary of Com- merce and Labor, Charles Nagel, had this to say on the sub- ject of promotion: REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 339 Promotion of employees in the Government service con- stitutes one of the most difficult questions presented in the actual everyday administration of departmental affairs, al- though practically there is but little restriction by the civil service rules on this subject. Promotion without examination to a grade for which the entrance tests are higher or essentially different is prohibited, but for the great bulk of promotions which are usually within a grade, the promoting officer is free to exercise his discretion. That difficulties attend the promul- gation of practical regulations to govern promotions is shown by the several ineffectual attempts to enforce rules which have been adopted, and by the significant fact that the Civil Serv- ice Commission, which seems to be particularly charged under the civil service law with the duty of formulating promotion regulations, has not been able after years of study to present anything workable and effective. The ideal system is one in which political, personal, and social influences are entirely eliminated, thereby insuring promotion solely on merit; and the purpose of any system should be to guide in determining who of a number of employees excels in special qualifications or general efficiency. A scholastic examination does not ap- pear to be a means to this desirable end. It is well enough* to provide a scholastic test for entrance to the service, but the conditions within the service call for an entirely different test for promotion. Employees work under the direction and observation of chiefs of bureaus and divisions ; their capacity, efficiency, and resourcefulness are observed and judged by them; and in the final analysis their rights to advancement should be wholly determined by the opinions of these super- vising officials, provided, always, that such opinions are judi- cious, well informed, and conscientiously reached. 4 During the spring and summer f of 1909, when this depart- ment instituted a thorough inquiry into the efficiency of its personnel, it was demonstrated that as an aid to arriving at a just estimate of the merits of employees for promotion, chiefs of bureaus should be required to report from time to time on the efficiency of all under their charge. These reports should bear upon the quantity and quality of work done by employees as well as the interest manifested in it, and, upon the theory that the government is entitled to a day's work for a day's pay, should show whether the employees are actually earning their salaries. After this information has been procured, recom- mendations for promotion from bureau chiefs should be con- 340 THE FEDERAL SERVICE sidered in connection with % the efficiency ratings previously sub- mitted, and if it should appear that employees not having the highest ratings are recommended for advancement the bureau officers should be called upon for an explanation. Under such a system there is no reason why promotions should not be justly made. It is barely possible that there may be an occa- sional instance in which an employee may be recommended by a chief of bureau on account of some personal or political in- fluence, but. in practically all cases the report and recommenda- tion of the chief are based upon merit and are just as little open to criticism as they would be under a more elaborate sys- tem. It is not believed that any sort of mechanical and self- operative method of promotion could be devised, or any set rules established, which could possibly take the place of the discretion, fairness, and knowledge of the chief of a bureau. 1 The position of the Reclassification Commission on this matter has been commented on already. That body reported rather unequivocally in favor of the use of promotion exami- nation. As already indicated, however, the vagueness of its recommendations on this head is such as to greatly impair its weight and value. The present views of the Civil Service Commission on this subject are not available in public form. The latest published expression of opinion by the Commission is found in its Twenty-seventh Report, dated 191 1. In that report is found the following on the question of formal promotion methods : The application of practical regulations to govern promo- tions has been found difficult, and little progress has been made in that regard. Under the civil service rules non-com- petitive examinations are held to test fitness of employees recommended for promotion to positions for which the en- trance tests are different from those of the positions which they hold, and in certain services promotion regulations pro- viding for competitive examinations from grade to grade are in force. Several of the departments also have adopted sys- tems of limited application for the keeping of efficiency records 'Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Com- mission (1910), p. 138. REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 341 of employees and for promotion in accordance therewith. In some cases these systems have been discontinued owing to lack of satisfactory results. In others, where conditions are more favorable, they are still in force. . . . There are at least four bases or methods of making pro- motions. First, that of free selection by the promoting of- ficer. This is said to work well in private business, where the motive of profit enters; in the public service it has been tried, and in recent years has given better results than for- merly from the standpoint of administrative efficiency. An- other method is that of promotion by seniority, which has slight relation to efficiency and which should be used only as a means of discriminating among candidates whose other quali- fications are equal. A third method is that of competitive ex- amination. It has been advanced that under this method the employees are placed on an equal footing, as the personal equa- tion is eliminated and impartial tests are applied. This method has been tried in the past to some extent and afterwards aban- doned for promotions from class to class within a grade, ap- parently because of the belief that for such promotions the value of employees could be more accurately and fairly meas- ured from daily observation of their actual work. In promo- tion from one grade to another it is believed that examinations now prescribed by the rules may profitably be made competi- tive where there is a sufficient number of employees to jus- tify it. A fourth method, that of promotion on records of efficiency, has too rarely been found to work satisfactorily, as the ratings are likely to become perfunctory and to lack relativity and uniformity unless the system is applied by a supervisory body. While each method has its supporters, a system combin- ing seniority, efficiency ratings, and competitive examinations has also its advocates. The commission favors the making of promotions com- petitively on the basis of efficiency, ascertained by a uniform and impartial mode of procedure applicable to all departments. A uniform system of estimating and recording the relative efficiency of employees could then be adopted and more ef- fectively applied for all bureaus and offices in all departments. This can best be accomplished by the aid of an independent commission or body, such as the Civil Service Commission. To secure uniform methods of procedure and results in all bureaus and departments, it would be well for the commission 342 THE FEDERAL SERVICE to prescribe the necessary forms for recording efficiency ratings and to have some part in coordinating and harmonizing the ratings, such as representation on a board of review and ap- peals. A true record of relative efficiency, fairly estimated, and available to the heads of departments and the Civil Service Commission, would undoubtedly greatly aid in maintaining efficiency and economy in the service. 1 The fact that the conclusions reached regarding the ap- plicability of the several formal methods of selecting employees for promotion are more or less of a negative character make it desirable to discover, if possible, some other means by which, while leaving to the appointing officers due discretion, safe- guards against an improper use of this power may be set up. It is believed that the key tp the problem lies, not in sub- stituting mechanical methods for free discretion, but rather in so guarding the exercise of free discretion that it may be employed without fear of the injection of political or personal favoritism. This can be accomplished by the development of machinery and organized procedure for exercising discretion in promotion as against entrusting that discretion wholly to a single administrative officer. In each service, bureau, or other organization unit, there should be developed a committee of administrative officers charged with responsibility for mak- ing recommendations in respect to all selections for promotion. Provision should be made for developing and furnishing to this committee or body complete information regarding the character of work performed by and the qualifications for promotion of all employees. The basic element in the pro- vision of this information should be, of course, a system of efficiency or service records currently maintained. This record should be a current record of all facts bearing on the em- ployee's service. It should be made periodically; but entries may also be made from time to time as special occasion there- for arises. It should contain expressions of opinion as well as statements of fact. These may be expressed in any terms 1 Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Coffl. mission (1910), pp. 26, 27, and 28. REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 343 which may seem best to the administrative officer whose own convenience will dictate, of course, the desirability of express- ing all records so far as possible in standard terms. These periodic records should be supplemented by a full statement, submitted by the proper administrative officer at the time of the proposed promotion, explaining with particularity any reason for a variation from what would normally be expected from the face of the efficiency records previously entered. It should also be within the power of this committee or board to summon before it for interview, or even for written test, if it thinks such test appropriate, all the candidates or such of them as it may deem desirable. With all these various sources of information at its disposal, it is believed that a committee animated by a desire to act fairly could effect, in virtually every case, a recommendation consonant with the best interests of the service from the standpoint both of administrative effi- ciency and of the morale of the service ; and that its judgment, in almost every case, would coincide with that of the adminis 1 trative officer immediately concerned. A question of no little importance in providing for such promotional boards is whether or not representation on such boards should be given to the central personnel agency, the Civil Service Commission. If the policy advocated in this volume of increasing greatly the responsibility of the Civil Service Commission for seeing that proper personnel methods are employed by the several departments and services is adopted, it is believed that substantial benefit would result from at least giving to the Commission the right, if it so de- sired, of having a representative participate in the board pro- ceedings. Experience elsewhere, and particularly in the city of New York, in connection with the efficiency record installation at- tempted there in the years .1916-1917, has demonstrated that results of the highest character may be secured by the direct participation of a representative of the Civil Service Commis- sion in departmental personnel boards, provided, of course, such representative is of a sufficiently high caliber. The mere 344 THE FEDERAL SERVICE presence of such a representative on such a board insures at once that the proceedings will be more formal and business- like in character than they frequently are when confined to officers of the department or bureau known to one another. It insures, furthermore, that no action will be taken unless full explanation of the reason for such action is presented to the board. It places obvious difficulties in the way of any attempt to award a promotion to a political or personal favor- ite. When it is appreciated by the board that it is supposed to be guided in its determinations largely, if not almost ex- clusively, by the records before it, including, as already sug- gested, the statements of the eligible employees themselves, all of which are open for the examination of the representative of the Civil Service Commission as fully as to the members of the board, and when it is further appreciated that this repre- sentative has the power to lay before the Commission the facts in any case where the action of the board seems to him arbi- trary and governed by considerations other than those which appear on the record, his presence becomes a force far more potent for the observance of merit principles in promotion than can any mechanical method whatsoever. CHAPTER X RECRUITMENT METHODS; SOME BASIC ASPECTS Of the several distinct systems of recruitment now in force, springing from the varying provisions of the law* and rules which were reviewed in an earlier chapter, that estab- lished under the civil service law is, of course, far the most important; and the next chapter is devoted wholly to its detailed discussion. The succeeding chapter takes up simi- larly the other existing formal systems of recruitment — those for recruiting laborers, presidential postmasters, mem- bers of the foreign service, and the medical corps of the Pub- lic Health Service. Certain aspects of the recruitment prob- lem are, however, of so basic a character that it seems de- sirable to consider them in relation to all these several re- cruitment systems at the outset. To these basic aspects the present chapter is devoted. Emphasis upon Education. — A question directly related to the problem of selection is that of the emphasis which should be placed upon the possession by the entrant to the serv- ice of educational attainments, whether general or technical, superior to those strictly required for the performance of the duties to which he is to be appointed. If the purpose is pri- marily to secure a recruit who will be able within a reasonable time to master the specialized duties to which he is to be as- signed immediately upon entrance, little attention need be paid to any education which is not directly and definitely applicable to those duties. If, on the other hand, the recruit is regarded, not merely as an agency for performing a particular immedi- ate task, but also as potential material for advancement to higher levels of the service, the education of the recruit, in so 345 346 THE FEDERAL SERVICE far as superior education is regarded as increasing his poten- tial value, must be given proper consideration. In a preceding chapter it was, urged that much could be done in the federal service, and in personnel systems gen- erally, by encouraging and facilitating the acquisition of fur- ther education by those already in the service To the extent that this may successfully be done the emphasis upon educa- tion in recruitment, of course, may be lessened. But there will always be fields in which it will be unsafe to rely solely, or even chiefly, upon the further education of the personnel already in the service. In these fields it will always be neces- sary to give attention to the possession of educational attain- ments by a proportion at least of those recruited. As has been indicated already, this is essentially the theory under- lying the British system of selections for those clerical posi- tions which lead into administrative work. The vice of the British system consists in its awarding to those who enter at the higher level, under this theory, a virtual monopoly of all desirable promotion. With this discriminatory feature elimi- nated and advancement to the higher posts opened alike to all in the service possessing the requisite qualifications regardless of the level at which they entered, there is nothing in the sys- tem which is not wholly consistent with the democratic tradi- tion of American personnel practice. At most points in the federal service up to the present time little emphasis has been laid upon the educational attainments of those in the lower grades as evidencing potential capacity for advancement; and there is indeed perhaps no instance in the service in which entrance at an advanced level is permitted to those possessing superiority merely in educational attain- ments. On the other hand, as already indicated, no general provision has been made by the service for the educational advancement of those already in the service. So far as current recruitment methods represent at all the outworking of a theory rather than the merely accidental development of ad- ministrative tradition, they may be said to afford no recogni- tion whatever gf the value of general education as increas- RECRUITMENT METHODS : BASIC ASPECTS 347 ing the potential value of the employee for advanced responsi- bility. A possible exception to this statement is perhaps to be made in the case of the foreign service. Here in the clerical levels the attempt is made at certain points to obtain a type of recruit possessing educational attainments considerably su- perior to what is required for the routine clerical work of the consular and diplomatic establishments, with the purpose of developing from the recruits so obtained material for advance- ment to the positions of consul and diplomatic secretary and thence by promotion through the several grades to the posts of consul general and perhaps even of chief of mission. It need hardly be said that whatever value may be at- tributed to general education on the score of its broadening influence must be awarded in similar measure to a varied busi- ness or professional experience, provided, of course, that the variety does not spring from consistent failure in a succession of attempted fields. The difficulty, however, of reducing the value of experience of this type to any standard measure makes it impracticable to give it much consideration in framing re- cruitment policies. Requirement of Specialized Knowledge and Experience. — Closely related to the question of the educational attainments to be required of the candidate for admission to the service is the question of the extent to which, in recruitment, the at- tempt should be made to secure for the lowest grades persons already equipped to do the work to which they will be assigned rather than to train persons wholly without previous experi- ence in that work. In considering this question clear distinc- tion must be drawn between those classes of work which are found in private employment as well as in the federal service, and those which are peculiar to the government service. In the first class of employments — those found also in private employment — there are again two fairly distinct types of cases. In the one there are available, usually in abundance, both public and private educational institutions giving the preliminary instruction usually thought necessary prior to the 348 THE FEDERAL SERVICE taking up of gainful employment in that occupation. In these cases the government is not itself required to attempt to offer instruction. In general the government would probably find it less economical to do so than to leave such training to es- tablished channels. Perhaps the only exception to this state- ment is to be found in those cases in which it is desired to en- courage persons already in the service to equip themselves fur- ther educationally and where the working hours of the em- ployees do not permit them to take advantage of existing edu- cational facilities. In the larger centers, however, it will be found almost invariably that where any appreciable demand exists, the facilities, whether public or private, will be made available at suitable hours by those engaged in furnishing them. In some employments, however, found alike in the business world and in the government service, it is not customary for the novice to pursue any formal course of instruction prior to taking up work, but to enter directly upon an apprentice- ship. Whether in these employments the government shall recognize any responsibility for training apprentices or shall rely wholly upon the supply of persons who have occupied their apprenticeship in private establishments, is a question in- volving no considerations of principle. It is a matter to be decided with respect to each class of work solely on the basis of current expediency as determined by the relative supply of available material which can be drawn from any industry or commerce. The present practice of the service in this matter corresponds closely with this view. With respect to those employments which are peculiar to the government service, the situation is quite different and pre- sents a problem which is of no little importance as affecting the caliber of material recruited. As an example of such employment may. be cited that of Inspector of Immigration. The duties of the Inspector of Immigration are to obtain from the immigrant a record of his history and the facts required in the application of the laws governing the exclusion of im- migrants and to determine whether these facts present a case RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 349 for exclusion. The performance of these duties obviously requires, in addition to the general qualifications of intelli- gence, alertness, sympathy, and the like, a detailed knowledge of the immigration laws. Such a detailed knowledge can be acquired, of course, by any one of requisite intelligence by a sufficiently prolonged and concentrated study of the laws and the published and administrative and judicial decisions there- under. There is nothing inherently unreasonable, therefore, in the requirement that the persons applying for the position of immigrant inspector shall make themselves thoroughly fa- miliar with the pertinent laws and decisions. From the standpoint of securing the widest possible choice of available material for this position, however, the setting of this requirement is clearly ill-advised. From among all those who may be qualified by education, personality, and natural bent for this type of position, this requirement auto- matically confines selection to those who, for whatever reason, have been so situated as to have been able to make the required study of the laws and decisions, and among these again it gives a heavy advantage to persons who have been able to pursue this study most diligently and thoroughly. Obviously it may happen that among those who, for whatever reason, have had insufficient opportunity to study the laws and de- cisions, or having had the opportunity, have been unwilling to do so on the mere chance of a possible appointment to the position at some uncertain time in the future, there may be persons who would be in every essential respect better ma- terial for the position in question than those who have pur- sued the requisite study. The correct policy in such a case as this would seem un- questionably to neglect virtually altogether the specific tech- nical information required of the incumbent after appoint- ment and to confine the examination or whatever other basis of selection may be employed to general qualifications, relying with confidence on the capacity of the recruit when appointed to acquire in a minimum time, and with a far more practical interest and bent, the technical and internal details. 350 THE FEDERAL SERVICE In the absence of any clear-cut policy, it is, of course, dif- ficult to state in general terms the extent to which one or the other method is actually employed at the present time in the competitive classified service. If a general statement must be made, however, it seems safe to say that the present practice of the Civil Service Commission too often requires of appli- cants specialized and detailed knowledge of matters familiar- ity with which can be acquired only with great difficulty if at all outside the service itself. In the examinations which are required for admission to the diplomatic and consular services a candidate is expected to demonstrate familiarity with international, maritime, and com- mercial law; political and commercial geography; modern lan- guages; natural, industrial, and commercial resources of the United States; American history and government; and the modern history of foreign countries. In examinations for presidential postmasterships, it is in- teresting to note, the Civil Service Commisison has required no familiarity with methods of postal business. In a sense any such requirement would have been at odds with the whole theory of the examination, which calls for open competition instead of promotion from within the postal service. Never- theless, it would be no less logical to require familiarity with postal methods in this examination than to require a knowl- edge of the details of federal law and practice in a number of open competitive examinations for the competitive classified service. One result of the requirement on the part of applicants for entrance of specialized knowledge which cannot be obtained through ordinary courses of instruction or other experience in private employment is the development of the so-called "cramming" schools which, upon the announcement of an ex- amination by the Civil Service Commission, or upon the proba- bility that such an examination is to be announced (which probability, it need hardly be said, is usually advertised and exaggerated by these schools upon the slightest provocation) offer courses of instruction directly preparatory for the ex- RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 35* animation. Some of these schools use the correspondence method, but ordinary schools holding regular classes are to be found in the large cities. It might be thought that these schools serve a valuable purpose in providing the pros- pective candidate with the knowledge which he will be re- quired to demonstrate on the examination and which, if ap- pointed, he will use in the performance of his duties. Any one who is familiar, however, with the character of the in- struction given at these schools and the caliber of their student body will question this. The attempt to forecast from a study of previous examinations and a knowledge of the workings of the official mind the questions which are likely to be asked on the examination is an activity which, however valuable to the intending competitor, is worthless from the standpoint of the service. Training for Entrance. — A phase of this question which has been more or less discussed in recent years, is that of the need of training for the public service. This discussion runs back about a decade. It was particularly animated during the years 191 3 and 1914. In the former year a committee of the American Political Science Association was appointed to investigate the possibilities of supplying in the universities training which might better fit those for the public service. The committee reported in favor of the establishment of certain courses for this purpose, 1 to be supplemented by field work. In 1914 a conference was held under the auspices of the Committee on "Universities and the Public Service." Following upon this discussional phase of the matter, courses in public administration were established in several universi- ties, and Columbia University entered into an alliance with the training school for public service which had been established in connection with the New York Bureau of Municipal Re- search. \ Examination of the published discussions of this theme will disclose that they are almost without exception character- 'Report of the Committee on Training for the Public Service of the American Political Science Association, Madison, Wisconsin, 1913. 352 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ized by a vagueness as to the specific types of positions for which training would be of value. Presumably this is to be explained by the fact that a fairly diligent study has failed to reveal clearly the existence of such positions on any signifi- cant scale. The real difficulty seems to be that underlying most of this discussion is to be found the fallacious assump- tion that the public service is in some way a distinct profession or vocation, when the fact of the matter obviously is that it is merely a distinct area of employment in which are found many of the trades, professions, and callings of the business or professional world, and but few which are not there to be found — perhaps none of which the close analogy is not there to be found. And with respect to not a few professions and vocations it will be discovered that the problems encoun- tered and the qualifications essential do not differ more be- tween the public service and any particular branch of industry than between that branch and some other. One single class of employees, too inconsiderable in num- ber, however, to have any importance for the present discus- sion, may be regarded as actually receiving training through the type of instruction above outlined. In every large public service, and perhaps particularly in municipalities, a limited number of persons variously designated as examiners and in- vestigators are needed whose function it is to make investi- gations of various phases of governmental activity for the purposes of financial control, reorganization, personnel ad- ministration, or for other administrative purposes associated with the central control. While it is essential that technical advice and supervision be always present, it is often found practicable in staffs of this kind to put to excellent use per- sons of native capacity and alertness who do not, and in the nature of the case cannot, possess technical knowledge of each of the varied branches of administration which the shifting requirements of the central agency make it necessary for them to investigate. It is frequently possible to find excellent ma- terial for this type of service among those in the clerical grades who have entered without any advanced educational prepara- RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 353 tion and who have acquired through long experience a wide familiarity with the operations of the service. But it is also possible and frequently desirable to recruit these staffs from among persons of good general education but without exten- sive experience in the service. For persons of this type, specialized courses in public administration, especially when allied with "field work," are undoubtedly of value as a prep- aration; but the demand for this type of service is in any case too small to warrant the provision of any extensive facili- ties for the purpose or to be any real element in a program of training for the public service, and in large services it will generally be found both practicable and expedient to divide this examining work functionally, so that it is done by. persons who are themselves proficient specialists in the vocations or professions involved. Reviewing these considerations in the light of the needs of the federal service it may be said with confidence that there exists at present substantially no demand for recruits to the federal service the supply of which could be or is being facili- tated by the provision of any special courses of training of the character here under discussion. Maximum Age Limits. — Another basic aspect of the re- cruitment problem which is closely related to the question of restricting selection for the higher levels to those already in the service, is that of maximum age limits for entrance to the service. This question, of course, has reference chiefly to the positions of the lower grades, and of a more or less unspecial- ized character. In the higher grades, where extensive train- ing and experience are required, if recruitment from without the service is resorted to, the appointee may be expected to be already fairly advanced in life; and here the desirability of fix- ing a maximum age limit will be merely to prevent the en- trance of one so old as to be below a reasonable standard of productive efficiency or of adaptability. In the lower grades, however, the question presents itself as one of basic principle. The imposition for these grades, of a low maximum age limit, such as the twenty-year limit for second division clerks, . 354 THE FEDERAL SERVICE and the twenty-four-year limit for first division clerks, as fixed in the British system, is often urged. The argument is that the aim should be to encourage young men definitely tp adopt the service early in life as a permanent career. Mani- festly such an argument has no validity except jn respect to the upper, really worth while positions. A danger, of course, exists that if no moderately low maxi- mum age limit is established for the subordinate positions, the service may become the refuge of incompetents of middle age or even of advanced years who have failed to establish themselves in private life. If, however, the entrance gate be strictly guarded as regards physical as well as mental quali- fications, there is no reason why an incompetent, of whatever age, should gain a permanent foothold in the service. To assume that all who find a minor post in the government serv- ice attractive even in middle life are necessarily incompetent would be a grievous error and the government, as employer, should not take so arbitrary a position except for the best of reasons. If extensive training and experience in the service is re- quired before the maximum value of the recruit to the service is attained, the recruitment of persons well on in years is ob- jectionable on the ground that the cost to the service of the period of apprenticeship, so to speak, is distributed over a relatively brief prospective period of service. The examin- ing corps of the Patent Office is a case in point. The new examiner must spend a considerable period in acquiring a mas- tery of the special procedure and methods involved in his work ; and during that period his services are ordinarily worth less than their cost. In theory, therefore, recruitment should be confined to persons young enough to warrant the expecta- tion of a long period of service. In sum, the policy to be followed by the federal service would seem to be one of compromise. Recruitment should be restricted to those in early life so far as practicable, but the definition of what is to be regarded as early life should be liberally drawn, probably in the neighborhood of 30 years, RECRUITMENT METHODS : BASIC ASPECTS 355 and perhaps running up to 35. The present policy of the service in the permanent branches accords fairly well with the policy recommended, but on the whole the tendency is to set the maximum age limit at a considerably higher figure than here suggested. Recruitment of Women. — The question of the admission of women into the service has remained up to the present time almost solely in the hands of the administrative officers concerned. With reference to "clerkships" an act passed in 1870, and still in force, definitely vests this discretion in the heads of departments. 1 A like discretion is extended over the remainder of the competitive classified service by the civil service rules which provide (Rule VII, Section I, a) that in certifying the names of eligibles to appointing officers "cer- tifications shall be made without regard to sex unless sex is specified in the request," thus permitting the appointing of- ficer, by specifying in his request for certification, to bar ap^ pointment to either sex, a privilege commonly used, of course, to bar women rather than men, though with the increasing employment of women in clerical and stenographic work in the service, the situation is probably by the way of becoming reversed. In the foreign service the regulations for entrance to the several branches promulgated by the President do not in terms restrict entrance to men, but such is undoubtedly their intent, and, a woman applicant, should one present herself, would undoubtedly be denied designation to the examination. A similar situation exists with reference to the presidential postmasterships, but the system here being competitive, it is difficult to see how under existing orders and regulations a woman otherwise qualified could be denied the right to com- pete. In the labor services, and in all the other unclassified positions, there exist no statutory provisions, and the discre- tion of the appointing officer is complete. 1 "Women may, in the discretion of the head of any department, be appointed to any of the clerkships therein authorized by law upon the same requisites and conditions and with- the same compensation as are prescribed for men." _ Act of July 12, 1870. Incorporated in Revised Statutes, Section 165. 356 THE FEDERAL SERVICE There can be no question but that the discretion entrusted to appointing officers under this head has often been employed to discriminate against the employment of women for no sounder reason than the personal preference of the appointing officer or the tradition of the department. Until the war emergency compelled a change there were whole bureaus in Washington in which the employment of women in anything above the lowest clerical positions, and in some cases even in those positions, was unknown; and despite the extreme dif- ficulty which was experienced at various times in securing an adequate supply of male stenographers, the officers in charge persisted in their refusal to employ women. In the technical positions the discrimination has been much less common, owing no doubt in part to the fact that only a very small pro- portion of qualified women eligibles have ever appeared on the registers. Even here, however, there unquestionably has been discrimination which could not be defended on any sound administrative grounds. In view of this condition, which, however much modified by the war, still tends to persist, it would seem desirable, so far as the classified competitive service is concerned, to amend the rule, and, if necessary, the statute, by requiring that cer- tification should be made without regard to sex except upon a certificate of the appointing officer to be approved by the Civil Service Commission, that administrative reasons, to be speci- fied, require the employm^it of only one sex. A more sat- isfactory solution, however, would be the examination of the whole question by a representative central personnel body which should have power to lay down, subject perhaps to ap- proval by the President, a general policy on this head and to define its application to each specified branch of the service and each class of positions, such determination to be subject, of course, to current revision. Extreme feminists will contend doubtless that there is no need for this ; that appointment should be made in every case, regardless of sex, of the person found best qualified to fill the vacancy. It is this theory which doubtless is responsible for , RECRUITMENT METHODS : BASIC ASPECTS 357 the measure introduced in Congress in December, 1919, by Senator McLean, at the instance, apparently, of the Women's Trade Union League, with respect to the competitive classi- fied service, prohibiting appointing officers, when making upon the Civil Service Commission request for certifications, from specifying sex "unless sex is a physical barrier to the proper performance of the duties of the position to be filled." It is believed, however, that the experience of all large personnel systems is that it is better, in many types of organization, to confine the force entrusted with a given class of work entirely to one sex, even though either sex is qualified for the work. If determinations on this head are made after full considera- tion and opportunity for hearing, and for administrative rea- sons made of public record, it is believed that unjust sex dis- crimination is no more likely to result, and administrative requirements are more likely to be met, than through the en- actment of a rigid statutory rule like the one proposed. Basic Questions of Practical Procedure. — The preceding sections have dealt with matters of general policy in recruit- ment. It remains to consider certain practical matters of actual procedure and method to be employed in selecting re- cruits. The questions to be decided under this head are: first, the factors upon which selection will be determined, such as experience, education, and technical ability; and, in con- nection with each of these factors, the requirement to be es- tablished, and particularly the minimum requirement, if any, to be fixed, and the relative weight to be assigned to each fac- tor as compared with the others ; second, the method by which the candidate may be required to demonstrate his qualifica- tions, whether in writing or through an interview or by the performance of a manual task ; and third, the method of bring- ing the candidate under inspection, whether by assembling the candidates at one place or a number of places, or by merely corresponding with the candidates. The first question, that of the subjects of examination and the types of requirement, is, of course, the basic one, yet what is practicable in this regard is largely dependent upon the 358 THE FEDERAL SERVICE method that is feasible for bringing the candidate under in T spection and for securing from him a demonstration of his qualifications. These matters, therefore, must be given at- tention first, and the type of requirement to be fixed and the weight to be attached to each subject reserved for later dis- cussion, in the light of the considerations here developed. The nomenclature for the several types of methods and tests which has developed in recruiting practice, particularly in the Civil Service Commission, in the conduct of competi- tive examinations, it perhaps should be said in passing, is not based upon any close analysis. The distinctions about to be developed, consequently, at some points cut across the mean- ing attached to terms commonly used. Fully-Assembled, Locally-Assembled, and Non-Assembled Examinations. — In fully-assembled examinations all the candidates are brought together in one place and at one time. In what are here designated as locally-assembled examinations they are brought together in a number ,of places at the same time, and in a non-assembled examination they are not brought together at any time. The great area of the country makes impossible, in most examinations for the federal service, the assembling of all competitors in any one place unless the examination is to be held for a position existing at only one point, and is to be restricted to applicants from the immediate vicinity. Such is the case notably in connection with the examinations for rural letter carriers and the like, and it is also true in connection with the open competitive examinations for presidential post- masters now held under executive order. 1 In the examinations for the foreign service conducted by the State Department, however, the assembled examination is employed, though the whole area of the country is taken as the field of selection. This assembled examination, which is both *In the latter case it may well be questioned whether, in the exam- ination for the more important offices, competition should as now be restricted to the residents of the area which the office serves ; that re- quirement being in force, however, it is practicable in these examinations to assemble all the competitors in one place. RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 359 written and oral, is preceded by a non-assembled test in which, on the basis of experience and other general statements, the candidates showing no promise are eliminated. Nevertheless any reasonably qualified person seeking appointment to the consular service must journey to Washington as a necessary incident to his efforts, to submit himself to examination, with- out any certainty of final appointment. That this require- ment is calculated to discourage competition for the . service seems hardly open to question, particularly when, as now, no assurance is given that a strictly competitive basis, or in- deed any competitive basis at all, will be employed in making selection from among those examined. The suggestion made on this point by the Committee on the Foreign Service of the National Civil Service Reform League, which recently reported on the general subject of the foreign service, is of particular interest. The Committee em- phasized the fact that the holding of the written examinations for the foreign service in all parts of the country would make it possible to draw to the service a much larger number of applicants, much better distributed over the country as a whole, since the present practice results in the examination of an undue proportion of persons resident in and near Washington. With respect to the oral examination, the committee makes this interesting suggestion : 1 The candidates successful in passing the written examina- tions might perhaps be subjected to a preliminary oral exam- ination by the Civil Service examiner (at the local examining point) for the purpose of eliminating those candidates whose personality made them obviously unfitted for entering into the foreign service . . . and perhaps these tests would be suf- ficient to exclude the utterly unfit. The government should 'Report on the Foreign Service, National Civil Service Reform League, 1919, pp. 25-28. The Committee makes the following note to this statement : "A former consul has written to the committee ex- pressing the view that if a candidate does not have capital enough to pay his own expenses to Washington he ought not to be encouraged to enter the service since the government does not pay consuls for some time |after they have incurred expenditures and because there are incidental expenses which must be met by the consul out of his own pocket. Much of the force of this objection will be gone once the salaries are made ^ adequate." 3 6o THE FEDERAL SERVICE then pay the transportation to Washington for the oral ex- amination for the candidates successful in the written test or it might examine a certain number from the head of each local list, reserving the remainder for later calls. This . . . would have the merit of preventing the exclusion of any capa- ble young man simply because he was unable to make the trip to Washington. For many of the positions for which open competitive examinations are held in the competitive classified service it is impracticable to confine competition to the immediate vicinity of the place in which the position is to be filled. With re- spect to positions at Washington, the civil service law requires that equal opportunity be given to candidates anywhere in the country to compete. Many of the lists are employed, more- over, for filling positions at a variety of places. The appli- cability of the method of the fully-assembled examinations to the federal service is thus severely limited and attention must be given, therefore, to the possibilities of the other two types — the locally-assembled and the non-assembled. Where prac- ticable, however, the fully-assembled examination is preferable to the other two types. As a thoroughgoing application of the competitive principle it has the value of insuring that the several candidates will be examined under the same condi- tions. The examination, moreover, can be conducted by more experienced and skilled examiners than can be secured in locally-assembled examinations. Locally-assembled examinations are of two kinds: those in which the examiners, at the several local points, merely place before the candidates the written questions and transmit the answers, whether they be in writing or in the form of some physical product, to the central headquarters for rating; and those in which the local examiners actually rate the can- didates. In the former case, no difficulty arises in connection with the conventional type of written examination, and a great majority of the locally-assembled examinations conducted by the Civil Service Commission for the competitive classified RECRUITMENT METHODS : BASIC ASPECTS 361 service for other than mechanical positions fall under this head. The non-assembled test, as ordinarily conducted by the Civil Service Commission for positions in the competitive clas- sified service, frequently consists of no more than a statement of experience. For ascertaining the relative qualifications of competitors under this head the non-assembled method is quite satisfactory, especially when supplemented, as is in- creasingly the case with the federal Civil Service Commission, by correspondence with persons to whom the candidate refers to verify the candidate's statements and to give an inde- pendent opinion on his qualifications. Even with respect to the matter of experience, however, it has been found of value jn local jurisdictions to supplement the examination of the rec- ord by an oral examination, which has the merit of bringing out frequently not merely what the candidate has done and, in a conventional sense, how well he has done it, but how much he has gotten out of his experience. As already indicated the non-assembled test is, however, frequently used not merely to obtain a record of the candi- date's experience but to get evidence of his technical capacity, by requiring him to present a thesis on some subject, either set or left to him to select, related to the work of the position, and, in rare cases, as in that of a free-hand draftsman, by re- quiring the submission of samples of work previously done. The obvious difficulty connected with a non-assembled written test of this character is that of assuring that the thesis or samples submitted by the competitor actually represent only his own work. To a certain extent this may be checked up as to the thesis by means of an oral test at a subsequent date, at which the examiners may interrogate the candidate on the basis of the subject matter of his thesis. Oral, Written, and Manual Tests. — While the terms oral, written, and manual tests are broadly self-explanatory, it may be well to call attention to certain points in their relation which might not at first sight appear. It is common to think of oral and written tests as being of the question and answer type; 362 THE FEDERAL SERVICE that is, tests in which the capacity of the candidate is sought to be measured, not by requiring the performance of any of the tasks or operations which fall within the duties of the posi- tion, but merely by asking questions which test the candidate's familiarity with those duties; and, in apparent contra-distinc- tion to oral and written tests, manual tests frequently have been referred to in the nomenclature of the Civil Service Commission as "practical" tests. Although the distinction is for the most part a true one, oral tests, and more particularly written tests, may be fully as "practical" as are manual tests. Thus an examination for the position of stenographer, in which the candidate is required to take notes from dictation and to transcribe on the typewriter, is commonly spoken of as a Written examination but it is, in every respect, as "prac- tical" an examination as are the manual tasks given in some jurisdictions for the regular mechanical trades. Less obvious but equally clear is the case of examination for bookkeeper or accountant in which it is perfectly practical to set actual prob- lems through a written examination; and the list might be extended into other less common types of posts. Oral tests admittedly do not lend themselves in any great number of cases to a "practical" examination in the sense of requiring the actual performance of characteristic tasks; they are of value chiefly in testing the possession of certain mental qualities which are required for the efficient performance of the tasks to be performed. They may be used, however, like the written examination as a means of inquiring into the candidate's education and technical capacity. The advantage' of the oral test on this head is realized, however, only when the same care is taken in the rating of the answers made by the several candidates that is commonly taken in the rating of written papers. The employment of this form of test is, moreover, open to the obvious objections that the candidates are not subjected, strictly speaking, to the same tests ; and that it is difficult to review the judgment of the examiners when the test has been completed, or to conceal from the examiners the identity of the candidates and thus prevent the entrance of im- RECRUITMENT METHODS : BASIC ASPECTS 363 proper considerations. These considerations are strongest, of course, where the basis of examination is strictly competitive. 1 In the federal service the use of the oral examination is rendered undesirable, moreover, by the difficulty of assembling all the candidates in one place before a single board of ex- aminers. As the result doubtless of all these factors the Civil Service Commission has hitherto made little use of the oral examination as an element in the. rating of candidates. In a number of cases, however, where personality is regarded as an important factor in the qualifications of a candidate, and where there have been but a few eligibles, the Commission has followed the course of summoning the candidates to Wash- ington for oral tests before the final promulgation of the eligible list, the purpose of such test being simply to eliminate any competitor whose personality was clearly unsuitable. Under this procedure the final stage of the examination by the Commission and the interview of the candidates by the ap- pointing officer, which, in the regular course, usually follows some time after the completion of the examination, are in effect joined. The oral test, it should be said, is one of these employed in the non-competitive examinations for the positions of consul and diplomatic secretary and for medical officers in the Public Health Service. The use of manual examinations in selecting recruits in the skilled trades and in general in employments requiring manual skill is a fairly recent development in the field of pub- lic personnel work. In industry, this class of service is re- cruited, of course, without any formal test, the mere fact that one claims to be a skilled mechanic in a given line being ac- cepted as a sufficient basis and little attempt being made to dis- tinguish between relative grades of skill. The experience of 'A recent discussion of the values of the oral test in recruitment for the public service — indeed one of the very few discussions on this sub- ject to be found anywhere — is "The Oral Test in Civil Service Exam- inations," by J. B. Probt, Chief Examiner, St. Paul Civil Service Com- mission, a paper read at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the National Assembly of Civil Service Commissions and published in the Proceed- ings, p. 54 eligibles were secured as a result of the first examination. The Commission may also, in its discretion hold a second examination for any office in which no eligibles were secured as a result of the first examination, and which has an annual compensation of between $180 and $500." Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), pp. 109-111. 'Except in Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, where no examination was given for such offices, appointment being made on the report of a post office inspector. "Under these regulations examination was abolished for positions paying less than $500, such positions being filled upon the reports of post office inspectors, which, under the 1909 regulations, had been used only in the four states of Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio. 4 02 THE FEDERAL SERVICE "facilities for transacting the postal business" no longer an element in the examination, but the department is excluded from any choice beyond that open to it under the rule requiring the certification of three names for each vacancy, shortly to be discussed. . The system of examination employed for the competitive selection of rural carriers is also of special interest as illustrat- ing the practicability of applying this method to a class of per- sonnel more scattered perhaps than any other class of public employees in the world. The system of rural free delivery, though established earlier, was considered an experiment until about 1 90 1. The position of rural carrier remained in the excepted class until November 27, 1901, when President Roose- velt brought the entire service into the classified competitive service at one stroke. On December 27, 1901, regulations were promulgated to become effective from and after Feb- ruary 1, 1902. The first regulations, under which the service was oper- ated for two years, provided a simple test consisting of filling out an application in the presence of a rural agent of the Post Office Department, acting in the capacity of an examiner for the Commission. This rural agent was then required to make an investigation of the reputation of the competitor in the community in which he lived, and of the wishes of the patrons ; his report being used as a basis upon which to deter- mine a relative merit of the various applicants. From the first it was believed that this policy was unsafe in that it af- forded too great an opportunity for political preference brought about by influence bearing upon the agent. But few complaints of a serious nature resulted. In time the extent of the service rendered it impractical to continue this system on account of the large expense of con- ducting the examinations, especially in connection with the changes that occurred in the established service by reason of deaths, resignations, and removals, which made it necessary for the examiner to visit many of the offices frequently, as often as three and four times during one year. This condi- tion caused the necessity for many temporary appointments pending the establishment of registers from which certifications RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 403 could be made, and in a number of instances the suspension of the service, owing to the fact that it is difficult to get suitable persons to accept temporary appointment. After consultation with the Post Office Department, other regulations were pro- mulgated on December 3, 1903, to become effective February 1, 1904. The new regulations, which have endured with but little change down to the present time, require competitive examina- tions, and, for a time, the administration of these examinations was practically under the jurisdiction of the Post Office De- partment. In 1906, however, the Commission was able to an- nounce that, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1906, all of the work in connection with rural carrier examinations and certifications had been conducted by employees of the Commis- sion. 1 In 191 1 the standard of the examination was made the same as that for clerks and letter carriers in classified post of- fices in order to raise the standard of appointees and to facili- tate transfers between these classes of positions. In addition, the practice of holding a separate examination for each post offide on the routes of which a vacancy occurred was aban- doned in favor of examination by counties, together with the provision for the certification of the highest local eligible and the two highest eligibles from the territory served by the re- maining post offices in the county. As with other examinations for the field service, examina- tions are held by local examining boards where these have been organized, but, inasmuch as in a great many counties no local examining board exists, it is necessary in these counties to call upon the postmaster or other officer of the government to conduct the examination. From the apparent absence of criticism it may be concluded that the conduct of examinations at these remote points by officers not accustomed to such service has worked more satisfactorily than might have been antici- pated. 1 Twenty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1906), p. 9. 404 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Speed of Production of Eligible Registers. — The length of time which elapses between the first announcement of the ex- amination and the final production of the eligible register is another factor which is of high importance in the effective working of a system of recruitment through competitive ex- amination. When the examination is announced and appli- cations invited, all those who respond are presumably inter- ested in the position and will accept appointment if then offered. The longer the delay, however, before the actual establishment of the eligible register, and the offering of appointment to those selected, the greater the likelihood that some, and usually the most desirable of the competitors, for one reason or an- other, will have lost interest in the position. The methods employed by the Commission have reduced the time inter- vening between the announcement of the examination and the actual holding of the written or oral tests, where such tests are held, as much as can be expected; far more in fact than has been the case with many local commissions. What delay now occurs at this stage is so small as probably to have no effect on the quality of the competition. The interval which elapses, however, between the holding of the examination'and the promulgation of the eligible register is in many cases far too great. The chief cause of the delay is the inadequacy of the ex- amining force of the Commission. Referring to this matter the Chief Examiner of the Commission, in 1915, said: It is impossible for the government to obtain the fullest value from the commission's work when the number of ex- aminers and clerks is insufficient to keep abreast of the ex- amining work at all times. By arranging the schedule in such a way that the work is distributed with a fair degree of even- ness throughout the year, as outlined in my last report, it would be possible, with an adequate force, to make very much quicker returns from the examinations. This would be of material advantage to the service in several ways. Vacancies could be filled without long delays, and some of the best qualified competitors, who now become unavailable by reason of delays in rating their papers, would not be lost to the service. Ex- RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 405 animations for rural carrier, fourth class postmaster, clerk and carrier in second class post offices, and technical and scientific positions can be held only after vacancies actually occur or are anticipated within a short time. Notwithstanding every effort to expedite the establishment of registers from such examinations, the congestion of other papers constantly on hand necessarily retards the work. For example, it is the de- sire of the Post Office Department that eligibles for rural carriers be provided within 60 days from the date of notifica- tion to the commission of a vacancy. Owing to the inade- quate force of examiners and clerks it has been absolutely im- possible to comply with the department's wishes in this respect. The average time elapsing between the notification of the va- cancy and the certification of eligibles for rural carrier, under present conditions, has been approximately five months. 1 The provision of an inadequate force of examiners for the Commission is thus seen to be a factor of primary importance in the success of the competitive examination system as a whole. In eliminating unqualified candidates by the successive tests, and in eventually promulgating the eligible register, the Com- mission follows the practice common to most civil service commissions in this country of setting for each test a minimum percentage to be obtained. It will be observed that this method bears no relation to the prospective needs of the service. The number of competitors may be so large that a number far in -excess of the anticipated needs of the service will pass each successive test with a percentage higher than the prescribed minimum. Where this occurs the labor expended in the ex- amination and the placing on the eligible register of a large proportion of those receiving lower percentages, is entirely wasted, since in the nature of the case the life of the register must expire long before any possible need for the services of these persons ensues. In addition to the waste of labor there is the corresponding delay in producing the eligible register. A more practical method would seem to be to fix, not a minimum 'Thirty-second Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1915). P- 20 - 406 THE FEDERAL SERVICE percentage for the several successive tests, but a maximum number to be rated qualified on each of the successive tests, such number to be fixed with relation to the prospective needs of the service. This method has been used with apparently good results by the Canadian Civil Service Commission. Appeals for Re-rating. — Owing to the necessity for issuing ratings and making up eligible registers without any thorough- going review by an authority higher than the original ex- aminers, provision is made in the practice of the Commission, though nowhere mentioned in the rules, for appeal from the original ratings given by the Commission. Such appeal may be made either by the candidate, or by the department, if the Commission permit the appointing officer to have access to the papers upon which the ratings are based. Upon receipt of such a request for re-rating, it is referred to a so-called Board of Appeal, consisting of the Chief Examiner and two other ex- aminers. The recommendation of this board, reached after an examination of the papers and relevant facts, is transmitted to the Commission itself for approval. In the letter advising candidates of their ratings the Com- mission notifies the candidate of his right to appeal, but warns him that "if any changes are made in the ratings the chances are that they will be against the competitors, because, in the original rating, examiners are more likely to overlook errors than to overcharge them." A sixty-day limit is fixed for the receipt of appeals from competitors. No corresponding limit exists, however, as to the length of time, after receipt of certifica- tion, in which an appeal must be made by the department, and in practice the time limit on appeals by competitors is not rigidly enforced. Military Preference. — After all the tests comprising an examination have been applied and the gradings have been es- tablished, the percentages obtained by each competitor on the various tests are weighted and computed; and, on the basis of the final average thus obtained, the eligible register is pre- pared. The arrangement of the names on the register is in the order of percentages, with the exception that preference RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 407 is given to those who have had certain military services. The practice governing this preference is clearly of the first im- portance. The history of military preference in the federal service ex- tends back to 1865, when Congress enacted that Persons honorably discharged from the military or naval service by reason of disability resulting from wounds or sick- ness incurred in the line of duty shall be preferred for ap- pointments to civil offices, provided they are found to -possess the business capacity necessary for the proper discharge of the duties of such office. 1 In enacting the civil service law Congress specifically re- tained this preference in force by providing that "nothing herein contained shall be construed to take from those honorably dis- charged from the military and naval service any preference conferred" by the section just cited. 2 In 1881, prior to the enactment of the civil service act, the Attorney General gave it as his opinion that these provisions meant that qualified soldiers and sailors "are entitled to a preference for appoint- ment against other persons of equal qualifications for the place," 8 and, similarly, in 1889, that "it was the purpose of Congress to make it the duty of those making appointments for civil offices to give a preference, other things being equal, to the class of persons named in this section." 4 These opinions, it will be noted, insist only upon the right of the disabled soldier to be preferred to those of equal qualifi- cations. The civil service rules, however, went much further. The revision of the rules promulgated in 1888 established the principle that those entitled to preference should be preferred above all others, of whatever rating, and that, moreover, they should be regarded as qualified even though receiving a rating of 65 per cent, as against the rating of 70 per cent required 'Act of March 3, 1865, 13 Stat. 571, reenacted as Sec. 1754 of the Revised Statutes. 'Civil Service Act, Sec. 7. • Opinion of the Attorney General, August 13, 1881, 17 Op., 194- 'Opinion of the Attorney General, May 24, 1889, 19 Op., 318. 4 o8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE of all non-preferred competitors. This principle has been re- tained without change. By these provisions the disabled ex-soldier or sailor was not only preferred over all others who had passed the ex- amination but he was permitted to pass at a lower rating, so that one who would have failed to qualify had he not been a disabled ex-soldier or sailor might be given first call upon the position. Judged on the basis of the opinions of the Attorney General just cited, the Commission in these rules, clearly went beyond the mandate of Congress. In 1910, however, the At- torney General, at the instance of the Commission, and partly in deference to its long standing practice, ruled that the act of 1865 required that the preference granted by it should ex- tend "over all others on the eligible list, irrespective of their rating." * This complete reversal of the rulings of his pre- decessors was put by the Attorney General on the novel ground that All persons who have passed the necessary examination are, under the civil service act and rules, presumed to be equally qualified for the office which they seek. Their rating simply determines the order in which they shall be certified for ap- pointment. 2 Even under this opinion, however, the Commission was not required to permit a lower standard of qualification for those entitled to preference than for other competitors. The action of the Commission on this point is, and remains under the new statutory provisions about to be reviewed, entirely gratui- tous. Such was the situation until a few months after the close of hostilities in the recent war. In February, 1919, in enacting the act providing for the taking of the 1920 census, Congress inserted a provision having no relation to the act itself which required that 'Opinion of the Attorney General, 1910^-28 Op., 298, 302. 'Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. 52. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 409 hereafter in making appointments to clerical and other posi- tions in the executive departments and independent govern- ment establishments preference shall be given to honorably dis- charged soldiers, sailors, and marines and widows, of such, if they are qualified to hold such positions. 1 It is needless to comment on the impropriety of such ex- tension of the principle of military preference, or to point out how much further it pushes the principle than did the act of 1865, which controlled for half a century. Preference is extended not merely, as in 1865, to persons discharged by rea- son of disability resulting from wounds or sickness incurred in the line of duty, but to all "honorably discharged soldiers, sailors and marines." A mere term of service in the Army or Navy is made the basis for a mandatory preference in all fed- eral positions. Further than this, the same preference is extended even to the widows of those in the preferred class, 2 a preference hith- erto unknown to the law except for a provision regarding the retention in service of the employees of the temporary census office when it was placed on a permanent basis. Even here, however, the preference was only as to widows of "persons who have served as soldiers in any war in which the United States may have been engaged." By act of July 11, 1919, this provision of the census act was substantially reenacted. 3 In addition, however, preference was extended "to the wives of injured soldiers, sailors, and marines who themselves are not qualified but whose wives are qualified to hold such positions." Whatever may be thought 'Act of March 3, 1919, 4° Stat. 1293. ' The qualification in the act, "if they are qualified to hold such posi- tions," will be noted. Whether this qualification applied only to the widows of discharged soldiers, sailors, and marines or to the men them- selves as well, and if so how far it qualified the principle, are now imma- terial questions since by the act of July 11, 1919, about to be mentioned, this provision was in effect repealed. 3 41 Stat. 37. The words "in the executive branch of the govern- ment in the District of Columbia or elsewhere" are substituted for "in the executive departments and in independent government establish- ments," and the proviso "if they are qualified to hold such positions" is omitted. 410 THE FEDERAL SERVICE of this further extension, if confined, as it is not in terms, to those who received their injuries in action; it has at least the merit of according with the notion of reparation or compensa- tion which the other provisos wholly lack. If criticism was properly directed against the Commission for recommending to the President the liberal rules adopted for giving effect to the military preference of 1865, similar action under these far more sweeping rules would certainly be open to much more severe criticism. Precisely such changes in the rules were made, however, presumably upon the recom- mendation of the Commission. The rules were amended waiv- ing age requirements in the case of all persons preferred under the acts, and permitting such persons to qualify at a rating of 65 per cent. In connection with the postal examinations, vet- erans are exempted from the height and weight requirements. Those wholly unnecessary concessions to the military pref- erence classes, which are not required by the letter of the acts and are not even implied in their spirit, are difficult to reconcile with the sweeping condemnation visited on the acts by the Commission in its annual report for 1919. It says : The effects of so sweeping a preference, while profoundly demoralizing to the efficiency of the public service, will not immediately reach its maximum evil. The number entitled to preference will be at first so large that there will be a measure of competition among them, but a few years hence, when the present labor surplus has been absorbed, and when the more efficient workers among the soldiers have definitely deter- mined their vocations, there will remain chiefly the less com- petent to be cared for, and these would naturally take advan- tage of any preference that may exist. Ultimately there would be a small number of candidates at a more advanced age for each office and they would receive the appointments without competition to the exclusion of the most highly qualified civilian applicants. Public office should not be regarded as a gratuity, but as an opportunity for service to the community by those most fitted to perform that service. To the extent that public of- fice is an honor and a means of livelihood, all should enjoy equal opportunity to compete to gain such honor and livelihood. RECRUITMENT METHODS: CLASSIFIED SERVICE 411 Opposition to a preference which takes in all soldiers and their widows should not be considered in any sense as a dis- paragement of the services of our soldiers. This country has excelled all other nations in acknowledging the value of such services by honors and distinctions and by a pension system of unexampled liberality. The merit system of competitive examination rests upon the theory that service to the country in a civil capacity should be an opportunity of public usefulness offered fairly and equally to all competent citizens according to their individual capacity and fitness, under a system where every applicant has a "fair field and no favor, each standing on his merits as he is able to show them by a practical test." The civil service increasingly demands trained, educated, experienced employees, and to use the civil service as a reward for military service is an expensive method of pensioning. We want in office men who are not merely just over the line of availability, but the best men who can be obtained: sorted out by the best means; held to the highest standard of ef- ficiency ; made to feel it is the highest honor to serve the State. The future development of the United States will be dependent largely on the efficiency of its civilian employees. Under the merit system, examinations designed to test relative fitness are open and competitive for all American citizens who meet cer- tain preliminary requirements, and appointing officers are re- quired to fill vacancies from among the highest of these with sole regard to merit and fitness. The development of the sci- entific, technical, and professional work of the government has been contemporaneous with the development of examinations under the civil service act. It has been in large measure be- cause of the merit system that the departments have obtained the high technical attainments requisite. The exemption of veterans from competition will cripple the work of the depart- ments by forcing the appointment of veterans who barely meet the minimum requirements. A department needing a tech- nical expert will be forced to accept a soldier whose training enables him to meet only the minimum requirements, thus rejecting the most highly qualified. The service, no longer animated by the enthusiasm of the student fresh from the contact with the technical world, can- not fail to lose much of its progressive tendency. The training of an efficient civil administrative officer is a long and expensive process, and unless the best possible ma- 4 i2 THE FEDERAL SERVICE terial is available from which to make selections the result will be disastrous. The supply of efficient administrators is extremely limited at best. Too much emphasis can not be laid upon the imperative necessity of highly trained adminis- trators and the most highly trained clerical force from which to develop such administrators. Those familiar with the federal service at Washington know that the service is now hampered by the retention of incompetents whose removal is rendered difficult by influ- ences which are incompatible with the efficiency of the service. Preferences and exemptions increasingly clog the departments with persons who, no matter how inefficient, are difficult to remove and whose retention tends to destroy the discipline of the service. Legislation creating class distinctions and preference, es- pecially based upon military service, is not consonant with the' ideals of this nation, whose founders declared against the military being superior to the civil power and for the equality of opportunity for all men. Those who serve the nation in time of war deserve much of a grateful country. If the na- tion wishes to reward in a fitting manner those citizens who have represented it in time of national peril, there can be no objection raised. It cannot be called, however, a fitting re- ward of patriotic service to grant to those who have rendered military service the privilege of impairing its civil service. 1 * The Commission recommends legislation "permitting the Commission to exclude from preference examinations of a highly technical, scientific, or professional character," a rec- ommendation with which it is believed no one, however ex- treme an advocate of military preference, will take issue. It also recommends legislation that will confine preference to disabled soldiers, sailors, and marines, giving them an addi- tional percentage in their rating on examination, instead of placing them at the head, of the register. The exception in favor of widows of honorably discharged soldiers, sailors, and marines, if permitted to remain on the statutes, in time will have a most baneful effect upon the per- sonnel of the service. In the nature of the case the provision * Thirty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission ( I 9 I 9), PP- xvn-xix. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 413 will not come into operation in most cases until the woman who is prospectively entitled to its benefits is well advanced in middle life, so that beginning ten or fifteen years hence a large and increasing number of women past the prime of life who, for the most part, are without any previous experience in or training for the work of the government, or in any other related work, will flow into the subordinate positions of the government. The preference extended by the statutes and rules applies only to certification and not to appointment. Under the "one- in-three" rule shortly to be considered in detail, the appointing officer may pass over the veteran, or veteran's wife or widow, and appoint one of the two other persons certified, but the sentimental appeal which the veteran, or his wife or widow, makes to the appointing officer, or should he prove callous, to members of Congress and others who may bring pressure to bear on the appointing officer, greatly reduces the importance of this factor. Certification for Apportioned Positions. — The civil service act requires the rules formulated by the President to provide, "among other things,''' "as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant," that "appointments to the public service aforesaid [that is, to "the public service now classi- fied or to be classified hereunder"] in the departments at Washington shall be apportioned among the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia upon the basis of population as ascertained at the last preceding census." Pursuant to this requirement, the rules provide (Rule VII, 2) : 2. Certification for appointment in the departments or in- dependent offices at Washington shall be so made as to main- tain, as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant, the apportionment of appointments among the sev- eral states and territories and the District of Columbia upon the basis of population: Provided, That appointments to the following positions shall not be so apportioned : In all departments and offices : Apprentice, cabinet-maker, carpenter, electric lineman, electric wireman, engraver, gar- dener, helper (if approved by the Commission), messenger 4 i4 THE FEDERAL SERVICE boy, messenger girl, painter, plumber, skilled laborer (female), student, and telephone operator. r In the Government Printing Office, Mail Equipment Shops, local offices in the District of Columbia, field service of the military staff departments, and at Army headquarters: All positions. In the Bureau of Engraving and Printing : Operative, plate printer, printer's assistant, and skilled helper. In the Office of the Auditor for the Post Office Depart- ment : Operative for the audit of accounts and vouchers of the Postal Service by means of labor-saving devices. All classified positions in Washington to which the rule of apportionment is applied are embraced under the designation "the apportioned service," while those excluded by the rule just quoted are designated "the non-apportioned service." In making certification to non-apportioned positions, certifi- cation is made, oi course, in the order of the average percentage without reference to the state of residence of eligibles. It will be observed that the rule does not require the ap- portionment to be applied to all positions not specifically ex- cepted by it, as it follows the wording of the law in requiring that the apportionment shall be maintained only "as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant." The Commission, in practice, has interpreted this rule as permitting it to "waive" the requirement of apportionment in any case. The only positions for which it has so waived the require- ments permanently are : sub-inspector and architectural drafts- man, Bureau of Yards and Docks, Navy Department; me- chanical draftsman, Office of the Chief of Ordnance, War Department ; and assistant physiologist in crop utilization, De- partment of Agriculture. In addition, during the war, owing to "the unusual demands of the service and the necessity of filling vacancies without delay," the apportionment was waive" for the War and Navy Departments, the Food Administra- tion, the War Trade Board, and the Treasury Department, and for all positions of elevator conductor. 1 'Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. 57- RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 415 The theory of the apportionment is to give each state the same proportion of all apportioned positions * as it has of. the total population, but this is obviously impracticable. The reasons why it is not possible to make an exact apportionment have been stated by the Commission to be, in part, as follows : 1. When there are no eligibles from states having the least share of appointments it is necessary that vacancies be filled by the appointment of eligibles from other states. Eligibles possessing technical and scientific qualifications, hav- ing been lacking from certain states, and male stenographers and typewriters, for whom there is great demand, are obtained in relatively greater numbers from the states which tend con- stantly to excess in their allotment. 2. Whenever a person is reinstated in the apportioned serv- ice he is charged to the apportionment of his state, the rein- statement being allowed irrespective of the apportionment. 3. Preference in appointment is given by law to veterans honorably discharged for disability incurred in the line of duty, and they are certified for appointment before all other eligibles, irrespective of the apportionment, and their appoint- ments are charged to the apportionment. 1 Originally the law was interpreted to mean that only original ap- pointments to the apportioned service from open competitive examination should be charged to the quotas of the several states. In 1910, however, the position was taken that the charge to each state should be based on the number of persons from such state actually in the apportioned service at the given time. _ This requires that record be made of all separations from the apportioned service, and also that account be taken of those persons holding positions in the apportioned service who are transferred from non-apportioned positions or who entered originafly other than by competitive examination — a. class which is, of course, rap- idly decreasing. The method of applying these principles ; is thus set forth in a minute of the Commission adopted April 1, 1910, and amended April IS, 1916: "Hereafter all persons entering apportioned positions, whether through examination, by_ Executive order, legislative enactment, or otherwise, except those entering such positions under the temporary appointment rule, will be called upon to_ furnish proof of residence, and thereupon shall be charged to the apportionment; and all persons already in the apportioned service but not charged to the apportionment whose status is changed from one position to another in such service upon the certificate of the Commission shall, before such change of status is au- thorized, be required to furnish proof of residence and shall likewise be charged to the apportionment; and all persons already in the apportioned service but not charged to the apportionment who file with the Com- mission applications for promotion or other change of status in such service shall be required in connection with such applications to furnish proof of residence, and when such proof is so filed in the case of any person he shall be charged to the apportionment. The proof of residence shall consist of the usual personal affidavit . . . and the county officer's certificate under the act of July 11, 1890." 416 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 4. TJ'he effect of extensions of the classified service has been to give to some states, especially Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, further appointments in excess of their shares. 5. From May 29, 1899, to November 26, 1901, the rules provided' that "the provisions in relation to apportionment shall be waived upon the certification of the appointing officer that the transfer is required in the interests oi good adminis- tration/' During the 30 months while this provision of the rule remained in force it resulted in approximately 130 charges to the apportionment of the District of Columbia alone. In attempting to_ maintain the apportionment the general rule is to give each appointment, so far as possible, to that state which to date has received the smallest proportion of its proper quota of appointments. In determining the relative order of the states for this purpose three different methods have been used. 1 The quotation below outlines the system now in force as explained by the Civil Service Commission, which states that the system shows accurately at all times the relative standing of the states on the basis of the total number of appointments actually made. This system and its workings can be explained by the use of the partial table on the following page : The total population of the States and Territories and the District of Columbia, including Alaska, Porto Rico, and Hawaii, according to the census of 1910, was 93,346,543. The second column shows for each State its per cent of the total population, and its due share of each appointment. To illustrate the working of this system it may be said that on~ March 17, 191 1, 10,182 appointments had been made and each State was therefore entitled to 10,182 times its share of each appointment. As a matter of fact, some states had received more and some less. The number of times its share of one appointment which each state has actually received is shown in the fifth column, and this deter- mines the relative order for certification under the present system. The third column shows the value to each state of each appoint- ment received by it. For example; Iowa is entitled to 2.38 per cent 1 The explanation of the two methods formerly in use, the first until November 29, 1897, and the second from that date until January" 6, .1911, is to be found in the Twenty-eighth Report of the United States Civii Service Commission (1911), pp. 136-38. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 417 Per cent of Times share Times share total popula- of one ap- Numhpr of of one ap- State or Ter- ritory tion, which is also the per cent due of pointment in- volved in each appoint- appoint- ments re- ceived pointment re- ceived — rela- tive order each and all ment re- for certifica- appointments ceived tion United States 100 1 10,182 10,182.00 Iowa 2.38334S 4I-9S78 224 9,398.54 Wyoming .156368 639.5170 15 9,592.76 Nebraska 1.277191 78.2968 125 9,787.10 Connecticut 1.194212 837372 117 9,797-25 New York 9.763204 10.2425 971 9,94546 Ohio 5.106906 19-5813 52i 10,201.86 Pennsylvania 8.21 1456 12.1781 846 10,302.67 West Virginia 1. 308 1 56 76.4434 143 10,931.41 Maine .795284 125.7412 87 10,939.48 of each appointment. When it receives an appointment it receives 41.9578 times its share of each appointment. The number in the third column opposite each State is, therefore, a factor to be added to or subtracted from the corresponding number in the fifth cofiimn every time a resident of\the state is appointed or separated from the service. For example, an appointment given to Nebraska in- creases its number in the fifth column by 78.2968, or to 9,865.39, and drops it below Connecticut in order of certification. On March 17, 191 1, the United States as a whole had received 10,182 appointments, which is 10,182 times its share of one appoint- ment. Any State which had received more than 10,182 times its share of one appointment was in excess, while any that had received less than 10,182 times its share of one appointment was in arrears. The number of appointments to which a state is entitled at any time may be found by multiplying the total number of appointments by its per cent of the total population. The per cent of its share which any State has received may be found by dividing the number in the fifth column showing the total number of times its share of one ap- pointment received by the total number of appointments received by all the States and Territories. 1 The relative order of the states being thus determined, the next appointment would be made, if regard were had solely to the apportionment, and if practicable, from the state at the head of the list, and if no candidate was available from that 1 Ibid., p. 138. 4 i8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE state then from the state next on the list, and so on ; and this was at one time the procedure. In recent years, however, the Commission has adopted a method which qualifies somewhat the strict and unmitigated application of the rule of apportion- ment. Its procedure now has two variations; one being ap- plied to all scientific and technical positions and to positions of stenographer and typewriter paying more than $900 a year, while the second method is applied to all other apportioned positions. The first method is as follows : * With the view of deferring the certification of eligibles with very low ratings from technical, scientific, and profes- sional registers until practically all those with better ratings had been certified, the Commission, in 1910, established the following method of certification for scientific, technical, and professional positions and positions of stenographer and type- writer paying more than $900 : Dividing the States and Ter- ritories into two groups, the first group constituted those that have not received their proportionate share of appointments and the second group those that have received more than their proportionate share, certification is made in the following or- der : ( i ) all eligibles in order of average percentage from the whole group of states in arrears with averages down to and including 75; (2) in like manner from the whole group of states in excess except the two last states and the District of Columbia; (3) from the whole group of states in arrears down to and including 73 ; (4) in like manner as in (2) down to and including 73; (5) all remaining eligible in order of average percentage from the whole group of states in arrears ; (6) the same as (2) and (4) of all remaining eligibles; (7) in order of their standing under the apportionment from the last two' states and the District of Columbia. The method which is applied to all other apportioned posi- tions is as follows : 1. Certification is made of the highest eligibles from one- half of the entire group of States and Territories that have not received their full share of the total number of appoint- ments actually made (if the number of such States and Ter- 1 Twenty-ninth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1912), p. 19. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 419 ritories is uneven, the lesser number is taken) and this method is followed until all the eligibles from such states and terri- tories have been certified with average percentages of as much as 80. 2. After all the eligibles described in (1) above have thus been certified, then certification is made in the same manner from one-half of the remainder of such group of States and Territories. 3. After all the eligibles described in (2) above have thus been certified, then certification is made in the same manner from the remainder of such group of States and Territories. 4. After all the eligibles described in (3) above have thus been certified, then certification is made as described in (1) above down to and including eligibles with percentages of as much as 75. 5. After all the eligibles described in (4) above have thus been certified, then certification is made as described in (2) above down to and including eligibles with percentages of as much as 75. 6. After all the eligibles described in (5) above have thus been certified, then certification is made as described in (3) above down to and including eligibles with percentages of as much as 75. 7. After all the eligibles described in (6) above have thus been certified, then certification is made from the other States, in their order under the apportionment of eligibles with an average percentage of as much as 75 down to the two States having the largest excess of their share of appointments and the District of Columbia. 8. After all the eligibles described in (7) above have thus been certified, then certification is made c>f the highest remain- ing eligibles from the entire group of States in arrears of their share, in the order of percentage, who have percentages of as much as 73. 9. After all the eligibles described in (8) above have thus been certified, then certification is made as described in (7) above down to and including eligibles with percentages of as much as 73. 10. After all the eligibles have thus been certified with averages of as much as 7^ down to the two States that have received the greatest excess of their share and the District of Columbia, then certification is made of the highest remaining eligibles from the entire group of States and Territories in ar- 420 THE FEDERAL SERVICE rears of their share; and after all eligibles from such group of States and Territories have been certified, then certification is made from each State and Territory in its order under the apportionment. 1 The following explanation of the reason for this variation has been given by the Secretary to the Commission : 2 In the ordinary clerical registers, a difference of a few points in rating is not so important as in the case of regis- ters of experts and stenographers and typewriters. Nearly every State and Territory is represented on the ordinary reg- isters, but for most of the technical registers a few states only furnish eligibles. The present method insures the certification of most of the eligibles with the higher ratings before those with lower averages, while at the same time the principle of the apportionment is jealously guarded. Stringent regulations governing proof of residence of competitors are prescribed to prevent frauds on the apportion- ment wherein candidates claim residence in states which are in arrears and thereby secure preference in appointment. The civil service law itself provides, in the same clause which enacts the principle of apportionment, "that every application for an examination shall contain, among other things, a state- ment under oath, setting forth his or her actual bona fide resi- dence at the time of making the application, as well as how long he or she has been a resident of such place." In addi- tion Congress provided in 1890 that: Hereafter every application for examination before the Civil Service Commission for appointment in the departmental service in the District of Columbia shall be accompanied by a certificate of an officer, with his official seal attached, of the county and state of which the applicant claims to be a citizen, that such applicant was, at the time of making such applica- tion, an actual and bona fide resident of said county, and had been such resident for a period of not less than six months next preceding. 3 1 Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. 99. ' In a memorandum to the Institute for Government Research, "A?t of July 11, 1890, 26 Stat. 235. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 421 In addition Congress, in 1909, enacted the restrictive re- quirement that : All examinations of applicants for positions in the govern- ment service, from any state or territory, shall be had in the state or territory in which such applicants reside, and no per- son shall be eligible for such examination or appointment un- less he or she shall have been actually domiciled in such state or territory for at least one year previous to such examination. This provision, because of its context, is interpreted as applying to examinations for apportioned positions only. 1 Regardless of what may be thought of the wisdom of the whole system of apportionment, this last provision seems un- duly restrictive. Since the apportionment rule applies even to technical positions, it goes to the palpably absurd limit of barring from examination a prospective applicant who has moved into a state within a year, perhaps in pursuance of his profession or technical occupation, and is therefore unable to establish the required actual domicile in such state or territory for at least one year previous to the examination. The Commission has even gone so far as to require com- petitors in "nonassembled" examinations to show that they have been actually domiciled in the state or territory in which they reside for at least one year previous to the examination. Yet it has ruled in another connection, and the ruling has ' been concurred in by the Attorney General, that > "these ex- aminations are not 'had' at any particular place and Congress in enacting this statute seems to have had in mind the examinations referred to in Section 3 of the Civil Service Act, held by local boards of examiners." 2 This being the case the provision that no person shall be eligible for "such" *Act of July 2, 1909, 26 Stat. 3. During the war this restriction was waived by Congress (Resolution of March 27, 1918, 40 Stat. 459) in order to permit of the examination, principally _ at Washington* of large numbers of persons who had come to Washington from distant points to secure employment with the government in ignorance of the statute requiring them to be examined in their state of residence. 'Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. 20. 422 THE FEDERAL SERVICE examination or appointment unless he or she shall have been actually domiciled in "such" state or territory for at least one year previous to "suih" examination, vrould seem to have no application whatever to a non-assembled examina- tion. The Commission apparently has displayed at this point, as it has at some others, an almost too tender regard for" the re- strictions which Congress has enacted. It is not intended to imply that the Commission should not scrupulously observe all statutory directions enacted by Congress; but if a statute is fairly susceptible of an interpretation more in accord with the requirements of sound personnel administration than an absolutely literal construction would be, it is submitted that it is the Commission's duty to adopt the former interpretation. The reluctance of the Commission to do so both in this and in other connections is doubtless due, in large measure, to a feeling on its part, perhaps amply warranted by its experience, that not a few Congressmen are latently hostile to the whole regime of open competition, and that any deviation from the strictest obedience to the letter of the statute may be seized upon and made much of by these Congressional critics. The general question of the wisdom of the apportionment system was discussed by the Civil Service Commission in its report for the fiscal year 1912, in which it said: It has been said that under the apportionment persons re- ceive appointment who are inferior in qualifications to those who would be obtained if competition were as wide as the country; that the apportionment is distinctly an interference with the merit system, is inconsistent with it, and that it is harmful to the public service in that so far as it operates at all, the highest in the examinations often fail of appointment; that considered purely from an economical standpoint the ap- portionment cannot be justified; that government appoint- ments should be distributed as far as at all practicable on a basis of efficiency, and that there is nothing in the natural dis- tribution of population that corresponds to or coincides with the distribution of trained capacity. The distribution of appointments among the states, how- RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 423 ever, is in accord with our federal system of government, under which all the people from all the states are entitled to serve the government. The requirement of an apportionment pro- ceeds upon the theory that the competition for appointment is not from all the states together but from all those within each state separately, the government being representative of the several states according to their population. A fundamental principle in the establishment of the federal government was not only the representation of every state but a representation which should embody an integral portion of the state itself. Thus Senators and Representatives are not chosen at large but must be inhabitants of the state in which they are chosen, an intended departure from the British system. The representa- tive feature was established, based upon inhabitancy of the state as the nearest practical approximation to the personal participation of the whole people in the government. The theory in the civil service law is that every citizen, no matter how humble his condition or in what part of the country he may reside, may justly feel that as a citizen of a state he has equally with the citizen of every other state a commensurate interest and right to participation in the general government. Thus it is regarded as an injustice by the people of a state or section of the country that another state or section should receive a share of the representation greatly disproportioned to its population. President Washington enumerated among the three things essential in appointments that in as equal a proportion as might be they should be given to persons belonging to the different states in the Union. This principle of apportionment, open- ing to all the door to the public service, has been adopted by Congress upon every occasion where it would be applicable. Illustration of this will be found in an act of 1875 relating to appointments in the Treasury Department, and in the laws regulating the apportionment of cadets at West Point and of midshipmen at the Naval Academy. Executive orders also require an apportionment of appointments among the states in the appointments made through examination in the Diplomatic and Consular Services. These laws and orders bear out the spirit and genius of our institutions — that this is a govern- ment by the people acting through their several states, and that representation in the common government shall be appor- tioned among the several states by their inhabitants serving in the legislative and executive departments, in the Army and 424 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Navy, and in our foreign services, all sections of the Union thus contributing to the labors of the government. Not only is this a matter of inherent right upon the part of the states, but it is in accord with a wise public policy and with the progress in education and patriotic achievement among the people of the several states.. Distribution and appoint- ments among the states bring to the seat of government per- sons who represent the views of every community and who be- come acquainted with the operations of the national govern- ment, all sections of the Union thus participating in its work, and this in turn inspiring an interest therein among all the people. In this way every section, however remote, is brought into contact with the central government, intelligence and in- terest regarding its operations are diffused, patriotism pro- moted, the growth of sectionalism prevented, unreasonable prejudices overcome, and an enlightened understanding pro- moted respecting the aims and purposes of our common coun- try. It is, therefore, the part of wisdom that to the people of every state should be secured the opportunity, as far as they are willing and as far as they can furnish the needed charac- ter and capacity, to enter a competition, not with people within their own states, to participate proportionately with the people of the other states in the conduct of the government of which their state is a constituent. In this gathering at Washington of clerks representing every part of the country, associated in the common business of government, sympathetic relations are established and in- formation diffused which extends to every part of the country, vitalizing the central government and securing popular sup- port for it. If further reasons were necessary for a contin- uance of the apportionment provision of the law, there might be mentioned the possible effect upon the service of its dis- continuance. If the apportionment provision were repealed, in the very nature of things an ever increasing proportion of appointments would go to eligibles residing in the District of Columbia and nearby states. As such a condition continued and increased, it is believed the effect upon the service in the department at Washington would be seriously detrimental, occasioned by lack of general interest in such service and finally in consequent lack of adequate appropriations to carry it on. 1 1 Twenty-ninth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1912), pp. 19-21. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 425 Examination of this defense of the principles of apportion- ment, the most extensive to be found anywhere in official sources, discloses that not one of the objections to the ap- portionment which are set out in its opening paragraph are met in its subsequent discussion. All that the substantive part of this quotation goes to establish is that the principle of ap- portionment is basically and inherently desirable, a contention which will hardly be disputed. The practical question is how far may this beneficent principle, which is not in and of itself a principle of personnel administration at all, be carried in actual application without impairing the efficiency of the service. The Commission urges that it is "the part of wis- dom that to the people of every state should be secured the opportunity ... to participate proportionately with the peo- ple of other states in the conduct of the government of which every state is a constituent ... as far as they can furnish the needed character and capacity." It is precisely this qualifica- tion which is the subject of dispute. Does or does not the pres- ent application of the principle of apportionment result in the appointment of persons who cannot furnish the needed char- acter and capacity as well as can other persons who are barred from appointment ? It is doubtless improbable that under present methods the apportionment works for any serious impairment of the caliber of the persons appointed to the ordinary run of clerical or routine positions for which qualifications are more or less standardized and for which a reasonable abundance of quali- fied persons can be obtained in almost every state of the Union. With respect to technical and scientific positions, how- ever, the situation is far otherwise. Here it not infrequently happens that a whole register contains but few names and that the variation in capacity between the higher and lower names on the register is wide. Where this is the case, the preference in certification given to eligibles from states in arrears in their quota may serve to bring within the certification the lowest persons on the list, while excluding from it the highest persons. Where such a result ensues it can hardly be disputed 426 THE FEDERAL SERVICE that the effect of the apportionment is extremely destructive of efficiency in the service and far outweighs any general ad' vantages which may be claimed for the principle of apportion- ment in the abstract. Administrative officers are undoubtedly considerably dis- satisfied with the results of the apportionment system. They commonly regard it, however, as so firmly established a fea- ture of the personnel system that they are seldom moved to make objection to it officially. One of the few instances in which this has been done is found in the annual report of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for 1910, in which he says, referring to the provision requiring the apportionment : * It is very doubtful whether the benefits of this particular provision of law outweigh its manifest disadvantages. • While the civil service tests undoubtedly furnish the best guaranty for appointment upon merit, the demand for geographical distri- bution necessarily restricts the freedom of choice. For some reasons it may be desirable to have the employees of the civil branch of the government represent the various states and sections of the country, but it is a question whether such a pol- icy is of sufficient importance to outweigh the tests which the law provides to determine the merits and qualifications of ap- plicants. If the service is to be maintained on that high plane of efficiency which is so urgently demanded, it seems only fair to grant to the departments the privilege of selecting the per- sons who have obtained the highest marks on examination, and not be compelled to consider eligibles with poor markings simply because they claim legal residence in states whose quotas are not in excess. It is to be remembered that this comment was made at a time when the method of applying the apportionment was such as to necessitate the appointment of the lowest eligible on the list, having perhaps only the minimum mark required for passing,- in preference to the eligible first on the list, if the lowest eligible came from a state further in arrears than the highest eligible. The method of applying the apportionment "Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1910), p. 138. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 427 now in force, as above described, gives less weight to the apportionment and greater weight to the order of the eligibles on the register. The criticism made by the Secretary of Com- merce and Labor would by no means be as applicable to the present method of applying the apportionment as it was to the method in force at the time he wrote. That the Commission itself has more recently weakened in its enthusiasm for the apportionment is evidenced by state- ments appearing in its report for the fiscal year 191 8, intro- ductory to a statement of those instances already referred to in which, because of the war emergency, the requirement of apportionment was waived for some of the important war agencies. After explaining why the waiving of the apportion- ment was necessary to prevent delay under the emergency condition obtaining, it goes on to make the general statement that The enforcement of the apportionment rule also frequently results in the appointment of persons barely making a passing grade in the examination in preference to persons from states which have already received their share of appointments who obtained higher ratings. The waiver of the apportionment, which would permit the appointment of many local eligibles who would not otherwise have been reached, would not only result in a more expeditious filling of vacancies but would ac- complish the appointment of persons familiar with local con- ditions who would be more content in their employment and more desirable in many ways. . . x This statement is made, however, in an obscure place in the appendix to the Commission's report, and without the re- sponsibility of any particular individual. If it correctly rep- resents the views of the Commission on the apportionment at this time, it should have been given greater prominence. Finally, it should be pointed out that the apportionment system adds grea,tly to the work and expense of the recruit- ment system, both through the extra labor that it entails and 1 Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. 98. 428 THE FEDERAL SERVICE through the frequent necessity for holding examinations at many different points. Restriction of Certification of Members of Same Family. — Another peculiarity connected with certification to positions in the classified competitive service arises from Section 9 of the civil service act, which provides that "whenever there are already two or more members of a family in the public service in the grades covered by this act, no other member of such family shall be eligible to the appointment to any of said grades." Accordingly in the notice of rating which the Com- mission sends to applicants upon the establishment of an eligible register, it calls attention fo this provision of the law and warns the eligible of the necessity of promptly notifying the Com- mission of the appointment of any member of the eligible's family to the service. The enforcement of this section has given rise to some niceties in legal reasoning as to the exact meaning of the term "family," it having on one occasion been ruled by the Attorney General that one who had removed from the parental roof had "severed the family relationship and become, as it were, independent thereof," and had thus "ceased to be a member of the 'family' within the meaning of the law." Into these subtleties it would be of no value to enter in this dis- cussion. It is difficult to see what substantial purpose is served by this provision of the law. At the time it was enacted it was doubtless intended to assist the general purpose of pre- venting appointment for political or personal reasons, but the present development of the methods of selection renders such an excess of caution unnecessary. The continuance of the rule cannot be said to work any positive harm, but it does occasionally work hardship and inconvenience, both to appli- cants and to the service, and it occasions a not inconsiderable amount of clerical labor. Moreover, the difficulty of enforcing this rule and the variety of ways in which it may be evaded are so great that inevitably its enforcement is unequal. It also works unjust discrimination in many cases where it is RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 429 enforced. On all counts it would seem that its repeal is de- sirable. The "Three-Name" Certification Rule. — As has already been seen, the rule governing certification from those lists where certification is required provides (Rule VII, I, a) that there shall be certified "a number of names sufficient to permit the nominating or appointing officer to consider three names in connection with each vacancy" ; and, where appointment direct from the register is permitted, a corresponding number of names is available to the appointing officer. 1 The intent of these provisions is more fully defined by the rules as follows (Rule VII, 1, b) : The nominating or appointing officer shah make selection for the first vacancy from not more than the highest three names certified, or on the register, with sole reference to merit and fitness, unless objection shall be made, and sustained by the commission, to one or more of the persons certified, for any of the reasons stated in Rule V, section 4. For the sec- ond vacancy he shall make selection from not more than the highest three remaining, who have not been within his reach for three separate vacancies, or against whom objection has not been made and sustained in the manner indicated. The third and any additional vacancies y shall be filled in like man- ner. More than one selection may be made from the three names next in order for appointment, or from two names if the register contains only two, subject to the requirements of section 2 of this rule as to the apportionment. Any eligible who has been within reach for three separate vacancies in his turn may be subsequently selected, subject to the approval of 1 It is further provided by Rule VIII, paragraph 3, that "when there is at least one eligible and not more than two eligibles on a register for any grade in which a vacancy exists., the commission shall, upon requisi- tion from the proper appointing officer, certify the name of the one eligible or the names of the two eligibles, which shall be considered by the appointing officer with a view to probational appointment; and if the appointing officer shall elect not to make probational appointment from such certificate of less than three names, then if temporary appointment is required, it shall be _ made from such certificate unless reasons sat- isfactory to the commission are given why such appointment should not be made. Such temporary appointment may continue until three eligibles are provided. If selection fs not made from the -certificate for either probational or temporary appointment under the provisions of this section, then temporary appointment, if required, may be made under the provisions of section 2 of this rule." 430 THE FEDERAL SERVICE the commission, from the certificate on which his name last appeared, if the condition of the register has not so changed as to place his in other respects beyond reach of certification. It will be observed that the rule provides that the appoint- ing officer must make his selection from the three names certi- fied for each given vacancy, "unless objections shall be made and sustained by the Commission to one or more of the per- sons certified for any of the reasons stated in Rule V, Section 4." The reasons set out in the rule referred to are (a) Dismissal from the service for delinquency or mis- conduct within one year next preceding the date of his appli- cation; (&) physical or mental unfitness for the position for which he applies; (c) criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct; (d) intentionally making a false statement in any material fact, or practicing any de- ception or fraud in securing examination, registration, cer- tification, or appointment; (e) refusal to furnish testimony as required by Rule XIV; 1 (/) the habitual use of intoxicating beverages to excess. While these permissible reasons for objecting to an eligible are, for the most part, of a kind involving a serious reflection on his character, it will be noted that one of them specifies merely "physical or mental unfitness for the position for which he applies." A strict interpretation of this provision of the rule by the Commission doubtless would require the appoint-) ■ ing officer who proposed to exclude one of the three names certified to him and thus secure the certification of an addi- tional name to show that the person objected to was actually wholly unfit. In practice, however, the Commission has in- terpreted this provision liberally, especially in connection with positions of a higher grade, and has permited appointing offi- cers to exclude from consideration the names of persons who, while in no wise positively unfit for the positions, have been alleged by the appointing officer to be lacking in peculiar qualifications thought to be necessary for the position. The 1 Rule XIV refers to testimony in regard to matters arising under the civil service act. RECRUITMENT METHODS: CLASSIFIED SERVICE 431 effect of this practice has been, in substance, to grant to ap- pointing officers in these cases a choice from the first four or even five at the head of the list. No provision is made for notifying an eligible of the exception thus taken to him by the appointing officer. The practice in question presents elements of danger, since it is calculated to throw suspicion on the honesty of the entire competitive system. In an examination for a position requir- ing peculiar qualifications, only a small number of eligibles is likely to have been secured in any event, so that the allowance of so wide a discretion to the appointing officer may in effect set at naught the relative ratings established by the examina- tion and tend to approximate the examination to a mere pass examination. The rule requires that in any case selection shall be made from among those certified or on the register "with sole refer- ence to merit and fitness." No procedure is provided, how- ever, by which the decision of the appointing officer to pass over the first or the first two names certified may be reviewed ; and in practice this provision is wholly unenforceable. 1 With reference to the appointment of rural carriers, the executive order of December 30, 191 1, somewhat elaborates this point. It provides that In all cases selections shall be made with sole reference to merit and fitness and without regard to political considera- tions. No inquiry shall be made as to the political or religious opinions or affiliations of any eligible, and no recommendation in any way based thereon shall be received, considered, or filed by any officer concerned in making selections or appoint- ments. Any such recommendations in writing forwarded to any such officer shall be at once returned to the writer with attention invited to the purport of this order, and attention 1 Moreover, the rules (Rule I, 2) prohibit generally any discrimina- tion on account of political or religious reasons, and the Commission may investigate a selection where it is charged, with offer of proof, that this provision of the rule has been violated. As in all other violations of the rule against discrimination, however, the Commission's power goes no further than investigation, and so far as the particular matter under discussion is concerned, this provision of the rules is virtually a dead letter. 432 THE FEDERAL SERVICE hereto shall be similarly directed in connection with any verbal recommendations. Where it is found that there has been a violation of these provisions by any officer concerned in mak- ing selections or appointments, such fact shall be cause for the immediate removal of such officer from the service, and the commission shall make prompt report of any such case for appropriate action to the Postmaster General, or, as to presi- dential appointees, to the President. The appointment of the rural carrier concerned, if effected, shall be canceled. 1 The provision allowing the appointing officer complete dis- cretion in the selection of one out of three candidates is com- mon to most civil service systems. The theory is, of course, that in view of the mechanical nature of the ratings established by competitive examination, the appointing officer should be given some leeway in making the appointment. With reference to positions requiring special qualifications, moreover, it is urged that where the examination has been of a more general character, this latitude permits him to select from among those near the head of the list that eligible whose qualifications most nearly approximate the special qualifications desired. The practical objection to this practice is that it opens the door to political and personal influence and permits of pres- sure being brought to bear upon the appointing officer to pass over the candidates higher on the list in favor of those lower. To ascertain to what extent such political influence is at the present time a factor in determining the selections from eligible lists is difficult. In all probability it is but a minor factor in appointments to positions in Washington, because the candi- dates are remote from the seat of operations and have usually little facility for keeping in sufficiently close touch with de- velopments in respect to the lists upon which their names appear to permit of their bringing political pressure to bear at the proper time or upon the proper appointing officer. In appointments to local offices, however, the situation is other- wise, and it is notorious that here, where the eligibles on the list have an opportunity to keep in touch with vacancies as 'Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. 55- RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 433 they occur, political or personal influence is frequently brought to bear upon the local appointing officer by one or more of the three eligible candidates. A rule which has worked well in some local commissions, is that the eligible highest on the list should be appointed, unless reasons are given satisfactory to the Civil Service Com- mission why the appointment of a lower eligible would be to the interest of the service. There is nothing mechanical about this rule. It does not compel the appointing officer to appoint a person whom he deems unsuitable, but it requires that he be willing to make his opinion of that person a matter of record and that the reasons for his opinion be sufficiently explicit and well founded to bring conviction to an impartial critic such as the Civil Service Commission. Such a rule, if administered with discretion by the Civil Service Commission, meets every requirement of good administration and yet eliminates almost completely the play of personal and political factors. It is worthy of note that in his order of March 2, 1917, establishing a system of competitive examination for filling certain classes of vacancies in presidential postmasterships, President Wilson did not adopt the traditional "one in three" rule, but provided instead that the Postmaster General, after the completion of the examination, should "submit to the President the name of the highest qualified eligible for appointment to fill such vacancy, unless it is established that the character or residence of such applicant disqualifies him'for appointment." The order does not make clear how or by whom it is to be "established" • that the character of the applicant is unsuitable, 1 but at least ' the principle is recognized that the highest eligible on the list is entitled to appointment in the absence of positive disqualifi- cation. The extent to which the one in three privilege, even in these latter days, may be made an instrument of politics was in- dicated in 1 91 3 by a statement issued by the Postmaster Gen- 1 In practice the Post Office Department has assumed the right to pass over the highest eligible as unsuitable ; but this privilege has been exercised in but few cases. 434 THE FEDERAL SERVICE eral, relative to the policy of the Post Office Department in making appointments of fourth class postmasters and of rural carriers. This statement was called for at this time because of the order of President Wilson, dated May 7, 1913, re- quiring that all fourth class postmasterships he filled through open competitive examination (as against the orders of Presi- dent Taft, dated November 30, 1908, and October 15, 1912, by which all fourth class postmasters then in the service who had been appointed without examination were "covered" into the service and the competitive method applied only to those who might be appointed subsequently). The Postmaster Gen- eral said : * In answering an inquiry recently as to what influence po- litical affiliations would have in fourth class postmaster and rural carrier appointments, Postmaster General Burleson stated that he desired it distinctly understood that it is his purpose to carry out the intent of President Wilson's order that these positions be filled in accordance with both the spirit and letter of the civil service law. The Postmaster General added that he does not delegate the power of appointment, nor in any case is selection made simply upon or because of a recom- mendation of a Member of Congress. He stated further that he has a duty to perform in making selections under the civil service rules ; that it is his desire to select in every case the most efficient man obtainable, and that in furtherance of such de- sire he is using, and intends to continue to use, every available means of ascertaining the best of the men certified to him by the Civil Service Commission. In his efforts to secure the most efficient man for the Postal Service, and as part of the evidence upon which he reaches his conclusion, it is his prac- tice to ask the Member of Congress in whose district the va- cancy exists to advise him relative to the character and fitness of the three eligibles. In doing so the Postmaster General calls upon the Member, not in his capacity as a member of any political party, but solely as the representative of the com- munity, regardless of political affiliations; and to emphasize his purpose in this respect, the Postmaster General in asking the Member of Congress for his recommendation calls special 1 Thirty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1916), p. xv. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 435 attention to the fact that under existing Executive Orders se- lections must be made by the department with sole reference to merit and fitness, and any recommendation made to him must be based solely upon such considerations and without refer- ence to the political affiliations of the eligibles. And further he has directed that all letters recommending appointments based upon political considerations be returned to the writers. The Postmaster General states that he- is in earnest in his ef- forts to obtain the best men regardless of their political opin- ions, and whenever he finds in any case that he has been misled because of recommendations made for political reasons, the fourth class postmaster or rural carrier so appointed will be promptly removed from office. Following are his directions to the First Assistant Post- master General: In selecting persons from the eligible registers furnished by the Civil Service Commission for appointment as fourth class postmasters it is my desire that the person with the high- est rating be chosen, unless good and valid reasons are sub- mitted to the department showing that this would not be in the best interest of the service. If reasons are submitted sufficient to make the selection of the first eligible inadvisable, then it is my desire that the person with the next highest rat- ing be chosen, unless good and valid reasons are submitted to show the inadvisability of his appointment. In such case the third eligible may be selected. In no case should the second or third eligible be chosen unless the appointment of one of the higher-standing eligibles has been shown to be inadvisable from the standpoint of the greatest efficiency in the Postal Service. In reaching conclusions as to the most desirable ap- pointments an endeavor should be made to select persons whose business and temperamental equipment is likely to reflect credit on the Postal Service. To enter into a discussion of the spirit in which this order was actually carried out would be fruitless. No data are avail- able on which such a discussion could be predicated confidently and the unsuccessful attempt of the National Civil Service Reform League to obtain such data will be referred to in an- other connection. Statistics published by the Commission, 436 THE FEDERAL SERVICE designed to show the number of instances in which the first, second, or third eligible was appointed, and in which the ex- isting incumbent was reappointed, were the subject of dis- agreement even among the members of the Commission. 1 It is sufficient here to point out that the exercise in this way of the discretion entrusted to the appointing officer under the one in three rule is likely to result in the entrance of political considerations on a wide scale. It should be noted that under the regulations promulgated to carry out the original order of President Roosevelt in 1908, calling for the competitive selection of fourth class postmasters in the northeastern section of the country, it was provided that "the person's name that stands at the head of the register shall be selected for the first appointment, the next highest for the next appointment, and so forth." 2 This provision of the regulations was made by the Commission pursuant to an agreement with the Post Office Department which waived the right granted it by the rules to have three names certified to it for each vacancy. When the competitive system was extended by President Taft's order of 1912 to the fourth class postmasters over the country as a whole, this provision of the regulations was not retained and the rule requiring three names was thus restored to operation. In the selection of rural carriers the same development has taken place. Under the regulations made pursuant to the orig- inal order by which the selection of rural carriers was placed upon a competitive basis — the order of 1902 — but one eligible was certified for each vacancy, the regulation providing that "the person whose name stands at the head of the register is certified to the Po^st Office Department for the first appoint- ment, the next highest for the next appointment, etc." s This 'The figures presented by the majority of the Commission appear on pages xvii and xviii, Thirty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commission, while those presented by the dissenting member of the Commission, Commissioner Craven, appear on pages xxv and xxvi. "Regulations of January and February, 1909, Sec. 8, Twenty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1909), p. 25. 3 Twenty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1904), p. 117- RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 437 regulation was promulgated by the Commission under an agree- ment with the Postmaster General by which he, as appointing officer, waived the right secured him by the rules of having three names certified to him for each vacancy. Commenting on this feature of the regulations the Commission stated : 1 It is recognized that it is possible and very probable that an unsuitable person may obtain vouchers which appear to be proper, may file an application which meets the requirements of the regulations, and may pass an examination with a mark which would place his name at the head of the register of eligibles. As a safeguard against the appointment of such a person the following provision is made : Whenever five or more patrons of a rural free delivery route submit to the rural carrier examining board, in writing over their own signatures, sworn statements that an appli- cant is unsuitable for appointment, giving specific reasons therefor, each of the heads of the families may be requested by the rural carrier examining board to express an opinion as to the fitness of such applicant. If, upon the evidence thus submitted, it is shown to the satisfaction of the Commission that the applicant is not suitable for appointment his name shall be stricken from the register. In this way the service is protected more fully than if a selection should be made from among the three highest, as in the other branches of the service, for it may be reasonably pre- sumed that the patrons of a rural service are ever watchful of their own interest. By an executive order issued December 30, 191 1, the Presi- dent ordered that this provision of the regulations be rescinded by requiring that the ordinary provisions of the civil service rules regarding certification should apply to the appointment of rural carriers, and that three eligibles should be certified by the Civil Service Commission. The order also enjoined' upon the Postmaster General selection "with sole reference to merit and fitness and without regard to political considera- tions." 2 Commenting on this order in its annual report the Commission stated that 1 Ibid., p. 11S. ' 'Twenty-ninth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1912). P- r 37- 438 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Under the former regulations the Department was not given a right of choice, but was required to appoint the eligible standing highest on the local register. It became evident that some latitude should be allowed in the selection of eligibles for appointment in this as in all other parts of the service. There are few branches of the public service the successful operation of which is so dependent on the personality of the employee. The greater part of the work of the rural carrier is done on his route away from the supervision of his superior officer and not in full view of the public as in the case of the city carrier. He is brought into direct contact with patrons and their families, and it is necessary not only that his behavior should make him worthy of their confidence but that his charr acter and disposition should be such as to inspire it. If the patrons lack confidence in the carrier, it will show itself in a diminution in the patronage of the route. In view of these reasons the President in an order of De- cember 30, 191 1, amended the rules to provide that three names should be certified for each vacancy. To guard against possible abuse of this right of choice, the order provides that all selections shall be made with sole reference to merit and fitness and without regard to political considerations, and that political recommendations shall not be considered but shall be returned to the writers. 1 It is, perhaps, fruitless to discuss further the relative merits of the two positions thus taken at different times by the Com- mission. The fact that the method of certifying the highest eligible apparently gave satisfaction for nearly ten years (for there is no indication to the contrary in either the reports of the Commission or of the Post Office Department prior to 19 1 2, when the change was made) gives to the reasons for the change thus presented by the Commission in 1912 some- ■ thing of the character of an original discovery. In connection with apportioned positions it should be noted that the rule permitting the appointing officer to select one of the three on the eligible register may work in precisely the opposite way to what has just been indicated; that is, it may enable the appointing officer to select a person actually higher 1 Ibid., p. IS- RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 439 on the register in terms of the ratings received than if he were compelled to select the first name. The reason is that, owing to the apportionment, the first of the three names certi- fied may be that of a candidate receiving a lower rating than that of the candidate whose name appears third, but who comes from a state more in arrears in its quota of appointments. With respect to this class of positions, therefore, the one in three rule may be said to operate in the interests of sound per- sonnel administration. Similarly, as already pointed out, the one in three rule offers to the conscientious administrative officer an avenue of escape from the disastrous results of the military preference statutes. Despite the fact that these statutes call for preference in "appointment," it has been held consistently that all that is required is preference in certification to appointing officers, and that the appointing officer is free to pass over the name of the veteran if he so chooses. Although the mfere inclusion of the veteran's name among the three certified, rather than the name of one higher qualified on the list, in itself tends to reduce the freedom of selection of the conscientious appointing officer, the situation is, of course, better than it would be if the rule required the appointment of the eligible first certified in every case. Another factor which must always be kept in mind in thinking of the relative advantages of the one in three rule as compared with the selection of the highest eligible, is that the former sometimes furnishes a welcome relief from the mistakes of the Civil Service Commission in rating. This is particularly likely to be true in cases where the ratings of the highest competitors are close. To sum up, the question of the degree of freedom which the appointing officer should have in selecting from among those declared eligible by the Civil Service Commission, does not admit of a categorical answer. It is one which can be answered only in the light of the political conditions in the service involved. The question arises, therefore, whether in formulating the practice in respect to selections from the elig- 44Q THE FEDERAL SERVICE ible list account might be taken of the variations in the moral or political atmosphere. In those branches of the service which are technical in character, and in which the head of the service has been appointed on a basis of merit and holds by tradition during good behavior and where the whole tradi- tion of the service is one of efficiency of a high technical stand- ard, it would doubtless be safe, even under present political conditions, to entrust a very wide margin of discretion to the appointing officer. On the other hand, in those services, particularly in local establishments, in which the head is a political appointee holding office only during the life of the administration and actively engaged in the work of political organization even while holding office, little discretion can safely be permitted under the theory upon which the present practice is predicated; however, any recognition of variations in the degree of discretion permitted the appointing officer from one service to another would not be practicable. In general "it may be said that, were the direct prohibition against political, and particularly Congressional, interference in personnel mat- ters made effective, and were the merit principle extended to embrace all the administrative posts in the service, the discre- tion now granted appointing officers in selection from among the eligibles would be much less open to question. Discretion in Fixing of Entrance Compensation Rates. — Under present practices in the federal service the appointing officer possesses a large discretion in fixing the entrance rate of compensation. With respect to a great number of. posi- tions, particularly in the technical services, as stated in the chapter dealing with compensation, no entrance rates are pre- determined at which a new entrant is invariably appointed. Instead a range, sometimes very considerable, is provided, and a new entrant may be paid at any rate within the range at the discretion of the appointing department. In certain examina- tions the Civil Service Commission has announced that only those receiving the higher ratings will be certified for the higher rates, but ordinarily the practice is to inquire of each candidate the minimum salary which he will accept, and on RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 441 receiving a request from a department or office for a certifica- tion to fill a vacancy at a specified salary to certify only those who have stated that they would accept a rate as low as that offered. This practice permits the appointing officer, desiring to secure a particular eligible not ordinarily within reach for certification, to specify an entrance salary so low that the higher eligibles will not be certified. He thereby secures the appointment of the eligible sought ; and within a comparatively short time he may advance the salary of the new appointee to a rate considerably higher than the entrance rate. The new rate, if originally offered for entrance, would have at- tracted the persons higher on the register. To guard against this practice the civil service rules provide that a person can- not be promoted within the probationary period, which is ordinarily six months, without the consent of the Commis- sion, previously obtained. This practice may be guarded against in another way by fixing a prescribed rate for all en- trants, and establishing fairly rigid rules governing early pro- motion. This method is applicable to a great number of rou- tine positions, but is perhaps not sufficiently flexible to meet the requirements of the technical services. For those services perhaps the better method is to prohibit increasing the salary of an entrant within a reasonable period after appointment, unless the higher rate to which it is proposed to raise him was offered and declined by those who were ahead of the en- trant on the register. Publicity of Eligible Registers. — Under the practice of the Commission each person who takes an examination is notified of his rating in it, and those who passed are advised of their position on the register. The whole register, as it appears on the records of the Commission, is not made public, either through publication, as is the practice of some commissions, or through the maintenance of a copy of the register open to the public, a practice almost universal among civil service commis- sions. Where a civil service commission maintains a register accessible to the public, it is also usually the practice to enter upon this register a note pf ah certifications of any names 442 THE FEDERAL SERVICE upon the register and all appointments, rejections, declinations, and so forth, made on the basis of such certifications. In the absence of the use of any of these procedures by the Civil Service Commission it is impossible for any competitor to inform himself of what is going on in connection with the position for which he is eligible, except by making direct inquiry. He is not even advised, under the practice of the Commission, when his name is certified to an appointing officer, so that it is possible for him to be certified and passed over by an appointing officer without his being aware of the fact. This total absence of publicity in connection with the establishment of eligible registers and of certification and ap- pointment undoubtedly constitutes at the present time one of the weak points in the entire system of recruitment through competitive examination. It is not intended to imply that the system is ordinarily, or indeed aside from the most excep- tional cases, actually administered with other than scrupulous honesty, but the impossibility of making certain of this by examination of the Commission's records, leaves open the door for rumor and speculation of the worst sort. Whatever reasons of convenience may be advanced against publication of the eligible registers, or against permitting individual eligibles to have free access to the records of certifi- cations, appointments, etc., it is difficult to see why such records should not be opened to the representatives of recognized or- ganizations, who seek access to them for a public service. The Commission was thus, for many years, in the habit of open- ing such records to the representatives of the National Civil Service Reform League in recognition of the interest of that association, as representing the public, in the honest and im- partial execution of the competitive examination system. In 19 14, however, access to the records of the Commission was denied the League under such circumstances as to warrant the belief that the denial was made because of the fear that in- spection of the records would have disclosed irregularities in the enforcement of the law and rules, or at least would have reflected on the manner in which the administration was RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 443 exercising its legal privilege of choice from among the names certified to it by the Commission. The purpose of the League, as stated in its formal request to the Commission, was to ob- tain specific information concerning fourth class postmasters under President Wilson's order of May 13, 1913, requiring competitive examinations to be held for all fourth class offices whose incumbents had not been appointed as a result of com- petitive examination. The League wished to ascertain the number of candidates who took part in the examinations, the names of the successful candidates with their ratings, the names of the candidates appointed from the list, and whether the previous incumbents of the offices entered the examinations. The reason given for the denial of the League's request was that it was necessary "in the interest of the public business, owing to the congestion of the work of the office." The action of the Commission was sustained by President Wilson, who made the bland suggestion that in its next annual report the Commission "disclose the method employed by them and by the Post Office Department in administering the Executive Order referred to, together with the results obtained thereby." x An eligible register having been established it comes into use as soon as a department head, or other appointing officer, makes request upon the Commission for the names of eligibles for the filling of a vacancy. On this point the rules provide : The nominating or appointing officer shall request the cer- tification of eligibles, and the commission shall certify, from the head of the register of eligibles appropriate for the group in which the position or positions to be filled are classified^ a number of names sufficient to permit the nominating or ap- pointing officer to consider three names in connection with each vacancy. When so provided by regulation of the commission, selection shall be made from the register by the nominating or appointing officer without preliminary certification of the commission. The provision for selection by the appointing officer, di- rectly from the register, without calling for certification, is 1 For details of the incident see Good Government, September, 1916, pp. 81-85. 444. THE FEDERAL SERVICE employed only in connection with trades positions in the larger field establishments — such as arsenals, navy yards, etc. Probationary Period. — The civil service act lays down as one of its fundamental provisions to be incorporated in the rules, "that there shall be a period of probation before any absolute appointment for employment." Pursuant to this injunction the rules provide: The person selected for appointment shall be duly notified by the appointing officer, and upon accepting and reporting for duty shall receive from such officer a certificate of appointment. The first six months under this appointment shall be a proba- tionary period; but the commission and the department con- cerned may, by regulations, fix the probationary period at one year for any specified positions. 1 If and when, after full and fair trial, during this period, the conduct or capacity of the probationer be not satisfactory to the appointing officer, the probationer shall be so notified in writing, with a full state- ment of reasons, and this notice shall terminate his service. His retention in the service beyond the probationary period confirms his absolute appointment. 1 The procedure required for removal during the proba- tionary period under this rule differs from that prescribed for removal after absolute appointment, in that in the latter case the employee must be given an opportunity to answer, and his answers, together with the original charges, must be made of the record in the department and in the Civil Service Commission. The provision for probationary appointment previous to absolute appointment is a feature of virtually all public per- sonnel systems and one which, if properly administered, is of high value. If the work of probationers is carefully watched and if those found unsuitable are actually removed, the effect '"The extension of _ the probationary period to one year has been authorized by the Commission in the following positions :" Mining engi- neers and miners, field duty, Bureau of Mines ; assistant forest rangers and forest assistants in the field Forest Service ; logging engineers, Agri- culture; all scientific positions in the Geological Survey; aid, Lighthouse Service; forest rangers and grazing assistants in the Forest Service. "Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. 55- RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 445 is, of course, extremely beneficial. It is questionable, how- ever, whether in the federal service at present this institution is functioning to any marked degree. Appointing officers com- monly fail to exercise the power thus conferred upon them for the same reasons that they do not generally exercise their plenary power of removing permanent employees for in- capacity or misconduct. At this point it may be pointed out, however, that in addition to other general factors an additional difficulty arises in the service at Washington from the selec- tion of the subordinate personnel from the whole area of the country. An appointing officer is naturally reluctant to dis- miss during the probationary period an employee who has but recently, at great expense, come to Washington from a distant point to take service with the government. Making the probationary period effective as a means for weeding out of the service at the outset those who show no promise of usefulness is one of the most difficult problems en- countered in the whole field of public personnel administration, and it cannot be said that ) anything approaching a satisfactory solution has yet been developed anywhere. On this point the Reclassification Commission expressed itself as follows: The Commission believes that a more thorough and ef- fective use should be made of the probationary period, and that the law should be so changed that probationary appointments could become permanent only by a definite administrative de- cision. Recommendation 17 (b). — The Commission therefore recommends that administrative officials be required to submit to the Civil Service Commission such reports re- garding the efficiency of probationary appointees as the Commission may require, and that no permanent appoint- ment be made except on certificate by the Commission that the employee has satisfactorily passed his probation- ary period. Under this provision the Civil Service Commission might, for example, require that bi-monthly reports be submitted by the head of the department or other organization, during the probationary period, certifying as to the efficiency of the ap- pointee. In case of an adverse report, the Civil Service Com- 446 THE FEDERAL SERVICE mission would naturally withhold certification of permanent appointment. No probationary appointee would then be per- mitted to become a permanent appointee until after the re- quired number of reports had been made upon his efficiency and the Civil Service Commission had issued a certificate of permanent appointment. These precautions would force upon appointing officers careful inspection of the work of probationary appointees, and would safeguard the government from placing upon its rolls permanently those who had failed to show proper ability to do the work. By predicating permanent appointment on a de- 1 cision instead of an omission, the probationary period would become a really effective part of the examination, as it is evi- dent the law intended it should be. It should not be over- looked that the merit system requires the exclusion of the unfit fully as much as the retention of the fit, and that the re- moval of the unfit during the probationary period works less hardship on them and is less costly to the government than demotion or dismissal after they have received permanent ap- pointment. 1 Although in certain classes of positions, even six months seems to have been found too short a period for the proper appraisal of the capacity of the probationer, it is believed that for the ordinary run of clerical, sub-clerical, or even routine technical positions it is too long a period. The extension of the probationary period beyond what is necessary for ap- praisal of the capacity of the employee is undesirable, because it tends to encourage the appointing officer in delaying the tak- ing of positive action in the case of probationers actually meriting removal; and needless to say the longer action is delayed the harder it becomes. It would seem desirable, there- fore, to amend the rule on this head by specifying no par- ticular period of probation, but authorizing the Commission to fix such periods by separate action for each class of positions. Efficiency of the Competitive Examination System. — When the competitive examination system was established by Congress 35 years ago it was adopted not primarily, or perhaps even incidentally, with the thought of providing a system in- 1 Report, Part I, p. 115. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 447 herently fitted for recruiting the personnel of the government effectively and economically, but rather as a means of com- batting the evils inherent in the spoils system. As the merit principle has become more and more firmly established, the value of the competitive examination system as a check against the reintroduction of the spoils method of selection has come to be accepted so much as a matter of course that interest has come to center rather upon the question of the actual effi- ciency of the competitive examination system as a method of recruitment. The methods of examination have been developed to such an extent that it is believed that the competitive examination system now furnishes, on the whole, as effective and as economical a system of recruitment as can well be devised for the government, quite regardless of the necessity of excluding politics. More and more large industrial and commercial organizations, as is commonly known, are applying formalized tests in recruiting the run of minor employees, and as to the superior personnel the methods pursued by the Commis- sion are not inherently different from those used in private practice. A few illustrations of the efficiency of the Commission as a recruiting agency may he cited from the reports of the Com- mission. The facilities the Commission has at hand for securing promptly a large number of persons qualified along special lines have been well illustrated by the examination for in- spector of meat products held as a result of the act approved June 30, 1906. In the course of the debate on the measure some doubt was expressed by various Members of Congress as to whether the Commission would be able to secure quali- fied inspectors rapidly enough to meet the needs of the service. The act, however, as passed did not take the positions out of the competitive classified service, and results have demon- strated the wisdom of this course. On July 2 the Department of Agriculture asked the Commission to hold an examination to carry out the provisions of the law. Twenty-four hours thereafter an announcement giving the scope, times, and places 448 THE FEDERAL. SERVICE of the examination was sent to the press, to local boards of examiners, and to various institutions through whose agency- it was believed that competent inspectors could be secured. Applications came in from every section of the country, and the examination was held on July 21 at about 200 places, at which 2,496 persons appeared, 795 of whom attained eligible ratings. On July 28 the first certification of 51 names was sent to the Department, and within a few days of that time all the papers were rated. Owing to the heavy demands of the Department, the papers of persons receiving ratings of 65 per cent or over were made eligible and as a result' of this action 825 selections in all have been made from the registers of the Commission. This of- fice has been informed by the Department of Agriculture that the results have been satisfactory. A considerable number of excellent employees has been secured, and an extremely small percentage of those certified has turned out to be un- satisfactory. The Commission has now established a second register and is prepared to meet the future needs of the serv- ice. It is not believed to have been possible for the Depart- ment of Agriculture, with the machinery at its disposal, to itself weed out of the large number of applicants those not having the necessary qualifications for the position in anything like the time actually occupied by the Commission in accom- plishing this task. 1 Another illustration is furnished by the work of the Com- mission in recruiting the valuation force of the Interstate Commerce Commission : 2 An act of March 1, 1913, provided for the physical valua- tion of railroads by the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Civil Service Commission examined competitively for this work 14,650 during the fiscal year 191 4 and 4,434 during 191 5, a total of 18,484. About 6,500 eligibles were secured and somewhat more than 1,200 have been appointed. Forty- six distinct kinds of examination were held, most of them for technical positions of the highest order. Eighty-seven ap- pointments were made at $3,000 to $4,800 per annum. In commenting on the force thus assembled, officials of "Twenty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1906), p. 3. - Thirty-second Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1915). P- 8. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 449 the Interstate Commerce Commission have stated that through these examinations more satisfactory service has been obtained than could have been secured through any other agency; that the men appointed are of the highest order in training and ability and are exceptionally efficient in the performance of their duties. The men engaged in the physical valuation of railroads constitute one of the most remarkable engineering forces ever assembled and their selection through competitive examination is a striking illustration of the efficiency of the merit system in meeting the demands of the public service. Indeed the Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commis- sion has related that "an official of one of the large bureaus of the government which has necessarily close relationship with private business houses has expressed himself as being better satisfied with the employees secured by the commission's methods, for even the highest character- of positions, than with those he secured personally when occupying an official posi- tion in private employment." 1 Whatever may be thought of this high praise, it is cer- tain that on occasion some of the appointing officers who have been authorized by law to make appointments without ref- erence to the civil service act, have called upon the Commis- sion to supply them with eligibles. Thus, when the Federal Re- serve Act was passed, giving the Federal Reserve Board author- ity to appoint all its employees without reference to the civil service act, with the proviso that the President might bring those employees under the act, the President, in response to representations, declined to do so, on the theory that the unrestricted selection by the Board would be productive of a better selection and that, owing to the high caliber of the membership of the Board, there was no danger of political selection such as would warrant the interposition of the Civil Service Commission. Upon the organization of the Board, however, it found itself besieged with so many applications for appointment that it called upon the Civil Service Commis- sion to conduct an examination for the purpose. 1 Thirty-third Report of the .United States Civil Service Commission (1916), p. xxxiii. 450 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Similarly the Department of Commerce and the Interstate Commerce Commission have called upon the Commission to recruit by examination men to fill the positions which, under the law, might have been filled solely by the discretion of the Department. It is also noteworthy that as far back as 1905, when, owing to the difficulty experienced by the Commission in securing sufficient eligibles for certain classes of positions on the Isthmus of Panama, it was at one time suggested that this entire branch of the service should be withdrawn from classification, "this plan was, however, opposed by the Isthmian Canal Commission which insisted that it would be impossible to carry on the work successfully without the assistance af- forded by the civil service law." x Praise of the efficiency of the Commission's administra- tion of the competitive examination system as a whole, how- ever, does not exclude criticism of the results produced at specific points. In the great number and variety of examina- tions conducted by the Commission, it is inevitable that the eligible registers provided for a proportion of positions should be less satisfactory than would be the selections made by the honest administrative officer in the exercise of his unregulated discretion. Particularly is this likely to be the case in the technical and administrative positions. The provision of an adequate staff, properly compensated, would make it possible for the Commission to produce better results, in all but a negligible proportion of cases, than the departments themselves possibly could, and at less cost. In appraising the efficiency of the competitive system as administered by the Commission, the influence of the mili- tary preference and apportionment rules must ever be kept in mind. These rules are not part of the system ; on the contrary, to the extent that they operate, they set the whole system at naught. The Commission as a recruiting agency was subjected to a severe test by the war emergency. The efficiency with which it 'Twenty-second Report of the United States Civil Service Com- mission (1905), p. 19. RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 451 met the test has been a subject of some discussion, and, in any case, must be a matter of opinion. It would seem, however, that the work of the Commission, despite exceptions at specific points, was, especially in view of the moderate cost involved, excellently administered, and, within the limitations imposed by the nature of the task, constituted a contribution of the high- est value to the war program. The Commission's contribution would have- been far greater, it is believed, had the President, at the outset of the war, adopted the policy of centralizing all recruitment in the Commission. Some of the most im- portant war agencies, as the Food Administration, the Fuel Administration, the Shipping Board, the Council of National Defense, the Aircraft Production Board, were excepted by the President from the jurisdiction of the Commission, with resulting duplication of labor and improper placement of per- sonnel. In this connection the following from the report for 191 8 of the Chief Examiner of the Commission is of interest: 1 In spite of the magnitude of the work under its direction, there is no criticism heard of the inspectors employed by the Ordnance Bureau throughout the country. That bureau had made definite specifications (amended from time to time as experience justified) covering all the different classes of in- spectors required; and these specifications have been pub- lished by the commission in announcements of examinations, which have been pending since practically the beginning of the war. Another bureau has been severely criticized by a com- mittee of Congress for the incompetence of its inspectors, and for its wasteful extravagance in the employment of civilians; and it is interesting to note that such bureau had not cooper- ated with the Commission, had fixed no standard of qualifica- tions, and had made employments of all kinds indiscriminately without reference to any existing civil service registers. It need hardly be added that what has been here said regarding the efficiency of 'the competitive examination sys- tem operated by the Commission as a recruiting mechanism 1 Thirty^fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. xxxi. 452 THE FEDERAL SERVICE has reference solely to that mechanism and does not relate to the caliber of the personnel actually recruited through it. No system of recruiting can rise above its source; that is to say, it cannot select for the service any higher class of personnel than is attracted to the service by the conditions there obtain- ing. These conditions, whether of compensation, security, opportunity for advancement, or the like, lie, for the most part, wholly outside the sphere of the Commission's influ- ence ; yet it is within the limitations set by them that the Com- mission's recruiting system must work. Reemployment of Employees Laid Off. — An obvious re- quirement of a proper personnel system is that the management should do its utmost to find employment elsewhere in the service whenever, due to lack of work or other causes, it is necessary to reduce the force. Despite the obvious character of this requirement, its recognition in the federal system is a recent innovation adopted only under the pressure of the de- mobilization of the civilian employees of the government upon the close of the war. Prior to that time a person laid off for lack of work was no longer the subject of any interest on the part of the Civil Service Commission or any other central agency of the government. Should a vacancy occur within the same" department within a year after such layoff and the person laid off should be fortunate enough to hear of such vacancy and obtain the consent of the appointing officer he might be reinstated under the general rule governing reinstate- ment; but his privileges in this respect are no greater than those enjoyed by persons who left the service voluntarily. The Executive Order of November 29, 1918 (as amended. April 30, 19 19), by which the obligation of the government towards those laid off for lack of work was for the first time recognized, is as follows: : The names of persons in the competitive classified service with unrestricted status who were appointed, either perma- nently or probationally, and who have served less than three years, and who are separated from the .service because of a reduction of force, find who are recommended f or further em- RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 453 ployment by the government because of demonstrated effi- ciency in the office from which they are separated, will, upon request, be entered by the Civil Service Commission upon ap- propriate eligible registers for reappointment, eligibility thereon to continue from one year from date of separation. Such reemployment registers will be separate and apart from the registers of the Commission resulting from current examinations, and eligibility thereon, and certifications and appointments therefrom, shall in all respects conform to the usual practice and procedure, except that certifications of per- sons formerly in the apportioned service shall be made without regard to the apportionment. The Departments in making requisition on the Commission for certification of eligibles shall state whether they prefer certification to be made from a reemployment register or from a regular register of the Commission. It is desirable that the Departments, in making requisitions, request certification from the reemployment registers so far as practicable, having in view the efficient performance of government work. It will be noted that the order allows the departments, if they so desire, to appoint from the regular competitive register instead of from the reemployment register. The Reclassifica- tion Commission has urged, however, that those on the re- employment register should have precedence over those on the regular register, and even over those in the service who might be promoted to the vacancies "except upon showing of cause satisfactory to the Civil Service Commission." * In principle this recommendation is doubtless correct, but if put into effect it would be desirable that the Civil Service Commission adopt a very liberal policy toward the administrative officer who may seek to avoid the reemployment register in a given case. The danger in giving too mandatory a preference to those on re- employment registers is that the provision of such registers is not infrequently taken advantage of by administrative officers to rid themselves of an inefficient employee whom they lack the courage to dismiss out of hand. 1 Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 128, CHAPTER XII RECRUITMENT METHODS: THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE Of the five formal systems of recruitment applied outside the regular competitive classified service, three, those applied to commissioned officers of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, presi- dential postmasters and laborers, are competitive; and two, those applied to the foreign service and the commissioned officers of the Public Health Service, are non-competitive. Presidential Postmasters 1 — The system of recruitment of presidential postmasters, as already stated, rests wholly on executive order. This order, which was issued by Presi- denfWilson on March 31, 1917, reads as follows: 2 Hereafter, when a vacancy occurs in the position of post- master of any office of the first, second, or third class as the result of death, resignation, removal, or, on the recommenda- tion of the First Assistant Postmaster General, approved by the Postmaster General, to the effect that the efficiency or needs of the service requires that a change shall be made, the Postmaster General shall certify the fact to the Civil Service Commission, which shall forthwith hold an open competitive examination to test the fitness of applicants to fill such va- cancy; and, when such examination has been held and the papers in connection therewith have been rated, the said com- mission shall certify the result thereof to the Postmaster Gen- eral, who shall submit to the President the name of the highest qualified eligible for appointment to fill such vacancy unless it is established that the character of residence of such appli- cant disqualifies him for appointment. No person who has 1 While this book was in press President Harding issued a new Execu- tive Order regarding the appointment of .first, second, and third class postmasters, and the Civil Service Commission revised somewhat its scheme of examinations. For the text of the new order and for a brief discussion of it and the revised procedure under it, see footnote begin- ning on page 309. 'Thirty-fourth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1917), p. 119; 454 THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 455 passed his sixty-fifth birthday shall be given the examination herein provided for. 11 The precise character of this action should be clearly under- stood. It does not apply to vacancies created by the expira- tion of the four-year statutory term. The successful candi- date in the open competitive examination thus has before him the assurance only of a four-year term ; and, during those four years, he does not enjoy the statutory protection against re- moval accorded those in the classified service. 2 At the time of the promulgation of the order the number of presidential post offices was as -follows : Class •Compensation Number First $3,oo©-$8,ooo $2,000-$2,900 $i,ooo-$ i, 900 568 2,207 7.564 Third io,339 The average salary was approximately $1,612. The President's order fixes no requirement respecting resi- dence for these examinations, but merely provides by implica- tion that an eligible may be disqualified because of residence. By regulations, however, the Commission requires that the applicant "must actually reside within the delivery of the office for which the application is made." 3 It thus perpetuated 1 On October 8, 1920, after this manuscript was prepared, President Wilson amended the Executive Order of March 31, 1921, by providing for an examination, "if such vacancy is not filled by nomination of some person within the competitive classified civil service who has the required qualifications," thereby permitting the promotion of a classified employee to a postmastership without further examination. The amended Order also prohibited the examination of a person "who has not actually resided within the delivery of such office for two years next preceding such vacancy." Thirty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Com- mission (1920), p. 97. 3 Comprising a prohibition against removal "except for such cause as will promote the efficiency of said service," and the requirement of charges in writing, opportunity for answer, and the like. 8 It is also provided that he "must have so resided at the time the vacancy occurred," this restriction being manifestly designed to prevent the evasion of the residence requirement by a removal into the delivery area after the vacancy occurs. After this discussion was written Presi- dent Wilson amended the Order of March 31, 1917, as _ indicated in a preceding footnote,' and wrote the residence requirement into the Order. 456 THE FEDERAL SERVICE the old tradition that, without any legal requirement, had always governed. This tradition, it will be recalled, was also observed when the system of competitive examination was ex- tended to the fourth class postmasterships, but in that case opening the competition to persons not resident in the dis- trict would have been of little avail irt getting better candidates . because the duties of the fourth class postmasters must almost invariably be performed in conjunction with some local busi- ness. To estimate the effect of this residence requirement upon the quality of the competitors is difficult. In the less important offices, it is probably not serious. In the larger offices it bars from the competition postal employees who hold positions of advanced responsibility in other post offices, which may be larger perhaps than the office in which the vacancy in the post- mastership occurs. Free movement of experienced adminis- trative employees from one post office to another is, as already pointed out, in the highest degree desirable, and it is believed that the time has come to abandon or materially liberalize the residence requirement for postmasterships, with respect to\ em- ployees already in the postal service. The examination system devised by the Civil Service Com- mission to carry out the order establishes two distinct types of examination: (i) for offices having an annual compensa- tion from $1,000 to $2,400, a combination of an assembled written test and a non-assembled experience test; and (2) for offices having an annual compensation above $2,400, a non- assembled education and experience test. For the offices having annual compensation of from $1,000 to $2,400, applicants are examined on arithmetic, penmanship, and letterwriting, which are given a weight of 65, and the re- maining 35 weights out of the total of 100 are given to ex- perience and business training, In the examination for offices having an annual compensation above $2,400 education has a weight of 20, and business training and experience a weight of 80 per cent. No indication is given by the Commission of the basis upon THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 457 which the rating on experience is determined in the examina- tions for offices having a compensation of $2,400 or less ; but, if the statements made by it with respect to the rating of ex- perience for examinations for offices having compensation above $2,400 may be accepted as a guide, the experience con- sidered desirable is that gained in executive positions in busi- ness, and no special weight is attached to experience in the postal business. In establishing standards of experience for offices paying more than $2,400, the Commission differentiates between different sizes of offices according as their pay is (1) from $2,400 to $4,000; (2) from $4,000 to $6,000; and (3) over $6,000. For the lowest class "applicants must show that for at least three years they have held responsible posi- tions in which their principal duties involved the management of business affairs and the direction and supervision of em- ployees, including such positions in the different branches of the postal service." For offices paying from $4,000 to $6,000 the requirement is for at least five years' experience as "presi- dent, general manager, general superintendent, or assistant general superintendent requiring the active charge of firms, corporations, or offices," and for offices paying more "than $6,000 a year, seven years of such experience. 1 In none of these statements of requirements is any special importance or value attached to experience in the postal serv- ice as opposed to experience in private business. If anything, greater value is apparently attached to business than to postal experience. This is, of course, in harmony with the whole tenor of the order establishing a system of open competition rather than one of promotion, and the Commission is, there- fore, perhaps not to be criticized for carrying out the intent of the order. Nevertheless, it would seem that, even within those limitations, the Commission might well, in its published announcements, encourage the competition of members of the 1 There are also age requirements graded according to the_ class of the post office. For offices of the first class the minimum age is 30 and for those of the second class the minimum age is 25 years. (Third class offices fall wholly in the class of those having annual compensation of from $1,000 to $2,400.) The maximum age is 65 years for both classes. 458 THE FEDERAL SERVICE postal service by placing much more emphasis than it now does upon the desirability of postal experience. In connection with the smaller offices this could hardly be done, of course, without changing the requirements of the regulations to the effect that the applicant "must actually reside within the de- livery of the office for which the application is made," since the only postal employees so resident might have had alto- gether too little experience to warrant their serious considera- tion for the postmastership. It is impossible to state to what extent the Commission, in its rating, is actually giving credit for postal experience. It is believed, however, that the actual rating substantially accords with the policy thus apparently im- plied in the statement of requirements, and that a postal em- ployee who makes application for a presidential postmastership finds his postal experience receives little, if any more, con- sideration, and perhaps, in some cases, not as much as the experience gained in wholly remote lines of business. With respect to the evidence used in rating, the Civil Service Commission states that in the examination for offices having an annual compensation of $2,400 or less "the sub- ject of business training and experience is rated on the appli- cants' statements in their applications and corroborative evi- dence" and it makes the same announcement with respect to the rating on "education" in the examination for offices hav- ing compensation above $2,400. In the latter examination, however, the rating on "business training and experience" is based, not only upon the statements of the candidate, but upon "a careful personal investigation of each applicant by representatives of the Civil Service Commission, one of whom is to be selected by the Commission from the Post Office De- partment, such representatives to make report of their inves- tigation direct to the Commission." The investigation on this head is to consist of a "careful personal inquiry from per- sons best qualified to know of the business qualifications, abil- ity, and experience of each candidate, the report of such in- quiry to be confined to the findings of facts and to be made part of the evidence and report upon which the Commission THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 459 rates the candidate." At the same time, the representatives are to make inquiry "as to each candidate's suitability for the office by reason of his character and personal characteristics, this part of the inquiry to be non-competitive and not to be considered in the rating of the candidate, but if he is found unsuitable by the Commission, as a result of such inquiry, he, of course, will not be declared eligible." The President's order governing the appointment of presi- dential postmasters goes further than do the civil service rules in the influence allotted to the examination in determining se- lection. Under the rules of the regular competitive system, three names are certified to the appointing officer for each vacancy and his selection from among those names is in no way controlled. The President's order, on the other hand, requires that when the "examination has been held and the papers in connection therewith have been rated, the said Com- mission shall certify the result thereof to the Postmaster Gen- eral, who shall submit to the President the name of the high- est qualified eligible for appointment to fill such vacancy, un- less it is established that the character or residence of such applicant disqualifies him for appointment." Rumors have been current in recent months that the Post Office Department was urging the President to amend the rule so as to permit the department to send him the name of any one of the highest three as in the classified competitive serv- ice. What has been said regarding the merits of that prac- tice in connection with the regular competitive system applies here and need not be repeated. The officers of the National Civil Service Reform League, although they had never taken any strong ground in opposition to the practice of certifying three names for each vacancy in the regular competitive sys- tem, wrote to the President opposing the introduction of the one in three rule in the case of- presidential postmasters. They said : * In the promulgation of the order, the President stood on high ground which will not, we venture to suggest, be under- 1 Good Government, vol. 36, p. 157. 460 THE FEDERAL SERVICE mined by those members of Congress who seek a partial re- turn to the patronage system. In providing as you did, for the appointment of the first person unless it is established that the character or residence disqualifies him from appointment, you reduced substantially the pressure exerted by office seek- ers upon the executive branch of the government. A return to the rule of three would be interpreted as an invitation to friends of eligibles tb attempt to influence the appointment. The suggestion that some latitude might properly be al- lowed the department when the differences in the ratings are very slight would seem to have special application to the ex- amination provided for postmasterships paying under $2,400. Here the rating on experience has a weight of 35 out of 100 in a final average in which, by a mathematical computation, the rating on experience is combined with the ratings in the written tests. Relative ratings produced by such a mathe- matical combination are notoriously unreliable as means of determining the relative merits of candidates whose final aver- ages differ but little. The President's order does not state who shall determine whether the character or residence of the applicant disquali- fies him for appointment. It appears 1 that, in practice, when the department, on making investigation, 2 has taken exception to the character or residence of the highest eligible, it has called the matter to the attention of the Civil Service Commis- sion and requested it to re-rate the examination. In some cases the Commission has complied but in others it has de- 1 Hearing before the subcommittee of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, United States Senate, Sixty-sixth Congress, First Ses- sion, on the nomination of Robert T. Wade for postmaster at Morehead City, N. C, p. go. "The department, however, has not relied solely on its own inves- tigation but has permitted any member of Congress to examine, for his "confidential" information, the eligible register transmitted to it by the Civil Service Commission. (Hearings, p. 81.) This would seem a wholly unnecessary, if not improper, procedure, particularly as the eligible him- self is not even advised of his relative standing on the list. The re- sponsibility of the department under the order would be discharged, and all proper interest of the Congressman met, by advising the Congress- man of the name of the highest eligible and requesting advice of any facts regarding the "character or residence" of that eligible which might tend to disqualify him for appointment. THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 461 clined. In the latter cases the department has generally ac- quiesced, but in a few instances it has certified to the Presi- dent the name of the next highest eligible, taking the position that the power of "establishing" that the character or resi- dence of the eligible disqualifies him for appointment rests with the department ; and in this the Commission has acquiesced. Examination of the records of the department made in September, 1919, showed that, out of a total of 1,267 appoint- ments made widen the order, the first eligible has been nomi- nated in 1,188 cases, or 93.7 per cent of the total; or, if the cases in which the death or declination of the first eligible necessitated the selection of the next available eligible be added, in 1,214 cases, or 95.7 per cent of the total. In the remaining 53 cases the first eligible was rejected, in 35 cases because of character or residence, and in 18 cases because of ill health. An executive order issued April 13, 1920, extends to presi- dential postmasterships the principle of military preference en- acted by Congress for all non-presidential positions, but in a much more limited form. The order provides: The Veteran Preference Statutes shall apply in the selec- tion of persons for appointment as postmaster at offices of the first, second, and third class. When the highest eligible cer- tified to the Postmaster General by the Civil Service Commis- sion is not a veteran but a veteran is among those certified as eligible, the Postmaster General may submit to the President for nomination the name of either the highest eligible or the veteran obtaining the highest eligible rating as the best inter- ests of the service may require. Although the order thus provides that the "veteran prefer- ence statutes" shall apply, the context makes clear that the preference is to be extended only to the veteran himself, and not to his wife or widow, as provided by the Statutes. When the department has certified a name to the Presi- dent, that name has invariably been sent to the Senate; at least, no instance has come tb light in which the friends of any candidate have attempted to intervene at this stage of the 462 THE FEDERAL SERVICE procedure. In the Senate the nomination is considered by the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, and only in one or two cases in which some special question has been raised as to the propriety of the examining procedure has that com- mittee failed to confirm the nomination, virtually without in- vestigation. Up to the present time the requirement of con- firmation by the Senate cannot be said, therefore, to have been in any degree inimical to the competitive or merit prin- ciple in the selection of presidential postmasters. The proved efficiency of the methods employed by the Commission in recruitment for the ordinary grades in the com- petitive classified service makes it reasonable to assume, almost without investigation, that those methods have produced simi- larly satisfactory results here, and there is no reason to ques- tion this assumption. 1 With respect to the more important postmasterships, however, the application of competitive ex- amination methods by the Commission presents almost a dis- tinct novelty. The position of postmaster at Boston, for ex- ample, for which the Commission recently held examination, carries a salary of $8,000, a salary double the highest salaries for any positions in the classified competitive service to which the Commission ^had previously applied the method of com- petitive examination (except in a few special instances). From the evidence thus far available, however, there is no reason to believe that the results of the examinations as applied to these higher offices has been other than satisfactory. This is not to say that in all cases opinion has been unanimous in the city concerned that the best candidate has been selected; but no instance has come to attention in which public dissat- 1 The only case in which there has been any airing on the qualifica- tions of the candidates was that of the postmastership at Morehead, N. C, which was the subject of investigation by the Senate Committee on Post Office and Post Roads in I9i'9. In this case it was admitted by the wit- nesses that both candidates on the eligible register were well qualified for the position, _ the question at issue being merely whether the Civil Service Commission had acted properly in revising the ratings at the instance of the Post Office Department so as to reverse the position of the two candidates on the_ eligible register (see Hearings Before the Sub- committee of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, United States Senate, Sixty-sixth Congress, first session, on the nomination of Robert T. Wade as postmaster at Morehead, N. C). THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 463 isfaction has been expressed with the selection or the opinion voiced that the appointee was not qualified for the post. 1 1 It has been stated that the results of the examination for the post- mastership at Worcester, Massachusetts, a $6,000 position, perhaps the first important postmastership to be filled under the order, was emi- nently satisfactory. (See Good Government, January, 1918, vol. 35, page IS). 1 On May 10, 1921, President Harding issued a new Executive Order governing the appointment of first, second, and third class postmasters, which was subsequently slightly modified to make the two years' residence requirement relate to the date of the examination instead of to the date of the vacancy for which the examination is held. The Order as revised reads as follows: "When a vacancy exists or hereafter occurs in the position of post- master at an office of the first, second, or third class, if such vacancy is not filled by nomination of some person within the competitive classified civil service who has the required qualifications, then the Postmaster General shall certify the fact to the Civil Service Commission, which shall forthwith hold an open competitive examination to test the fitness of applicants to fill such vacancy, and when such examination has been held and the papers in connection therewith have been rated, the said commis- sion shall certify the results thereof to the Postmaster General, who shall submit to the President the name of one of the highest three_ qualified eligibles for appointment to fill such vacancy unless it is established that the character of residence of any such applicant disqualifies him for appointment : Provided, That at the expiration of the term of any person appointed to such position through examination before the Civil Service Commission, the Postmaster General may, in his discretion, submit the name of such person to the President for renomination without further examination. "No person who has passed his sixty-fifth birthday, or who has not actually resided within the delivery of such office for two years next pre- ceding the date of examination, shall be given the examination herein provided for. "If, under this order, it is desired to make nomination for any office of a person in the competitive classified service, such person must first be found by the Civil Service Commission to meet the minimum requirements for the office." This Order, it will be noted, applies to vacancies created by the ex- piration of the four-year statutory term, but it gives the successful candi- date in the open competitive examination the assurance only of a four-year term. Although it permits the Postmaster General, in his discretion to submit for renomination without further examination the name of the postmaster originally appointed -by examination, it does not require him to do so if -the services of the postmaster have been satisfactory. A successful postmaster of the opposite political faith from the administra- tion might find himself required to take a new competitive examination. Under the new Order, moreover, he might fail of reappointment even should he stand head and shoulders above his two nearest competitors in the new examination, because the new rule gives to the Postmaster General the right to select from among the three highest eligibles. The new Order preserves the residence requirement which by amend- ment was written into President Wilson's Order of March 31, 1917. All that was said in the original text against this requirement applies with equal force against the new Order. Under the new Order assembled written examinations are held for third-class postmasterships, which pay from $1,000 to $2,200. The sub- 464 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Coast and Geodetic Survey. — The law governing the appointment of commissioned officers in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, who comprise the unclassified personnel, does not provide for a competitive examination when entering the ser- vice, merely stipulating that no person shall be appointed aid, the lowest rank, or promoted "until after passing a satisfactory mental and physical examination conducted in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Commerce." * The jects and weights in this examination are as follows, according to the circular (Form 2223). issued by the Civil Service Commission in July, 1921: Subjects Weights 1. Business training, experience and fitness (under this subject, full and careful consideration is given to the candidate's business training and experience. The rating is based upon the candidate's sworn statements of his personal his- tory, as verified after inquiry by the Commission. It must be clearly shown that the candidate has demonstrated ability in meeting and dealing satisfactorily with the public) 50 2. Accounts and arithmetic (this test includes a simple statement of a postmaster's monthly money-order account in a pre- pared form, furnished the candidate in the examination, j and a few problems comprising addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, percentage, and their business applications) 30 3. Penmanship (a test of ability to write legibly, rated on the specimen shown in the subject of letter writing) 10 4. Letter writing (this subject is intended to test the candidate's ability to express himself intelligently in a business letter on a practical subject) 10 _ Total _ , 100 Candidates for this examination must have reached their twenty-first birthday and must not have passed their sixty-fifth. For first and second class postmasterships the examinations are non- assembled, and are not radically different from those under the earlier Order as described in the original text. The requirements under the current circular (July, 1921) are as follows : Prerequisites. — Offices over $6,000. — For offices paying more than $6,000 a year the candidates must show that for at least seven years they have successfully filled responsible positions which required ability to organize, to direct, or to manage business affairs, including such posi- tions in different branches of the Postal Service; candidates must also show that they have demonstrated their ability to meet and deal with the public satisfactorily. (Explanatory.— The nature of the business, the amount of clerical or office help supervised, the responsibility of the position filled, the extent of executive ability and initiative demonstrated, and the degree to which analysis of administrative and organization prob- lems was involved will be given consideration in rating this subject.) '40 Stat 88. THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 465 regulations, however, provide that all aids "shall be appointed by promotion from the position of junior engineer, deck officer, or extra observer, and in no case shall a person be appointed to the position of aid unless he has served at least six months as junior engineer, deck officer, or extra observer, and has performed satisfactory services and shown the proper .qualifications for a commissioned officer in the Survey." Junior engineers, deck officers, and extra observers are appointed "from a list of eligibles established by competitive examinations conducted in accordance with the rules of the United States Civil Service Commission." In this service, therefore, the examination for initial ap- pointment is made by the Civil Service Commission, but all examinations for commissions or for promotion are conducted by the service itself. Laborers. — In a governmental personnel system the re- cruitment of laborers requires and justifies a greater degree of attention than would seem warranted by the importance of the positions involved. The economic class, from which la- borers are recruited is, in the cities, the most numerous class, and the one in which employment is most irregular. Hence a local politician who can distribute government places carry- ing regular employment, however poorly paid, has a large and fruitful field of activity. Moreover, owing to the difficulty of applying any severely competitive methods to the selection of laborers, the system of recruitment tends to be less strictly safeguarded than in the case of positions involving more spe- cialized qualifications. The result is that the spoils system clings to labor positions with a tenacity almost equal to its hold on the higher executive positions. An additional reason for watching the entrance to labor positions with especial vigilance is that it may furnish a "back door" to the clerical service. The duties of a "laborer" in many cases shade off into those of a "clerk" — as where labor- ers are employed in stockrooms. In a well ordered personnel system properly qualified laborers may advance to certain cler- ical positions. Thus those unable to secure clerical positions 466 THE FEDERAL SERVICE through the regular channels may try to secure them by en- tering the service as laborers and subsequently securing a de- tail or a promotion to a clerical position. The regulations by which the principle of competitive ex- aminations was extended to labor positions (under the author- ity conferred on the President by the act of 1871) are made up, as already indicated, of two sets of regulations, one ap- plying to labor positions in Washington, the other to the field services. 1 The regulations differ considerably in matters of detail. A substantive difference which is difficult of explanation is that, while in the case of the field services, the age limits are fixed (II, Section 1) at from 20 to 50 years, which amounts to almost no restriction at all, for the positions at Washington (Regulation II) the age limits "may be prescribed by the Commission with the approval of appointing officers." Most important, however, is the difference in the composition of the "labor boards" which are set up to administer the regulations and to conduct the examinations. In Washington (Regula- tion I) a "board of labor employment" is set up for "each de- partment and independent executive office," the head of which "may designate one of its employees to serve as a member" of the board; and it is provided that "the Civil Service Com- mission shall supervise and direct the work of the board, and its representative on the board, in the absence of other mem- bers, shall perform the duties of the Board." What is thus provided is examination under the supervision of a joint de- partmental and Civil Service Commission Board. In the field service, a board of labor employment has been organized for each of the twelve districts into which the coun- try is divided for the administration of the regular competi- tive system. Such a district board consists of three members of the force of the Civil Service Commission in that district, 'The regulations governing Washington were promulgated Novem- ber 15, 1904 and amended July 12, 1905,. and October 21, 1908. The pres- ent regulations governing the field services (superseding those originally promulgated December 12, 1904) were promulgated July 3, 1909, and amended June 15, 1915. THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 467 the district secretary acting as chairman, with the proviso that "in the event that in any civil service district there is not a sufficient number of the commission's employees available, detail may be made to the commission's force for the filling of vacancies in the labor employment board, until the com- mission shall have men of its own to relieve such detail." In addition to the three members of the board for the entire dis- trict, the Commission appoints in each city outside of the dis- trict headquarters where these regulations are in force a per- son in the federal service in that city as an auxiliary member of the board which serves in connection with the appointment of unskilled laborers in the service in such city. Rating is made solely on the basis of ability to perform manual labor, as shown by ability to lift a weight, or to meet some' other test of strength, and by physical examination. Such examination is conducted at Washington, and at other cities where available, by physicians in the federal service de- tailed therefor. Where such physicians are not available the Commission designates physicians in private practice for the purpose. The ratings are relative and competitive, with pref- erence to qualified disabled veterans and Civil War veterans, as in the case of eligible lists for regular classified positions. The regulations covering the field service provide (III, Sec. 4) that "a copy of the register shall be kept in a place accessible to the public in the office of the secretary of the dis- trict in which the applicants are eligible and elsewhere as the commission may direct." No such provision is made with respect to the Washington labor lists. The method of certification is substantially the same as for classified positions, separate eligible registers being maintained for each city. The Commission is authorized, however, in the regulations governing the field service to cer- tify from its register in any civil service district "the three standing highest thereon shown by said register to possess the requisite qualifications for the position to be filled." x The 'In a note to this regulation, the Commission cites its Circular No. 1725, of June, 1910, as follows: "Under the provisions of this section 468 THE FEDERAL SERVICE method of rating purely in accordance with physical capacity is thus qualified, in the case of the field service, by permitting the general lists to be subdivided, after examination, into special lists on the basis of special qualifications,, but without such special qualifications having been made the basis of com- petitive rating. While this method may seem to run counter to the strict competitive principle, it is doubtless justified in view of the rarity with which special qualifications are called for in this class of positions. 1 Before passing to a consideration of the two important systems of non-competitive examination now in force — the systems applied to the consular and diplomatic services and to the medical officers of the Public Health Service — it may be well to comment on this type of examination' in general. Attention has been called already to the law of 1853 under which clerical positions in the departments at Washington were filled upon non-competitive or pass examinations, and to the way in which that system broke down. In 1902 the Commis- sion made the following comment in reference to pass exami- nations : "The tendency of mere pass examinations is to be- come more and more a matter of form, and there is no security that such examinations will long be effective where there is strong political or personal pressure behind the candidates." In 1908, in connection with a provision of a pending bill, which called for the appointment of a large force required for the taking of the Thirteenth Decennial Census upon a non- competitive examination,, the Commission presented at some length a discussion of the evils of the non-competitive as op- posed to the competitive system. certifying, nominating, or appointing officers may call for such vouchers or make such inquiries as they may deem advisable to satisfy themselves as to the possession of qualifications claimed by eligibles. The difficulty encountered in securing satisfactory eligibles for four-line teamsters and deckhands in the Quartermaster Corps at San Francisco, California, has been met by authorizing investigations along the lines set forth above."' It would seem, however, that certain of the duties classed by the Commission as unskilled labor properly belong under the head of skilled labor and should be examined for individually as such. The positions of truckman and teamster, cited in the Commission's circular distinguish- ing between "classified" and "unclassified" duties and the position "of deckhand, cited in the preceding note, are instances of this. THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 469 In the interests of economy and efficiency, and with a view to securing an accurate census not in any way colored or af- fected by political bias, the Commission urges that it be amended by striking out the word "non-competitive" and sub- stituting in lieu thereof the word "competitive." President Roosevelt considered the evils of non-competitive examinations in the Census Office great enough to make them the subject of a special message to Congress. He points out in that message that the majority of clerical employees of the last-two censuses, appointed on the basis of political favor, were far below the average of persons of like grade appointed through competitive examinations. This is shown by actual comparison, and is emphasized by the highest authorities of census matters. Mr. Frederick H. Wines, assistant director of the Twelfth Census, says : "In making selections from the list of those who passed the examinations no attention what- ever was paid to their comparative rating. It was a 'pass' examination, pure and simple." With employees of inferior ability the work is unneces- sarily prolonged, the cost increased, and the accuracy of the census discredited. Hon. Carroll D. Wright maintains that there was a great waste of both time and money in carrying on the Eleventh Census. He says: "The absolute necessity of bringing the whole census force into the classified service, in accordance with the civil service act, seems to me perfectly apparent. Had this been the rule in the Eleventh Census there would have been, in my opinion, a saving of at least $2,000,000 and more than a year's time." Subsequently investigation, resulting from this statement, proved it to be a conservative one. Labor costs rose far above the necessary level in the Twelfth Census. Mr. Harry T. Newcomb, chief of the divi- sion of agriculture, makes this statement in a letter to Presi- dent Roosevelt : "It was far easier, in my experience, to ob- tain a score of additional clerks at an annual cost of from $14,000 to $24,000 than to secure an expenditure of $1,000 for supplies which would save the labor of twenty clerks." Business men in all parts of the country have condemned the method of appointments under non-competitive examinations as unbusinesslike and detrimental to the best, interests of the nation. The President also states in his special message that non- competitive examinations serve only as a cloak to hide the nakedness of the spoils system. "Such examinations," he says, 470 THE FEDERAL SERVICE "are useless as checks upon patronage appointments." Fred- erick H. Wines says as regards the Twelf th Census "that there were numerous instances in which an unsuccessful appli- cant was granted a second, third, or fourth trial." No atten- tion was paid to the comparative ratings of those on the lists. "A rating of 75, with proper political or other indorsement," says Mr. Wines, "was sufficient to secure an appointment where a rating of 100 would count for nothing without it." Thus non-competitive examinations tend toward furnishing employ- ees of minimum efficiency, while competitive examinations in- sure the maximum of efficiency. The Director of the Census, instead of having his mind free to organize the bureau and supervise the important field work carried on by the supervisors and enumerators, would be forced to give a large portion of his time to politicians anxious to get their share of patronage. This was the case in 1890 and 1900. Mr. Porter, who was then superintendent, made a statement about the system forced upon him in the census of 1890 in part as follows: "Why transfer the Census Office at the busiest season into an examination department for clerks, and a director of a vast scientific investigation into a dispenser of political patronage? It is simply unjust to such an offi- cial." Dr. John Shaw Billings, in charge of the division of vital statistics of the Eleventh Census, said: "The whole of my work in the census has been done in the face of great ob- stacles, owing to repeated changes of clerks for political rea- sons, etc., and I am tired of struggling with the most unpro- pitious circumstances that have surrounded the work." The Commission also quotes from the report of the Di- rector of the Census for the fiscal year 1908, in which he says : A "non-competitive" examination means that every one of the many thousands who may pass the examination will have an equal right to appointment, and that personal and political pressure must in the end, as always before, become the deter- mining factor with reference to the great body of these tem- porary employments. I can not too earnestly urge that the Director of the Census be relieved from this unfortunate sit- uation. If these clerks can be appointed as needed, in the order certified from a competitive examination, a better service will be secured than will otherwise be possible, the efficiency of the force will be greatly increased, and the cost of the cen- sus correspondingly reduced. THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 471 The foregoing has been cited merely by way of indicating the evils which may be inherent in a system of non-competitive or pass examination when conducted on a large scale for minqr positions. It is not intended to imply that the positions taken by the Commission have any necessary application to the selec- tion of a much smaller force of high grade officers or em- ployees. Nevertheless, the conditions described by the Commis- sion indicate the type of evil to which a non-competitive system is subject and which, in every case, must be guarded against. Consular Service. — All positions in the foreign service lie outside the competitive classified service — the positions of consul and diplomatic secretary,, because they are presidential positions, 1 and the subordinate positions by virtue of a general exception from competition made by the civil service rules covering "any person employed in a foreign country under the State Department." 2 In point of numbers and importance, the consuls are, of course, far the most important group in the foreign service. The desirability of eliminating political considerations from the selection of consuls was given official recognition in vary- ing forms long before any effective system for the purpose was actually developed. As early as 1856 Congress had authorized the President to provide regulations for the appointment of vice-consuls, consular agents, commercial agents, and so forth. In 1866 Secretary Seward prescribed a plan of non-competitive examinations to keep out unfit candidates for the consular service, and one examination was actually held under his or- ders. In 1872 other examinations were provided. Again in 1895 provision was made for examinations embracing general education, business training, and experience, and requiring a knowledge of languages of the country to which the consul was to be sent, of the exequatur, of the powers and duties of con- suls, of treaties, of consular regulations, and of other subjects. An examination board was organized, and while at first the 1 The positions of ambassador and minister, of course, all fall under this head, but being filled without the use of any formal system of selec- tion, they fall outside the scope of the present discussion. 'Schedule A, I, 7. 472 THE FEDERAL SERVICE rules were strictly observed, and nearly 50 per cent of the men nominated were excluded, yet afterwards the examinations be- came merely perfunctory, and scarcely any of the men selected were rejected. Finally, in 1906, in response to an insistent demand from the business interests of the country, President Roosevelt, by Executive Order, established a system of non-competitive ex- aminations for entrance to the consular service that, with modifications, is still in force. The way was paved for this order by an act of Congress classifying the several consular offices by salary. 1 The order of President Roosevelt provided that thereafter all vacancies in the position of consul, Class 7 (of which the salary is $3,000) 2 or any higher class should be filled by pro- motion, either from lower positions in the consular service or from positions in the State Department. For appointment to Classes 8 and 9 carrying salaries of $2,500 and $2,000, re- spectively, the order established the system of non-competitive examination about to be discussed. Under the order 8 a board of examiners for admission to the consular service is created, consisting of the Secretary of State or such officer of the Department of State as the Presi- dent may designate, the Director of the Consular Service and the Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commission (or some other person whom the Commission may designate) . In order to obtain admission to the examinations, designation of the candidate must be made by the President, who acts, of course, on the recommendation of the Department. The only official rule which has been promulgated relative to the designation is that contained in the original Executive Order which provides that "in designation for appointment subject to examination 'Act of April 5, 1906, 34 Stat. 99. "Under a recent act the position of "Vice-Consul de carriere, Class II" with a salary of $2,750, has been set up between the grades of Con- sul, Class 7 (at $3,000) and Consul, Class 8 (at $2,500) ; and the execu- tive order has been correspondingly amended to require this new grade also to be filled only by promotion. 'As amended on December 12, 1906, April 20, 1907, and December 8, 1909-. THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 473 . . . due regard will be had to the rule that as between candi- dates of equal merit appointments should be made to secure proportional representation of all the states and territories in the consular service, and neither in the designation for ex- amination nor certification for appointment will the political affiliations of the candidate be considered." As to the extent to which political considerations do actually govern, it is extremely difficult to offer an opinion. The Com- mittee of the National Civil Service Reform League which, during the year 1918-19, made an investigation into the per- sonnel aspects of the foreign service, was apparently unable to obtain any exact information on this point. In its report it says : 1 Your committee is informed that all applications are passed upon by the Third Assistant Secretary of State, who is him- self a political appointee. The Third Assistant Secretary of State does not, we are informed, have anything to do with the men once they are in the service, but is called upon to ex- amine and give his approval upon all examinations. We are informed — upon good authority — that the applications to take the examinations are only thrown out in those cases where they have been so short a time citizens of the United States that it might be inadvisable to give them an appointment, or else when, on the face of their applications, they are mani- festly unfit. Nevertheless, . the proper method of excluding these men would seem to be in the examination itself. Nor does there appear to be any good reason why a political of- ficer should sit in the Department of State to watch over what- ever remains of patronage for distribution. The examination is held at Washington whenever the needs of the service require. The Committee of the National Civil Service Reform League which investigated the foreign service urged that the written examinations should be held in the prin- cipal cities. This recommendation seems wise, not only be- 1 Report on the Foreign Service, published by the National Civil Serv- ice Reform League, 1919, p. 24. The Director of the Consular Service has stated in response to a direct inquiry that "in the past, nearly all of the men who presented their formal applications to the Department of State have been designated for examination." ^Letter t,g the Institute for Government Research.} 474 THE FEDERAL SERVICE cause it would widen the interest in and the competition for these places, but also because as the committee pointed out, a more general representation from all parts of the country would be obtained. Under present conditions, the committee states, despite the rule of apportionment, an undue proportion of the service is recruited from persons resident at the Capital, who are only nominal residents of the states to which they are, accredited in determining the quotas for apportionment pur- poses. 1 The recommendation of the committee contemplates, of course, an oral examination at Washington of those who have passed the written examination successfully. The scope of examinations is determined in the first place by the original executive order, which provides that "among the subjects shall be included at least one modern language other than English, the natural, industrial, and commercial re- sources and the commerce of the United States, especially with reference to the possibilities of increasing and extending the trade of the United States with foreign countries, political economy, elements of international commerce, and maritime law." Subject to these provisions the board of examiners is empowered to determine the scope and method of examination. In addition to the subjects thus prescribed by Executive Order, the examinations now embrace also' arithmetic, American his- tory, government and institutions, both these re- spects the federal service may be said to be superior to private employment from the employees' standpoint. The position has been taken, indeed, in a former chapter that the protection which obtains against improper removal is not quite adequate. But the fact remains that removal merely because of personal dislike or incompatibility, by no means uncommon in private employment, is hardly known in the federal service. Removal for what may be called political reasons also exists even in private business, especially in the larger organizations! On the score of security against business vicissitudes the federal service obviously offers one of its chief attractions as against private employment. In most branches of the service this security is virtually complete. It is not entirely so, how- ever. It is inevitable that in so large and varied an organ- ization as the federal service certain classes of work should become unnecessary from time to time, either being abandoned altogether or superseded by improved methods. The best the administration can hope to do in cases of this kind is to make some other provision for the employees affected. In this re- spect, the federal service, until recently, was distinctly behind the best private practice; but the beginning made in the es- tablishment of reemployment registers in 1919 doubtless will soon result in the development of adequate procedures under this head. The Merit Basis. — Still more fundamental from the stand- point of its attractiveness to the employee is the recognition of merit as the sole basis for action in all matters of personnel administration. When the need and importance of "the merit system are under discussion it is usually recruitment that is THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 511 particularly in mind. In point of fact, however, from the standpoint of the employee, whether actual or prospective, the extent to which the merit system is departed from in initial recruitment is of secondary importance. What is important to him is that once in the service he shall find that the rewards of promotion, salary increase, favorable reassignment, and the like, and the punishment of removal, suspension, demotion, and the like, shall be awarded without reference to personal or political considerations, and wholly upon the basis of dem- onstrated merit. Nor is it sufficient that this basis shall be adopted merely in principle. The machinery must be so ar- ranged and operated that all employees will be convinced that it is applied in practice. The review of existing conditions in the federal service made in the preceding chapters has disclosed that neither of these conditions generally obtains. The revision of the pres- ent procedure for determining promotion, salary increase, re- assignment, demotion, removal, and the like, along the lines suggested in the preceding chapters, and with special emphasis on those phases bf such procedures as will most effectively bring assurance and conviction to the employees is funda- mental, therefore, to any program for the improvement of the federal service. Opportunity for Advancement. — The factors which deter- mine the degree and kind of opportunity for advancement in any personnel system fall into two distinct classes. On the one hand are those factors which make for frequent vacancies above the entrance grade; on the other, those factors which determine the extent to which such vacancies, as they occur, are filled by selection from within the service, and the area from which such selection is usually made. The factors affecting the frequency with which vacancies occur in the service above the entrance grade, are chiefly three in number. Perhaps most important is the procedure, if any, in force for retiring superannuated personnel. If such retire- ment is prompt and universal, the opportunities of the younger personnel are obviously enlarged. The effect which the ab- Si2 THE FEDERAL SERVICE sence of a retirement system has in reducing the opportunities for advancement of the younger personnel is not commonly appreciated. In discussions of the problem of the superan- nuated employee, that familiar character is usually thought of as occupying a position of negligible importance; and the argument runs that his service is so inconsiderable that it would be cheaper to retire him at half pay than to retain him at full pay. In point of fact, where there is no retirement system, the superannuated employee is found, of course, in positions of all degrees of importance, from lowest to highest, and is especially likely to' be found in the supervisory positions of intermediate responsibility; and even where his duties have greatly declined in importance, he still is likely to be in receipt of the salary attached to his former, more important, duties. The net result is that vacancies rarely occur in the higher or ' better paid places, for among this class of elderly employees of long service it is especially true that "few die and none re- sign." Hence it is that a generous retirement system, per- mitting the regular withdrawal from the service of those who have outlived their highest usefulness, greatly increases the mobility of the service and the opportunity of those in the ranks for advancement. The enactment of the retirement act of 1920, though far from a satisfactory measure, thus marks an important advance in rendering the federal service more attractive not merely to the routineer to whom the assurance of a superannuation provision for his benefit is of high importance in and of itself, but to the young, ambitious, and capable employee to whom the retirement provision itself is a matter of indifference, but whose opportunities for advancement during his working life are materially increased by it. Perhaps next in importance to the retirement system in effecting the frequency with which vacancies occur is the extent to which it is possible for employees so desiring to leave the federal service to enter the business or professional world. The greater the opportunity, and the more frequently it is availed of, the greater the number of vacancies within the THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 513 service. The present situation under this head varies widely from service to service and from one occupation or calling to another. In some services, as for example in the Patent Of- fice and in some of the technical services, capable employees so desiring find no difficulty in capitalizing their government experience in private employment. Indeed, in some cases, they find this experience a far greater asset than the experience which could have been acquired over a similar period in pri- vate employment. In other branches of work quite the reverse condition is found. In still other branches (and the bulk of manual and mechanical employments doubtlessly fall in this class) experience in the federal service possesses neither a greater nor less market value than similar experience in pri- vate employ. At the present time experience in the government service in a capacity akin to that known in private employment as "of- fice manager" has virtually no market value in the business world. Yet the work involved — the supervision of a clerical force engaged in correspondence, filing, bookkeeping, mailing, and the like — is essentially the same in many government of- fices as in commercial offices. The difficulty is that there has not been developed by those branches of the service engaged in office work a reputation for efficiency. In point of fact many government offices are perhaps more efficiently conducted than many commercial offices. But just as the office manage- ment of a large corporation is credited with high efficiency in the absence of any knowledge of the actual facts, so the gov- ernment office now bears the stigma of inefficiency. What is chiefly needed, therefore, to give experience in the federal service a market value is the development of. a reputation for efficiency. This is not to say that it is to be accepted as the policy of the federal service that it should be in any degree less attrac- tive to the capable employee than the conditions obtaining in private employment. On the contrary, it goes without say- ing that every effort should be made by the federal personnel administration to establish such conditions that the capable 514 THE FEDERAL SERVICE employee will ordinarily find it entirely satisfactory to remain in the service. But no matter how high a standard may be reached in the development of the federal service, or of any service, there must always be a not inconsiderable proportion of cases in which a particular individual finds the prospect be- fore him in the service much less to his liking than he does the prospect of transferring to some other organization. It is for this percentage of cases that the service should make pro- vision, along the lines herein suggested. There are some, indeed, who would have the service take the opposite view. The resignation from the federal service of a capable employee to enter private employment is regarded by them as a loss to the service, which should be prevented in every way possible. Such a view, however, fails to take into account the larger benefits which flow from the increased at- tractiveness of the service precisely by reason of the oppor- tunity which exists for shifting to private employment and by reason also of the increased opportunity for advancement within the service which thus results. There is, of course, a point beyond which the, departure of men to private service would indicate an unhealthy condition, and that that point has long been reached in certain of the federal services has already been pointed out. But up to that point the flow of men to private service, and so far as consistent with the other re- quirements of sound personnel administration, the counter- flow of men from private employment to the federal service, may be regarded as a hopeful sign of fluidity and vigor. 1 The final factor which determines the frequency with which 1 While in the above discussion the increase in the market value of experience in the federal service has been regarded as merely one ele- ment affecting the frequency with which vacancies occur in the service, thus promoting the opportunity for advancement in the service, it need- hardly be said that an increase in the value of the employee's services in the employment market is in and of itself something which makes the service attractive to the employee. Indeed in some branches of the serv- ice, of which the Patent Office is the most conspicuous example, the high rate at which experience in the service can be capitalized in private employment is perhaps the chief and for many the sole attraction of the service. Needless to say, however, where such a condition results it is hardly a desirable one from the standpoint of the service, however at- tractive it may be from the standpoint of the employee who is thus able to capitalize his experience in the service. THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 515 vacancies occur in a service usually is the rate of expansion in the service itself. This is not, however, like the other fac- tors mentioned, a matter of policy to be determined in ad- vance. While exceptions, of course, occur now and then, the general statement is warranted that so far as affected by this factor the opportunity for advancement in the federal service is considerably more limited than in private employment. Only in rare and exceptional cases do branches of the federal service expand with anything like the rapidity that charac- terizes vigorous business enterprises. The factor of internal expansion is indeed the one on which industrial concerns, for the most part, rely chiefly to create the vacancies neces- sary for providing sufficient opportunity for advancement for the subordinate personnel. The creation of new services, however, does occur from time to time and presents an unusual opportunity to award advancement to faithful employees who have not found such opportunity within the branches of the organization where they may be employed. It might be thought, therefore, that when opportunities of this kind oc- curred they would be exploited to the utmost. It is notorious, however, that partly owing to the failure to make any positive provision either by Congress, the President, or the Civil Serv- ice Commission, and partly owing to the prohibitory provi- sions enacted by Congress and confirmed by the rules of the Civil Service Commission, the opportunity presented by the creation of new services seldom has been availed of to any- thing like the full extent. In view of the relative unimpor- tance of the factor of internal expansion in the federal serv- ice, it is all the more important that thorough-going measures be taken, by way of the retirement system and of enhancing the marketability of experience in the federal service in the private employment market, to increase as much as possible the rate of frequency of occurrence of vacancies and to fill the vacancies that do occur as far as possible from within the service. The desirability of restricting selection for such vacancies as occur above the entrance grade to those already in the serv- 516 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ice as far as practicable, and indeed of providing, even at some expense and trouble, means whereby those already in the serv- ice who would not otherwise be eligible for certain lines of promotion may qualify themselves for such promotion, has been fully considered already. The placing of all the political administrative posts upon a merit basis, the elimination under all ordinary conditions of recruitment from without for any position which can with substantially equally satisfactory re- sults be filled from within, and the provision, within reason- able limits, of means whereby those within the service may equip themselves for advanced responsibility, comprise the measures which should be taken in the federal service to in- crease the opportunity of those within the service to attain promotion to such vacancies as occur. But for maximum attractiveness of the service it is not suf- ficient merely that such vacancies as occur within a service are filled from within : it is equally essential that they be filled by the selection of the most capable employee wherever avail- able; and this means, both that the method of selection must be correct, and that the area of selection shall be sufficiently extensive. In a preceding chapter the considerations which should govern in determining the proper area from which se- lection for any given vacancy is to be made were considered, and need not be reviewed here. What is essential to note here is that it is in this particular respect — that of failing adequately to extend the area of selection from within, leaving some of the ablest employees who have had the misfortune to become located in certain branches of the service with far fewer op- portunities for promotion than their less able fellows in other branches — that the federal service has fallen furthest short of realizing its full possibilities in the field of enlarging the op- portunity for advancement. 1 1 One specific point at which the area of selection from within is now commonly improperly defined in the federal service, resulting in a severe curtailment of the opportunity for advancement of the more capable employees, deserves special mention. As has been pointed put already, in not a few of the field services, each local establishment is an independent unit, at least so far as the more important officers is con- cerned, a transfer from one station to another occurring only in the THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 517 Summarizing then the steps which should be taken to en- large the opportunities for advancement offered by the fed- eral service generally, they are : 1. The establishment of a retirement system insuring the prompt retirement of superannuated employees. 2. The development, for the service generally and particu- larly for those branches in which work is analogous to that of private employment, of a reputation for efficiency which would facilitate the passage of personnel to such employment. 3. The provision of facilities for instruction of the subor- dinate personnel in subjects tending to qualify them for ad- vancement to specific positions not in the natural line of pro- motion. 4. The placing of all administrative posts, that is, all posts except that of head of department, upon a merit basis. 5. The express recognition of the principle that positions are to be filled by promotion rather than by selection from outside, except where compelling reasons exist to the contrary. 6. The encouragement, instead of the obstruction, of free transfer, within clearly defined technical group lines, from service to service and from department to department. 7. Particularly, the staffing of new services so far as pos- sible by the transfer of personnel from the old services. 8. The definite organization of all field services, and par- ticularly the postal and customs services, on a national basis, so as to facilitate the transfer of the higher officers of those services from station to station. rarest instances. The obvious result is that a capable employee in one of the smaller of these establishments has far fewer opportunities for advancement than a less capable employee in one of the larger establish- ments. There is everything to be gained and nothing to be lost by the organization of all these services upon a national basis which will trans- fer the higher officers of the service from station to station. CHAPTER XIV WORKING CONDITIONS The substantive policies which are pursued with respect to matters affecting individual employees — compensation, re- cruitment, promotion, reassignment, removal, retirement, and the like — and the fairness and effectiveness with which those policies are applied, constitute the major elements of the work- ing environment. In addition to these, there are, however, certain general factors having to do with the conditions under which employees give their services that are of no little in- fluence in determining the morale and thus the efficiency of a personnel system. Hours of Labor. — The conditions with respect to- the hours of labor in the departments at Washington are stated thus by the Reclassification Commission : x Requirements as to hours of work in the Washington serv- ice are more uniform than most other conditions of employ- ment, and do not differ materially from those generally in effect elsewhere. Seven hours constitute a normal day's work for the clerical and professional group of employees, and eight hours for the manual, making aggregates of 42 and 48 hours per week. From June 15 to September 15, four hours con- stitute a day's work on Saturday, thus reducing the aggregate to 39 and 44 hours per week during that period. Hours for office workers generally in effect outside of the government service are 7 or 7^2 hours for 5 days and 4 or 4^4 on Sat- urdays in the office building districts of the larger cities such as Boston, New York, and Chicago. In mercantile establish- ments and factories, hours for office workers are more usually 7^ or 8 per day, often with no Saturday half -holiday. The eight-hour day is now normal for manual workers outside as well as inside of the government service.- 'Report of Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 89. 518 WORKING CONDITIONS 519 -Substantially the same conditions exist throughout the field service. During the war the attempt was made to increase the hours of all government employees to eight, and a bill carrying a provision for this purpose was actually passed by Congress, despite the opposition of the employees, strongly enforced by organized labor. The bill was vetoed by the President on the ground that the department heads already had the power to require eight hours' service, an objection hardly relevant inas- much as the object of the law was to prevent the depart- ment heads from requiring or permitting less than eight hours' service. 1 Overtime Work. — Overtime work, on the whole, is un- common in the federal service. In the departments at Wash- ington, unusual congestion of business, or the necessity for completing a report or other document by a certain date, occa- sionally results in overtime work. In the field establishments similar occasions arise, and in some services, as in the customs inspection service, in the inspection of passenger baggage, the nature of the work sometimes calls for large amounts of over- time. In the postal service also, there is necessarily a pro- portion of overtime work. In the Government Printing Of- fice, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and other indus- trial establishments of the government, overtime work is not uncommon. It is elementary that overtime work should be kept within the narrowest limits possible — that a sufficient force should be provided, and the work so organized and directed, that no overtime work will be necessary normally. The regulations governing overtime work should be so framed as to deter the management from relying upon overtime work except under the most urgent circumstances. The most effective way to accomplish this is to require the payment of employees for overtime work, and payment moreover at an increased rate. 1 There was already on the statute books a law (Act of March 15, 1898, 30 Stat. 316) requiring the heads of departments to exact "not less than seven hours of labor each day, except Sundays and days de- clared public holidays by law or executive order." 520 THE FEDERAL SERVICE A general provision of law x now prohibits such payment unless expressly authorized by law; and such authorization has been made only in the case of per hour and per diem em- ployees and piece-rate workers in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Government Printing Office, where 50 per cent and 20 per cent additional compensation, respectively, are allowed for overtime, and, in the case of postal employees, where overtime work is compensated for in proportion to the salaries as fixed by law. It is hardly open to question that the principle of payment for overtime at an increased rate should be adopted uniformly in all the branches of the service in which payment is by the piece, the hour, or the day. Nor is there any reason why it should not be applied even to employments compensated on an annual basis, where the work is of a routine, standardized character resulting in a definitely measurable product. As ex- amples of such employments might be cited the operation of card-perforating machines, addressographs, multigraphs, and the like, or the filing of cards or documents of a standard char- acter in files of large size. When, however, the attempt is made to apply the principle of payment for overtime, whether at regular or extra rates, to ordinary clerical and administrative work of the government, as is proposed by the Federation of Federal Employees, the question assumes another aspect. The work performed in these employments is not capable of measurement in standard units so that the daily output can be accurately checked. Here, if payment is made for overtime, especially if payment is made at rates considerably in excess of the normal rate (and the proposal of the Federation is for rates running from one-half to twice the normal rates), there is created a strong temptation on the part of the employee to make overtime work for him- 1 Sec. 1764 of the Revised Statutes reading : "No allowance or com- pensation shall be made for any extra services whatever which any officer or clerk may_ be required to perform, unless expressly authorized by law." There is, moreover, a specific provision relating- to the Washing- ton service, .providing "that if the heads of departments shall extend the hours of labor beyond the 7-hour minimum required by law, such ex- tension shall be without additional compensation." (Act of March 15, 1898, 30 Stat., 316.) WORKING CONDITIONS 521 self by slackening his efforts during normal working hours. It will be said, of course, and with truth, that a capable execu- tive will be able to repress any tendency of this kind; but it » would be a mistake to frame personnel policies always with a view to their execution by executives of the highest capacity. The experience of other personnel systems, as actually admin- istered, indicates that for the ordinary clerical and semi-ad- ministrative employments payment for overtime has the ten- dency described. There is another aspect, moreover, in which the clerical and administrative services stand on a different basis than do those employments which are compensated on a piece, or hourly, or daily basis. In these employments, employment is not secure but varies according to the amount of work on hand, and a diminution in the amount of work promptly results in the discharge of the proportionate number of employees. Hence it is in the nature of the employment that compensation should be proportionate to the output, and that overtime should be fully paid for. In the clerical and administrative services on the other hand a temporary lull in the activity of the or- ganization, which not infrequently occurs and which makes wholly possible a temporary reduction of the force without any impairment of the efficiency of the organization, is not in fact taken advantage of in this way. The employees are re- tained in service and though their attendance for the full work- ing time is required, the work proceeds at a reduced pressure. Instances of this kind are familiar throughout the adminis- trative branches of the federal service. It seems no more than just, therefore, that in these branches of the service oc- casional overtime work should not be the occasion for any in- crease in compensation. Leave Privileges. — Closely related to the question of working hours is that of leave of absence with pay. No uni- form rules regarding leave are universally applicable through- out the federal service. The most widely applicable legisla- tion on the subject provides 522 THE FEDERAL SERVICE That the head of any department may grant thirty days' annual leave with pay in any one year to each clerk or em- ployee: And provided further, That where some member of the immediate family of a clerk or employee is afflicted with^ a contagious disease and requires the care and attendance of such employee, or where his or her presence in the department would jeopardize the health of fellow clerks, and in exceptional and meritorious cases, where a clerk or employee is personally ill, and where to limit the annual leave to thirty days in any one calendar year would work peculiar hardship, it may be extended in the discretion of the head of the department, with pay, not exceeding thirty days in any one case or in any one calendar year. This section shall not be construed to mean that so long as a clerk or employee is borne upon the rolls of the depart- ment in excess of the time herein provided for or granted that he or she shall be entitled to pay during the period of such excessive absence, but that the pay shall stop .upon the ex- piration of the granted leave. (30 Stat. 316, March 15, 1898.) In interpreting this provision the Comptroller of the Treas- ury has ruled The act of March 15, 1898 (30 Stat. 316), and the acts amendatory thereof governing the subject of leaves of absence in the executive departments, do not entitle employees to leaves of absence as a matter of right, but simply authorize the heads of departments, in their discretion, to grant leaves of absence with pay within the limits therein fixed. In the exercise of their discretion the heads of departments may make the grant- ing of leaves' of absence dependent upon good conduct or faith- ful service, or, under proper conditions, may refuse to grant any leaves, and, of course, they make the matter of granting leaves the subject of general regulations. Such regulations, when duly promulgated, and not in conflict with the law on the subject, are binding on all employees concerned, who are chargeable with the knowledge of the existence of such regu- lations. (XXII Decision of Comptroller of Treasury, 103; decision of August 23, 19 15.) Each department has its own practice with respect to granting leave under the authority of the statute. In several departments, the full amount of leave permitted by the law WORKING CONDITIONS 523 is granted under reasonable formalities; whereas in others the regulations curtail the amount of sick leave by providing an allowance of 10 days a year which is cumulative, with the pro- vision that not more than 30 days may be taken in any one year. For establishments not under executive departments, special legislation has been adopted in some instances. For the postal service, exclusive of the Department proper, the provisions are far less generous. Prior to the recent reclas- sification of the postal service only fifteen days' leave with pay were granted to clerks and employees in first and second class post offices and employees of mail bag repair shops (1890, October i, 26 Stat. 648). The new provision (192O, June 5, 41 Stat. 1052), which provides for cumulative sick leave, reads as follows : Employees in the Postal Service shall be granted fifteen days' leave of absence with pay, exclusive of Sundays and holi- days, each fiscal year, and sick leave with pay at the rate of ten days a year to be cumulative for a period of three years, but no sick leave with pay in excess of thirty days shall be granted during any three consecutive years. Sick leave shall be granted only upon satisfactory evidence of illness and if for more than two days the application therefor shall be accom- panied by a physician's certificate. The fifteen days' leave shall be credited at the rate of one and one-quarter days for each month of actuaLservice. The provision for 30 days' annual leave, common to the departments proper, is generally regarded as reasonably sat- isfactory. To this allowance of 30 days are charged all ab- sences with pay except those due to personal illness, to con- tagious diseases in the family or to military duty in the Na- tional Guard on parade or encampment days. Thus if an employee is tardy or desires to be excused for a brief period, the absence is charged against his annual leave. Statistics show that the great majority of employees take each year practically the entire amount of annual leave to which they are entitled; and, as a rule, they are granted the leave when they apply for it. In certain instances, however, employees 524 THE FEDERAL SERVICE may be entirely deprived of their leave because of pressure of work, or they may be denied permission to take it when they want it. Sometimes this restriction applies only to a particu- lar person and sometimes to an entire organization unit at a particular time. As a result of the restrictions, the employees' organizations have advocated legislation that would make an- nual leave a matter of right and not a matter of privilege. The recommendations of the Reclassification Commission, in this matter, as contained in the bill submitted by it were that: Each employee shall be entitled to a leave of absence with full compensation of two and one-half days, exclusive of Sundays and holidays for each month during his employ- ment. . . . The head of the department shall determine when such leave may be granted to an employee under his control or direction, but any employee who has not been granted the leave to which he is entitled ... at the time requested may appeal to the [employment] commission, which shall deter- mine whether such employee shall be granted such leave and the time when such leave shall be granted and such determina- tion shall be final. The bill drafted by the Reclassification Commission also provided that in case of the death of an employee his estate should be paid an amount equal to the compensation to which he would be entitled by virtue of any accumulated leave, not to exceed 30 days. These provisions go as far as it seems wise in the direction of recognizing that the employee has a right to his accumulated leave. The Reclassification Commission's recommendations in re- gard to sick leave recognize the principle of cumulative leave. It would have such leave accumulate at the rate of ten days a year, with a proviso that not to exceed sixty days could be granted in any one calendar year. Statistics gathered by the Commission from representative branches of the service for the five-year period from 1914 to 1918 showed that the aver- age number of days' sick leave was 5.4 and that on the average 48.9 per cent of the employees took no sick leave; 32.9 per WORKING CONDITIONS 525 cent took 10 days or less, and only 3.5 per cent were granted the full 30 days. 1 The recognition of the principle of cumulative sick leave would represent a distinct step in advance over the present system of 30 days' leave without any provision for accumula- tion, but it is somewhat difficult to see a^good reason for limit- ing the amount of sick leave which an employee may be granted in any one year, provided he has earned it. Many private employers have recognized an obligation to care for their em- ployees when they are ill. They accomplish this by carrying them on the active roll during temporary illness and by retir- ing them on disability annuities if they are permanently dis- abled. Some foreign governments have similar arrangements, and the United States government has now established a re- tirement system which provides a disability annuity for any one who may be disabled after 1 5 years of service. The proper solution of the problem of sick leave lies in the direction of very generous provisions for bona fide cases of prolonged illness, with rigid supervision and investigation to prevent fraud. All the statistics of sick leave among federal employees that have been compiled show that the overwhelm- ing majority of the employees do not abuse the privilege of sick leave; and if the government should adopt a very liberal policy, such as is now pursued by some large private compa- nies, it would not involve a very heavy expenditure. The cost, doubtless, would be more than offset by the fact that a liberal provision in the event of sickness would be a very at- tractive feature to government employees whose salaries are such that they must manage their affairs on a modest, well or- dered basis and cannot easily provide for prolonged illness. Physical Environment, Medical Services, etc. — There is available no comprehensive survey of the conditions prevailing under this head in the post offices, customs houses, and other field establishments of the government in which physical con- ditions are likely to be below the standard. In the absence of such a survey it is impossible to state what the conditions are. * Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 93. 526 THE FEDERAL SERVICE As regards conditions at Washington, the Reclassification Com- mission reported : x Taken as a whole, government buildings in Washington are, it is true, generally clean and well kept, and toilet and washing facilities are sufficient. As regards such important features as ample working space, proper illumination, ventila- tion, and humidity, however, there is neither adequate pro- vision nor any accepted standard. Many illustrations have been brought to the attention of the Commission of working conditions which should be remedied and which must neces- sarily have a detrimental influence on the health and efficiency of the employees. In the field of medical inspection and the provision of med- ical and recreational facilities, practically nothing is done by the federal government for the employees. Here the practice of the government falls far behind that of many progressive corporations. The need for work in this line is emphasized by the Reclassification Commission in its report as follows : As an integral part of any comprehensive employment pol- icy, and more specifically as a means of increasing efficiency, the government should adopt a program making adequate pro- vision for the health and for proper physical working condi- tions for its employees which will enable it at least to keep pace with the more progressive concerns in the industrial world. To be of the greatest value, all work along these lines should obviously be coordinated and concentrated in a single agency having at its disposal competent medical officers. The Public Health Service, which is already handling some work of this sort in the Treasury Department, is in an excellent po- sition to function as such an agency. It is, therefore, recom- mended that the Public Health Service be charged with general supervision over all matters affecting the health of government employees in so far as these are connected with their official work. To exercise such supervision to advantage it should be specifically authorized and directed: I. To establish rest and relief rooms under the supervision of resident nurses and physicians. Such relief rooms should be equipped with first aid appliances, simple medicinal reme- 1 Ibid., p. 101. WORKING CONDITIONS ' 527 dies, and, if possible, a few beds. They should aim to prevent minor ailments from having serious results; save the time which would otherwise be required for the employee to con- sult a physician or go home; and improve the morale of the force. 2. To establish a visiting-nurse system with the following responsibilities : (a) To check up sick leave and unexplained absences. (b) To see that sick employees are receiving proper care and attention, but not to administer bed- side care or treatment. (c) To ascertain the occurrence of communicable diseases and to prevent their spread through the medium of other employees living with those who had become sick. 3. To conduct systematic periodical investigations of work- ing conditions in government offices, so far as these affect the health of the employee, including inspection of such mat- ters as ventilation, illumination, toilet facilities, cleanliness, etc., with authority to enforce the carrying out of its recom- mendations as to needed changes. Investigations of this sort might often be made to advan- tage in cooperation with the Bureau of Standards, which is in a position to be of assistance in such matters. 4. To conduct a systematic campaign of health educa- tion; to check up the health of individual employees with a view to improving general health conditions and to detecting such troubles as incipient tuberculosis, typhoid carriers, and defective mentality; and should encourage employees to pre- sent themselves periodically for medical examination. 1 With respect to the element of safety in the government buildings and structures, the Reclassification Commission re- ported that: Present conditions could be materially improved by the adoption of a safety program, which should at least meet the standard set by the more progressive States, municipalities, and private employers. The very fact that buildings owned, leased, or controlled by the federal government are subject to no other jurisdiction, makes it incumbent on the government to take the initiative in seeing to it that conditions are such as not 1 Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, pp. 102 ff. 528 THE FEDERAL SERVICE to endanger either the health or the safety of its employees. The few instances of preventable accidents already cited are sufficient to indicate that a reasonable safety program would save the government far more than it would cost. It is poor economy for any employer to expose his employees to unneces- sary danger, to say nothing of the human considerations in- volved. Such a program should be developed along three main lines — safe construction, safety inspection, and safety education. Some central authority, such as the U. S. Employees' Compen- sation Commission, should assume the leadership in the work. It should be empowered to employ a competent safety engineer who would correlate and exercise general supervision over the safety activities of the government, and who would cooperate with the various government establishments in the prevention of personal injuries among their employees. The Bureau of Standards, which is active in the development of safety codes and in the conduct of investigations leading to safe construc- tion, should be officially associated with the U. S. Employees' Compensation Commission in the work. 1 1 Ibid., pp. 104 ff. CHAPTER XV ORGANIZATION FOR PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION The organization which should be provided for carrying into effect the necessary procedures has necessarily received incidental attention in connection with the discussion of the several phases of personnel administration. The purpose of the present chapter is to bring together these several sugges- tions and discussions and, by integrating them, to consider in a unified way the organization which is and should be provided for the several branches of personnel administration in the federal service. Analysis of the Problem. — The question of the organiza- tion for personnel administration in the federal service may be considered conveniently under three heads: first, the dis- tribution of the several functions of personnel administration between the central personnel authority and the departmental or bureau authorities; second, the organization of the central personnel authority; and third, the organization of the de- partmental or bureau authorities. For the purpose of considering the problem of organiza- tion for personnel administration, the functions of personnel administration may be considered or classified conveniently under the following heads : first, the formulation of standard schedules of classes and grades of work and of compensation rates; second, the appraisal of specific positions; third, re- cruitment; fourth, the regulation of processes affecting par- ticular individuals in the personnel, such as promotion, salary increase, reassignment, transfer, demotion, dismissal, and the like; fifth, the promotion of measures bearing on no particu- lar employee specifically, but calculated to improve the health, 529 530 THE FEDERAL SERVICE safety, and morale of the personnel generally; and sixth, the suppression of political activity among the personnel. Organization for Recruitment. — In the field of recruit- ment, the question of the distribution of authority between central and departmental agencies is a simple one. The ad- vantages of a central recruiting agency over any system of departmental recruiting agencies is hardly open to question. A central examining machinery, which can be used for the service of all departments is manifestly more economical than would be a system of separate departmental agencies. Due to the wider field over which it operates, and its larger size, such an agency is capable of greater specialization along par- ticular lines of employment.. More important still, it is only through such an agency that complete assurance of impartial- ity in ratings can be had. The further removed the rating body is from the influence of the department or service for which recruitment is being carried on, the greater the assur- ance that personal preferences will not unduly influence action. There is, however, always a danger in a highly centralized recruiting system that the particular needs, and more espe- cially the peculiar needs, of certain branches of the service may not be accurately met. This may be due merely to a lack of intimate knowledge on the part of the central agency of those peculiar requirements. There is, however, also the possibility that the central recruiting agency, being in no wise subordi- nate to or under the control of the several departments and services, may tend to give too slight a weight to the objections and criticisms of its work originating in those departments. The central agency is more than likely to feel that such criti- cisms arise from an imperfect knowledge of the examining technique of which it feels itself the master. These disad- vantages of a central recruiting agency have been experienced, in a measure at least, in the federal service. In part they have been due to the inadequate force which has been at the dis- posal of the Civil Service Commission ; but the more intangible factor mentioned doubtless has also had its influence. The attempt should therefore be made to secure, in a more formal ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 531 way, the assistance of the several departments in the work of the central recruiting agency. A departmental organization for this purpose need consist merely of a committee of admin- istrative officers of various grades, acting through sub-com- mittees organized on the basis of the several classes of service involved. Such a departmental committee could give inten- sive study to the plans of all proposed examinations affecting the department before the formal adoption of plans by the Civil Service Commission, as well as criticism to questions or tests and rating methods actually employed. Out of such de- partmental committees might grow inter-departmental com- mittees, one of each major class of employment, which might perform similar functions. Whatever the precise development however, it is believed that in this direction lie important pos- sibilities for improving the recruitment practice of the Civil Service Commission. The process of recruitment does not, however, end with the promulgation of eligible lists. The determination of the particular list to be selected for certification to fill a particular vacancy, the selection of the eligible to be appointed from those certified, and the careful observation of the new ap- pointee during the probationary period — these are all matters in which the department has of necessity a greater or less de- gree of participation and for which a definite organization should be provided in the department. The extent to which such an organization is provided at the present time, as op- posed to the practice of trusting the particular administrative officer concerned with complete freedom in these respects varies from department to department. In hardly any department, however, does the appointment clerk figure anything like as prominently and effectively in these phases of the recruitment process as a capable personnel manager should and would. The Problem of the Examining Personnel. — From what has been said regarding the several types of tests, and their respective limitations and values, it need not be argued at length that the correct planning of the enormous variety of examinations necessary to meet the recruiting requirements 532 THE FEDERAL SERVICE of the federal service, and the framing of the actual tests, calls for a high type of ability; and that certainly so far as these examinations are applied to the higher and more important types of positions, the comparative rating of the candidates also calls for a high order of capacity. The development of an examining staff equal to these exacting requirements would thus seem to be the first essential of the federal re- cruitment system. In general two methods may be employed in the develop- ment of an examining staff. Either an independent staff en- gaged exclusively in examining work may be created by the central agency, or the personnel of operating departments, may be used as the occasion arises. From every standpoint the creation of an independent staff is the preferable method. Only if the recruiting staff is wholly independent of the ap- pointing department will" the examination system command the respect and confidence of the general public and, more particu- larly, of prospective competitors and applicants. This is not to say that it may not be possible to develop a system in which the personnel of the appointing department employed in ex- amining work is entirely free, in fact, from the influence of the department, or from other improper influence. The point is simply that, whatever the actual facts, such a system cannot enlist the confidence of the public to the same extent as does a system in which the examining force is entirely independent of the appointing department, and stands, therefore, in the posi- tion of an arbiter between the department and the applicant for appointment. From the standpoint of technical efficiency also the "pro- fessional examining staff, when properly recruited and de- veloped, gives results far superior to those obtained by the use of the personnel of the operating department. It is not commonly appreciated to how great an extent the planning of examinations, the formulation of tests, and even in a measure the rating of the experience and performance of the several candidates constitutes a distinct technique or a distinct art. The fact will nevertheless be vouched for by all who have had ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 533 experience in these matters, that an examiner who has both skill and experience will almost invariably produce better re- sults in the planning of an examination, the formulation of tests, and often even in the rating of candidates than a spe- cialist in the particular field concerned who is without ex- tensive examining experience. It is consequently possible to build up, in the course of time, a central examining staff of limited numbers that is capable of conducting, on its own responsibility and with ex- cellent results, examinations covering a surprisingly large and varied field. From time to time there arise, however, exam- inations calling for knowledge of some specialty which is be- yond the range of the permanent examining staff, so that it becomes necessary to employ temporary assistants. Here too, on the general principle of disassociating the appointing de- partment from the examination as completely as possible, it is desirable that there should be employed not members of the personnel of the appointing department but specialists from the business, the professional, or the academic world who have no connection with the service. Summarizing, it is vital to the success of the recruitment system that there be independent examining staffs adequate in number and in ability to conduct on their own responsibility the entire examination process for most of the positions in the service, and that there be available sufficient funds to make possible the employment of competent specialists outside the service for such examinations as are beyond the range of the permanent staff. Neither of these requirements has been adequately recog- nized by Congress up to the present time in making provision for the staff of examiners of the Civil Service Commission. The number of examiners has been kept much below what was needed properly to handle the great volume of work imposed upon it, thus preventing on the one hand as high a develop- ment of examining technique for the higher posts as is de- sirable, merely through lack of time on the part of the exam- iners, and, on the other, the development of a sufficient range 534 THE FEDERAL SERVICE on the part of the permanent staff; so that reliance has had to be placed to a greater extent than it should be upon outside assistance. Even in examinations that are well within the capacity of the Commission's examiners there has thus been necessitated, particularly for positions in the field services, an undue reliance upon outside assistance. Even more inimical to the development of an examining staff equal to the requirements of the classified service have been the compensation rates fixed for examiners. These rates, as fixed by Congress or as contemplated in its appropriation for the examining staff of the Commission, have been little above the rate fixed for the most ordinary kind of clerical duty. The salary of the chief examiner has for years been and still is $3,600 — less than that fixed for the chief clerks in some of the departments; and the salaries of his subordi- nates have been fixed at proportionate figures. In view of the utter inadequacy of these rates it is indeed amazing that the Commission should have been able to recruit and retain as efficient an examining staff as it has. The explanation is doubtless to be found in large part in the peculiar attractive- ness which the position of examiner in the Civil Service Com- mission has to a certain type of mind because of its central position in the government. The inadequacy of the permanent staff provided for the Commission by Congress has not been made up by adequate provision for the employment of outside experts. It is only since 191 1 that appropriations for this purpose have been granted at all, and from the first they have been and continue to be wholly inadequate in amount. As a result the Com- mission has been compelled to rely to no small extent upon the services of the personnel of the several departments. This practice has been recognized by the Commission itself as ob- jectionable for the reasons already set forth. Referring to the methods now used by the Commission in connection with the use of the personnel of the departments for examining work, the Chief Examiner of the Commission, in 1915, said: ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 535 Some years ago, owing to a very inadequate force, the commission was obliged to rely almost wholly upon experts in the employ of the government and often even to depend entirely upon those employed in the bureau for which an ex- amination was held. Although, as already stated, such help is still obtained to a considerable extent, the commission is al- ways represented in the rating of papers by an examiner trained in the essentially judicial function of weighing evidence of qualifications. In this way the commission is able to assume full responsibility for all of the examining work. Moreover, experience shows that an examination that will accurately meas- ure relative ability for almost any kind of work can best be framed by one, or under the supervision of one, who has had thorough training in the preparation of competitive examina- tions. This is often demonstrated by the fact that questions submitted to the commission by scientific experts in various lines need revision, for the reason that those who prepare the questions have not had experience in the preparation of such tests and the rating of examination papers. 1 It is believed that the Commission should make every ef- fort to eliminate entirely the practice of employing depart- mental experts for examining work. The Commission is in- deed open to the criticism of having failed to present the case for larger appropriation for this purpose with sufficient vigor to Congress. The same may be said, with justice, of the recommendations which the Commission has made from time to time for the increase of the salary of the chief examiner and his subordinate. It is believed that if these recommenda- tions had been pushed more vigorously by the Commission, and if the support of the National Civil Service Reform League and similar organizations had been enlisted, it would then have been possible to have made greater progress in this direction. In the four systems of formal selections which have been set up in the unclassified service — that for presidential post- master, for the consular and diplomatic service, for the Pub- lic Health Service and for the Coast and Geodetic Survey — 'Thirty-second Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- sion (1915), p. 21. 536 THE FEDERAL SERVICE the personnel of the department in each case participates in the examination process. The Public Health Service controls the examination exclusively; the Coast and Geodetic Survey also controls the examination for presidential appointment, but its choice is limited to persons who have already been certified by the Civil Service Commission. It is believed that the general position here taken in favor of the conduct of the examination process by a personnel en- tirely independent of the department has application to all three systems. Organization for Internal Administration. — The extent to which what may be termed the internal processes of personnel administration — promotion, transfer and reassignment, sal- ary increases, demotions, dismissals, lay-offs, etc. — should be controlled centrally has been very fully discussed in the chap- ters dealing with those phases, and need not be reviewed here. In general it may be said, however, that the principle of or- ganization to be observed in this field is that of decentraliza- tion, the central agency being employed or invoked only when the departmental machinery is thought inadequate or unre- liable. That the departmental authorities should always act in accordance with regulations promulgated by the central authority, and under strict central supervision. Nor should this supervision be" confined to the review of documents. Effective supervision can be exercised only by the use of rep- resentatives , of a caliber sufficiently high to command respect from the departments, who shall be free to participate in the discussions of the departmental authorities. Suggestions already made in the several chapters regarding the participa- tion of such representatives of the central agency, in the processes of promotion, service rating, and removal are illus- trative of the type of supervision which should thus be exer- cised. Organization for Classification of Positions and Salaries. — The formulation of standard schedules of classes and grades of service, and of the compensation rates attached thereto, is manifestly a function for which the final responsibility ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 537 should rest in a central, rather than in a departmental, agency. The central agency can and should obtain invaluable assist- tance, however, from an advisory body drawn from the depart- ments. This advisory body should be organized primarily by classes of employment, each of the departments in which a given class of employment is found being represented on the committee for that class. For special classes or sub-classes of employment found only in one department or service, the membership of the committee would be correspondingly drawn from a single department or service. Since the schedule of classes and grades of service and of compensation rates for such a class of service primarily concern only the one depart- ment, the central agency may give to the recommendations of the departmental committee for this class of service a weight more nearly controlling than is given to the recommendations of the departmental committee generally. Nevertheless the final responsibility for the establishment of the classes, grades, and salary rates concerned must rest with the central agency and should not be divided. The appraisal of specific positions to determine their allo- cation in the standard schedule is even more clearly an indi- visible central function. Even here, however, departmental committees could exercise a function of information and criti- cism that should do much toward reducing the possibilities of injustice and of inequitable appraisal. Organization for Determination of Physical Work Con- ditions. — The promotion of measures designed to promote the health, safety, welfare, or morale of the personnel is a function that naturally organizes itself along departmental, as well as central, lines. The central organization is needed for planning and coordination in this field, but the actual detailed execution should be left preferably to the several departments, which should maintain organizations of their own for this specific purpose. Organization for Elimination of Political Considerations. — The suppression of political assessments, political coercion, and improper political activity, being directed chiefly against 538 THE FEDERAL SERVICE the principal administrative officers themselves, must mani- festly be a central function. Dual Character of the Problem of Central Personnel Administration. — Analysis of the problem of central ad- ministration as set forth above shows that the functions per- taining to a central administrative agency fall into two dis- tinct categories : those having for their purpose to assist the several operating services in meeting their personal needs and those having for their purpose to supervise and control such services in the practical work of handling their personnel. As a recruiting agency the central service is nothing more than a supply service, one having, for its duty to supply the personnel needed by the several operating services. As a supervisory and controlling agency its function is to see that the operating services organize and operate proper systems for insuring efficiency on the part of their personnel, determining on a merit basis assignments, increases of salaries, promotions, tfansfers, and the like, and that those in authority are not actuated by improper motives in handling these matters. It is elementary that two distinct functions, particu- larly when the ends in view are of a diverse character, should never be combined in the same organization unless a positive case for so doing can be made out. It is evident in the pres- ent case that the attempt by the same organization to perform both of the functions that have been mentioned presents seri- ous difficulties in respect to the effectiveness with which each may be performed. Where the promotive or assisting func- tion, as represented by the recruitment of personnel, is car- ried on by the same agency that also carries on the regulatory work, it is difficult for the departments to assume toward that agency a wholly cooperative attitude. That this result actually has ensued in the case of the Civil Service Commission is hardly open to doubt. Generally speaking, the departments are inclined to regard the latter as a restrictive rather than a cooperative or service agency. The divorce of the recruiting .function from the. regulatory function would thus make' it far ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 539 easier for the central recruiting agency to develop a truly co- operative attitude toward itself on the part of the departments. In view of the foregoing the question is presented whether the present system of vesting both assisting and controlling functions in respect to personnel matters in a single agency, the Civil Service Commission, is not fundamentally wrong, and whether better results could not be secured by making pro- vision for two agencies, one to concern itself wholly with re- cruitment and the other with matters of general supervision and control. Even from the standpoint of the work itself, regardless of departmental relations, the independent organization of the recruiting work has a high value. From the standpoint of volume of work and of the force required, the recruiting work of the central agency is almost invariably far greater than the regulatory work. This has been particularly so in the case of the Civil Service Commission because its regulatory func- tions have been left comparatively undeveloped, while on the recruiting side it has occupied almost the whole of its pos- sible field. But even with a much fuller development of its regulatory functions, they would still be considerably less im- portant from the standpoint of volume alone than the recruit- ing function. The natural result of this situation is that the attention which must be given to the recruiting work by those in charge of the central agency militates against the fullest development of the regulatory functions and against their most efficient administration. An agency devoted exclusively to regulatory work and relieved from all responsibility of re- cruiting work would be able far more effectively and ade- quately to exercise the powers of regulation entrusted to it. One special aspect of this matter is perhaps worthy of mention. In the exercise of its regulatory powers in connec- tion with matters of promotion, transfer, and the like, the regulatory body necessarily sits in judgment, as it were, upon the efficiency of the recruiting process. Manifestly this re- sponsibility better becomes the regulatory body when that body is not itself responsible for the recruiting system. Moreover, ) 54Q THE FEDERAL SERVICE the regulatory body is then in a position to give to the recruit- ing system, at least at those points which are involved in this connection, an impartial criticism not now available, which should be most salutary and beneficial for the recruitment system. If the recruitment system be thus independently organ- ized, there would seem to be no need of placing it in the hands of a board. The function of recruitment is a purely technical one. A single ' commissioner, who would discharge substan- tially the same functions that are now discharged by the Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commission, but with far higher standing and prestige, on general principles, would be more effective than a board. The work of the regulatory authority, on the other hand, is judicial. It affects in an important way the rights and fortunes of individual employees and prescribes the regula- tions by which its own and departmental action in matters coming under its jurisdiction shall be guided. It necessarily exercises, moreover, powers of a legislative character. It is on all accounts proper, therefore, that a board of at least three be provided for the purpose. In view of the importance of the decisions to be made, it would possibly be better to have a larger board than three. A board of nine has been sug- gested by the advisory committee appointed by the Reclassi- fication Commission. , It is also suggested by that committee that the board be composed of an equal number of representatives of the em- ployees, of the administrative officers of the government, and of appointees of the President, the precise manner of selection of the employee and the management representatives not being specified. If a practical method of selection could be worked out, there would be much to recommend this proposal. It would enable the management and the employees to get their views before the regulatory authority, not from the outside, as is now the case, but within the regulatory body itself ; while at the same time the members appointed directly by the Presi- dent would hold the balance of power in any issue on which ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 541 the management and the subordinate employees might be at variance, through a divergence of interest, fancied or real. Regardless, however, of the size of the central regulatory body, new principles should be observed in its composition. It should be wholly non-partisan, and it should have a more permanent tenure than is now possessed by the Civil Service Commission. The present requirement of the civil service law that not more than two of the three members of the Civil Service Commission shall be members of the same political, party has not prevented that body from time to time from having something of a political character, though it must be said that some presidents, notably Roosevelt, have permitted the majority of the Commission to be of the opposite political faith over a considerable portion of their administrations. A truly non-partisan character in the Commission can be as- sured, however, only by establishing a position of permanence in office more firmly than it is believed to exist at the present time. This can be done effectively, it is believed, only by the application of the system now found in the organization of the Interstate Commerce Commission ; that of appointment for fixed terms, such terms to be overlapping, and with the removal power, though legally still unimpaired in the hands of the President, hedged about with the moral restriction of a statu- tory declaration that it shall be exercised only for reasons necessary for the good of the service and to be communicated to Congress or to the Senate. Finally, it would be well to provide in the act that the per- sons selected as Civil Service Commissioners shall be persons experienced in public administration. It is believed that were all these provisions to be put into effect there would be de- veloped, in a relatively short time, a tradition of permanence and non-political character for the Civil Service Commission that would result in a distinct improvement, not merely in the personnel of that body, but in the regard in which the whole system of civil service administration stands in the public estimation. Desirable as are these changes in the organization of the 542 THE FEDERAL SERVICE central regulatory body, their effectiveness must continue to be limited until an adequate salary is provided for the mem- bers of the board. The present salary of the Civil Service Commissioners, $4,000 per annum, is pitifully inadequate. Members of the personnel regulatory board, whatever their numbers, should receive at least a compensation as great as and probably greater than that received by the chiefs of any of the bureaus or independent establishments of the govern- ment. The question of whether the recruiting and regulating functions should be united or separated is the major question in the organization of the central personnel administration. This decided, the organization of the other functions of per- sonnel administration may be determined on more readily. The formulation of a standard schedule of classes and grades of service, and of compensation rates, is one which principally concerns the regulatory body, since it is that body which is to promulgate the regulations for and administer regulations for increases of salary, promotion from grade to grade, transfer from class to class, and the other varied ques- tions involved in the administration of a large personnel sys- tem, which should in every case involve a consideration of the standard schedule of classes and grades. So far, however, as the positions and grades in the schedule are original en- trance positions, the formulation of the schedule is of in- terest also to the recruiting agency, and provision should be made for its cooperation with the regulatory agency. The function of appraising positions and allocating them to stand- ard schedules is one which primarily concerns the regulatory agency. The recruitment agency is hardly concerned at all. The promotion of the health, safety, and morale of the per- sonnel is a function which does not bear any close relation to either the function of recruitment or regulation, nor is it ap- parent that there is any advantage in associating it with the organization scheme of either of those functions. The Pub- lic Health Service suggests itself as an agency that might have this matter in charge. ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 543 The last of the major classes of functions to be performed by the central personnel administration — that of suppressing and detecting political coercion and improper political activity in the service — is similarly a function pertaining to the regu- lative rather than the recruiting agency. Departmental Organization. — It would involve too great a departure from the purpose of the present work to enter into any detailed consideration of the technical problems involved in setting up and operating the machinery required in each department or service for the proper handling of personnel matters. It is proper, however, to point out that scarcely a beginning has been made by the several departments and ser- vices of the federal government towards the provision of the machinery that is required for the proper handling of this branch of administration. The existing offices of appointment clerks are for the most part but offices of record or for the formal performance of certain duties. What is required is that these offices shall be expanded so as to give to them responsibility in respect to practically all personnel matters. The appointment clerk should have a status and character comparable to that of the employment manager of big private corporations. It should be his responsibility to see that proper systems for assigning, rating, and determining the efficiency of employees are devised and properly operated. The ex- istence of such a departmental personnel manager, further- more, would facilitate greatly the central personnel agencies in the proper performance of their duties. CHAPTER XVI EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMITTEES The question of the place of organizations of employees in a system of public personnel administration presents itself in two forms: (i) The desirability of employees effecting organizations along trade union lines and in case of the forma- tion of such unions, the relations that such unions should have to unions composed of persons other than government em- ployees; and' (2) the desirability of the constitution by gov- ernment employees of committees having for their purpose to represent them in respect to making known their desires as re- gards their employment conditions. The first aspect of this question will be considered under the head of "Employees' Organizations," the latter under that of "Employees' Com- mittees." Employees' Organizations. — Until recent years the prob- lem of eliminating politics from the federal personnel system has been confined to preventing the politicians from using the personnel system for political ends. Within recent years, how- ever, the problem has emerged of preventing the organized employees from using their political power to compel the po- litical government to take action in personnel matters that is not warranted or demanded by administrative considera- tions alone. Although this problem is of comparatively recent develop- ment in the United States, it is not novel. Sooner or later it is encountered in every large public personnel system in which the employees have political rights and are permitted to or- ganize for the collective use of their political power. Al- though old and universal, the problem presents itself with varying force and emphasis in different systems because of 544 EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 545 the varying distribution of the political and administrative power in the several governmental organizations. In Great Britain the existence of "dock-yard constituen- cies" — that is, "navy-yard constituencies" — has long been rec- ognized. 1 The control of such constituency over members of Parliament, however, is much weaker than in a similar case in the United States for the reason that the English member is not irrevocably bound to any one constituency, since if de- feated in one he may seek election from another district. In Victoria the political power of the organized workers on the state railways became so pronounced and threatened so continuous an increase that the constitution of the province was amended so as to deprive all civil servants, including the railway employees, of their rights of general suffrage, sub- stituting therefor the right to elect a fixed number of mem- bers who would be officially recognized as representing the in- terests of the Civil Service. Existing Employees' Organization. — A large proportion of the federal employees are members of employees' organ- izations, in the nature of trade unions. In the postal service unionization is fairly complete, there being large national or- ganizations of postal clerks, of letter carriers, and of railway mail employees, not to mention an organization of presidential postmasters. In the service outside the postal department is found the National Federation of Federal Employees, com- posed of a number of local "Federal Employees' Unions" lo- cated at a number of different points throughout the country. The peculiar feature of the Federal Employees' Unions embraced in the National Federation of Federal Employees is that their membership is confined to no single occupational group and no single branch of the service but is open to any and every federal employee, other than postal employees, of whatever occupation and in whatever branch of the service em- ployed. In the smaller places all the federal employees in the locality are members of a single, undifferentiated local fed-, eral employees' union, and in the larger places, as at Wash- 1 See Lowell, The Government of England, vol. I, p. 149. 546 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ington, are found two or more distinct local federal employ- ees' unions, each one embracing a different part of the service. In addition to these organizations, which are distinctively for federal employees, a very large proportion of the federal service is composed of men engaged in mechanical trades who are members of the regular craft unions of their respective trades, precisely as if they were employed in private industries. Most of the plant personnel of the Government Printing Office at Washington and of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, and almost the entire mechanical personnel of the various arsenals and navy yards fall under this category. In addition a number of miscellaneous field employees found at various points throughout the country are members of the regular trade unions of their class. In certain towns, where the skilled mechanics of a given class are, for the most part, federal employees (as is the case in certain of the arsenal and navy-yard towns) the local craft unions are in effect unions of federal employees. i All the postal unions, the National Federation of Federal Employees, and, needless to say, all the craft unions to which the mechanical employees belong are affiliated with the Ameri- can Federation of Labor. It thus results that these federal employees' organizations are able, to a certain extent, to mar- shal behind the demands or requests which they make upon Congress the support of the American Federation of Labor. Legislative Activities of Employees' Organizations. — Until within the last few years, the attempt of these organiza- tions to influence Congressional action has been confined, with insignificant exceptions, to the postal service.! In foreign coun- tries also it has almost always been in the postal service that the movement for the organization of public employees and for the use of their organized political power has first devel- oped. \CThe industrial character of the postal service, as con- trasted with the administrative character of the work of most government services, the large numbers of men employed in identical operations, and their distribution over every part of the country, are the obvious reasons for this phenomenon, j * ' EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 547 t^ In 1888 when the bill providing an eight-hour day for let- ter carriers was before Congress, it had the active support of the Knights of Labor, then occupying a place in the labor movement similar to that now held by the American Federa- tion of Labor. The carriers were not then organized, but it was generally understood that in return for the support of the Knights, the carriers would support the candidates, both national and local, endorsed by the Knights. 1 // \\ In the following year a national organization of the letter carriers was effected, followed, two years later, by the forma- tion of a national organization of the railway mail clerks. Both these organizations, however, were beneficial in char- acter. So far as rhpy^develope d anyj nti erpst in rnrr jpgngatimi or working conditions/they'did so under the tutelage oFthe su ^rv7&5ry*Pfl5eew- e-f the p os^ mce_ d ii^rtni"ent. ""Even the sel ection of their national officers, .in, w hom the"actiy£3IreclIon of the organizations was vested, was largely influenced by the" department"* The organization of post office clerks, formed nin e years later, in iqoo. was of similar character. Although the general poHcvjoHhe three organizations men- tioned~w1isTrrarTr-paT5s1^^ employees—for- a— revision, oi the .compensation schedules in force was so insistent that the or ganizat ions perforce put their active support behind the bills on this subject which, were in- troduced in "Congress, beginning in; 1898., Despite the support of the^??meman~T^'eration of Labor, however, the organiza- tions found themselves unable even to obtain a hearing before the Horis^CS5nn^te^''T3Tr P us t Offi ces.' The chairman of that committee, E. F. Loud, was regarded as primarily responsible for the attitude of the committee; and an agreement appears to have been reached between the postal organizations and the American Federation of Labor to work for his defeat in the 1904 election. Doubtless largely because of this opposi- 1 For data on this and several other points connected with the early history of the postal organizations the writer is indebted to an unpub- lished manuscript by Benjamin Glassberg, in the library of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, dealing with the organization and political activities of public employees. 548 THE FEDERAL SERVICE tion, Mr. Loud was defeated. This represents the first in- stance, and one of the few instances, in which a member of Congress has been publicly singled out for defeat by the or- ganized employees. *v The activity of the postal organizations in connection with the salary revision legislation was regarded as improper by President Roosevelt, and, on January 31, 1902, he issued an executive order forbidding all officers and employees "either directly or indirectly, individually or through associations, to solicit an increase of pay or to influence or attempt to influ- ence in their own interests, any other legislation whatever, either before Congress or its committees or in any way save through the heads of departments under or in which they serve, on penalty of dismissal from the Government service." * It will be observed that this order, although obviously aimed at organized attempts to influence legislation, by its terms, would seem to prohibit the individual employee from soliciting any as- sistance from his Congressman for the purpose of securing an increase in pay. In this field, it was not very effective, though it did have some influence on the situation. Even with respect to the activity of organizations or organized groups it was not scrupulously observed; nevertheless, it constituted an irritating check on the activities of those organizations. By order of November 26, 1908, the prohibition was made more sweeping. It provided that no bureau, office, or division chief or subordinate in any de- partment of the government, and no officer of the army or navy or marine corps stationed in Washington, shall apply to either House of Congress, or to any Committee of either House of Congress, or to any Member of Congress, for leg- islation, or for appropriations, or for Congressional action of any kind, except with the consent and knowledge of the head of the department; nor shall any such person respond to any request for information from either House of Congress, ex- cept through, or authorized by, the head of his department. 1 Nineteenth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1902), p. 75. By amendment of January 25, 1906, this order was ex- tended to include also the independent establishments. EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 549 It will be seen that the outstanding addition to the earlier order was that the employees were prohibited from communi- cation with Congressmen or Congressional committees not merely on their own motion but also in response to requests for information which might originate in Congress, its com- mittees, or with individual Congressmen. By order of April 8, 1912, the preceding orders were made less rigorous nominally, not by withdrawing the prohibition of communication between employees and Congress but by pro- viding that such communications "shall be transmitted through heads of their respective departments or offices, who shall for- ward them without delay with such comment as they may deem requisite in the public interest." It needs but slight familiarity with the conditions of the public service to surmise that there would be few instances in which the employee, or even a group of employees, would venture to forward through the head of the department for transmission to Congress "with such comments as he might deem suitable," a petition or re- quest which they knew to be definitely opposed to the wishes of the head of the department or indeed of their immediate superior. The severity of the restrictions imposed by these orders upon the activities of the postal organizations and of other less formidable groups of employees, including the military and naval officers, led to a determined effort to secure their repeal by Congressional action. How this was achieved in the face of the orders it is not necessary here to inquire; but, by act of August 24, 1912, Congress provided 1 that "the right of per- sons employed in the civil service of the United States, either individually or collectively, to petition Congress or any mem- ber thereof or to furnish information to either House of Con- gress or to any committee thereof, shall not be denied or in- terfered with." 2 1 37 Stat. 583. This provision was a proviso to a section regulating the procedure to be followed in making removals from the classified service. 'The section also provided that the presenting by any such person or groups of persons (in the postal service) of any grievance or 55o THE FEDERAL SERVICE \^ Meanwhile, in 1905, a development of primary importance had occurred — the formation of a national association of postal clerks organized along trade union lines with the specific pur- pose of working for improved compensation and labor con- ditions, and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. 1 ' The organization of this association, "The JSalional Fed- erationof~Post "Office Clerks," represented a clear-cut revolt against the policy of "departmental tutelage and non-aifilialkirjL which characterized- the- -United -Association of Post._Office Clerks formed five years Taef ore. The "pQjtjdjjr^nizjJti^^ the late -iyneties in connection with, the rec lassification bills men- tioned aBbve, havTlfe^L-fiODtu^tousiy engaged in pushing legisIatio1Taftrenng^C OmGe n' ;atl ' n "j hpiirfi rif lahnr, -inrl wnrlring co riHItions m *tKe~service. ;For some years the policy of con- ciliating theaepartment was pursued more or less consistently by the officers of all the organizations except the Post Office Clerks' Federation, and they restricted their activity to the advocacy of measures not too violently opposed by the depart- ment; but in 19 1 7, 2 despite the well known opposition of the department, both the carriers' and railway -mail associations affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. A complete break was thus made from the tradition of departmental tutelage, and at the' same time was secured a most effective ally in the legislative battle. vTt may bevgpJtured tbj&the sj>ged grievances to Congress or any member thereof, should not be cause for reduction in rank or compensation, or removal. This provision, how? ever, would not seem to have been unnecessary in view of the general rule applicable to the entire civil service above cited. 'Already in 1898, in the Chicago Post Office, always a storm center in movements among the postal employees, the clerks had formed an organization and affiliated themselves with the Knights of Labor ; and, two years later, had transferred their affiliation to the growing American Federation of Labor. ' The United Association of Post Office Clerks also sought to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor but was unable to do so because the National Federation of Post Office Clerks, formed in 1905, was al- ready affiliated. Several unsuccessful attempts to amalgamate these two organizations have been made. At the present time it seems likely that the Federation will gradually absorb the Association. The Rural Car- riers' Association has not affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, nor, as may be inferred from the character of its membership, is it likeiy to do so. EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 551 and smoothness with which the bill creating the postal salary reclassification TonWiFsjorTffi" i^i^^anTlne^bill embodying the recommendations o f that c ommission in^^o'Tii ecame Taw,., were due m_no small,, nTjeggure.^jQ fop in.fj.wnirfr fflhkh~4ke t>- __ operating postal organizations and the American Federation, of Laborwere^cMe-ttrexeTt In Congress"."''" The influence in Congress of employees' organizations af- filiated with organized labor was first exerted in an important way, in relation to branches of the service other than the postal service, in 1915. In that year^junder _the_.urging-.of the American Federation of L a"bor, actings at the instance , of the International Association of Machinists, Congxesa, attached V totfie army apprppjjatio^bjlLa. rider- .pxohibiting_the_use of ^ any~m5hey~appropriated therein forjhe,. payment of any. em- ployee engaged in making tim&-studiesuox.J5.pc£d_tests. This provision was aimed particularly at the attempt of the Chief of Ordnance to apply to the arsenals the methods of so-called "scientific management." The provision proving only partially effective, it was superseded in 19 16 by an act directly prohibit- ing the use of the stop watch or any other time measuring device for the purpose of making a time study of any job of any employee of the government. Provisions to this effect are now attached to the annual appropriation acts as a matter of course. The comprehensive organizations of the federal employees not members of organized trades, outside the postal service, may be said to have begun in 1916. Prior to that time sporadic attempts at organization had been made, sometimes with an idea of permanence, sometimes merely to further specific meas- ures, such as retirement legislation. In some of the field services organizations or particular classes of employees had developed here and there, such as the association of store- keepers and gaugers in the customs service, composed mostly of minor political employees and having mainly a political character. None of these organizations, however, made any real impression upon the situation or endured for any consid- erable length of time, and in no case outside the postal service 552 THE FEDERAL SERVICE was the attempt made to organize on a national scale embracing the whole of the service. In 1915, federal employees in San Francisco founded a local organization that called itself the "Federal Employees' Union" and affiliated with the American Federation-of Labor — a step wholly novel for any organization of federal em- ployees outside the postal service. Its example was imitated in a number of cities and, by 1916, no less than fifty differ- ent local unions of federal employees had sprung up all affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. After affiliation with the national central labor body, the formation of a national organization of federal employees was a natural step and in 191 6 the National Federation of Federal Employees was formed, all the local unions of federal employees becoming constituent bodies of the Federation and the Federation in turn affiliating itself with the American Federation of Labor. That after so many decades of relative inactivity among the non-postal, non-trade employees it was possible within a few years to create an organization on a national scale is, in many respects, surprising. Undoubtedly, however, the time, if not ripe, was at least favorable for the development of a na- tional organization of the federal employees. With organiza- tion going on apace in every branch of industry and in state and municipal services it would have been surprising if some substantial progress in the same direction had not been made in the federal service. The rapid progress is to be attributed, however, mainly to the persistent efforts in Congress to enact a law, particularly obnoxious to the employee, providing for a minimum eight-hour day in the departmental offices in Wash- ington. This particular proposal immediately aligned with the employees' organization the powerful influence of the" American Federation of Labor, in whose program the reduc- tion of hours, even below the eight-hour limit, is fore-shadowed and which, in any case, would necessarily oppose on principle the fixation by legislation of a minimum number of hours. Supported by the American Federation of Labor the organiza- tion, even in its infancy, was able to make a demonstration EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 553 of effectiveness in preventing the enactment of this legisla- tion which immediately attracted the attention of federal employees the country over. The-ffrowth f t he employees' org anizations has been di- rect^ andiuimistakably reflected- in the "growing" influence which, they exercise upon legislation. ^ Particularly has this .been so i n_connection with the National F ederation oj .F^eja^Em- plo yees. Two imp ortant measures in the enactment of[ which the r^JXsas&jdJ^s^&S^^^^s^. distinctly felt were the act creatingjthe Reclassification , Cnnnm'""'"" ^ - th " ar * pgtah - lish ing,a retirement system, the first passed by the Sixty.rf iflh and the second by the Sixty-sixth Congress. The retiremen t a ct m^particular may bT said to havebeen f orced to passage by the employees' organizations .... Indeed, in the report su b- mitted to the Senate by the Committee on Civil Sery ire.and Retrenchment recommending t he enactment of that act, the committee made repeatedJrefjr^^, J tftJfa£ MSSSSL gi ve " to various provisions of t he bill by j^ .gpmmittee , of employe es whdSe^-gflvlce" 'vi J 'haa f *^ sougTitJ^ which commit te e was in_ iact designated by the employees' unions \ and made no referenc e wha tever to any support given to any particular provision o f the bill either by any admi nistrative nffi rpr nr hy ^ny nntcirlp source representing citizen untexest. The instance is all t he more significant because such impartial criticism as th at giv en to— tfte"*"measure by qualified outside organizations was sub- stantially unanimous in condemning its provisions as impro- vident and not developed uponja^ sound ^actuarial basis. 1 While the methods of attack of all the employees' organiza- tions is substantially the same, the National Federation of Federal Employees appears to have developed its tactics more fully than any of the other organizations, and they are accord- ingly worthy of special study. The constitution of the organ- 1 Repeated reference is indeed made in the report to the recommenda- tions made and data supplied by a certain employee of the Pension Office, the implication being that this individual had advised the Committee in the character of an impartial expert. In point of fact the employee re- ferred to was one of the most important and active members both of the National Federation of Federal Employees and of the so-called Em- ployees' Retirement Conference. SS4 THE FEDERAL SERVICE ization declares that its methods for obtaining, its object shall be "by petition to Congress, by creating or forcing public senti- ment favorable to proposed reform, by cooperation with gov- ernment officials and employees, by legislation and other lawful means." It is the "other lawful means" that are most sig- nificant for the purpose under discussion. What these are is well illustrated by an extract from the report of the legislative committee of the Federation to its annual convention in 1919: "Because of the fact that residents of the District of Columbia have no vote, the largest Local in the National Federation, that is, the organization of the employees in the Washington service, has the least direct influence upon Congress, The Na- tional Legislative Committee pointed out, therefore, to officers of the local the importance of organizing a back fire upon mem- bers of Congress by friends and relatives of the members of the local who are voters in their own states. The union responded promptly to this and is now making a detailed catalogue of its members according to Congressional districts. This will unquestionably augment the legislative forces of the National Federation to a vast degree." * Instances could readily be multiplied from the literature and the press notices issued by the organization of the employment of similar meth- ods. With 1 methods of this kind in active and energetic use in the hands of skilled union officers, and the officers of the employees' unions have unquestionably displayed a high type of ability in this field, it is easy to believe that the President of the National Federation is not overstating the case when he says that "in Congress, where two years ago a favored road to cheap popularity was sarcasm at the expense of the govern- ment employee, the few members who now indulge such tactics are ridiculed by their fellow members and repudiated by their political parties. The Federation's requests are listened to and its support is sought by members of Congress as a political asset." 2 1 National Federation of Federal Employees, Report of the President, Legislative Committee and Secretary-Treasurer, 1919, p. 5. 'Ibid., p. 1. EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 555 It_ma^ be hazarded, however, that the employees' unions themselves couH""noT have* built Tip the important influence which they now exercj&£~ through ,lh"Hr~ow*n memb ers alone, however well chosen and well executed the methods employed. Unq uestionaBlyX m ajor element jrT that influence has been the affiliationof^jhg^e^uxiioii8» with. the American Federation of Labor. Through this affiliation the potential power of that organ- ization stands behind every attempt which may be made by the employees' unions to secure favorable Congressional action in matters of hours, wages', working conditions, etc. The source of strength in the American Federation in Congress is common knowledge. It consists in the ability to encompass, or at least to threaten, the defeat for reelection of almost any member of Congress who comes from a district in which or- ganized labor is a factor, and in not a few states the ability to affect seriously the chances of reelection of a Senator. It is not commonly appreciated that in the more or less equal division of the voting strength between the two parties that normally prevails in most districts and in many states, an organized group, even though relatively small, which is able to throw the entire voting power of its membership on one side or the other of the scales, is a factor whose importance is out of all pro- portion to its relative numbers as compared with the entire voting population of the district or state. It thus results that to an increasing degree a Congressman, who represents a constituency in which organized labor is an important polit- ical factor, opposes the wishes of the employees' unions at his peril; and even a Senator cannot ignore them with entire impunity. v The National Federation of Federal Employees, up to the present time, has made perhaps more consistent and direct use politically of its affiliation with the American Federation of Labor than have the postal unions. Nor has it made any attempt at concealment of this cooperation. Witness the iol- lowing from an article in the official organ of the Federation by its President: 556 THE FEDERAL SERVICE What has the National Federation of Federal Employees gained by its affiliation with the American Federation of La- bor? i. It was the A. F. of L. that at the beginning of our organization's history defeated the Borland amendment * the first time it was introduced in Congress. Later the A. F. of L., under the leadership of President Gompers, was largely in- strumental in bringing about the veto by President Wilson of the Legislative bill because it contained the Borland amend- ment 2. It was the membership of the A. F. of L., through its affiliated body, the Central Labor Union of Kansas City, that cast the votes which defeated Representative Borland in the primaries in his district in 191 8, and prevented his return to Congress. This happened because we were affiliated to the A. F. of L. 3. It was the membership of the A. F. of L., through its Central Labor Unions in every state that asked Congress, at our request, to grant the war bonus, first of $120 per year, and then of $240 per year, which 200,000 federal employees are now receiving. Those central labor unions, representing millions of votes throughout the country, helped us because we were affiliated to the A. F. of L. 2 Right of Employees' Organization to Affiliate with Out- side Organizations. — The right of federal employees' unions to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor is, so far as the postal service is concerned, now recognized, at least impliedly, by statute. Logically the same principle ex- tends to all other classes of employees. By act of August 24, 1912, 3 Congress provided that persons in the postal service should not be reduced in rank or compensation or removed be- cause of "membership in any society or association or other form of organization of postal employees not affiliated with any outside organization imposing an obligation or duty upon them to engage them in strike or proposing to assist them in any strike against the United States." Since the terms of affiliation of the postal unions with the American Federation 'An amendment to an appropriation act requiring eight hours' labor by all employees. '"Our Relations with the A. F. of L.," by President Luther C. Steward, N. F. F. E., in The Federal Employee, November 29, 1919, p. 2. '37 Stat. S5S- EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 557 of Labor do not require them to engage in any strike against the United States, nor propose that the American Federation of Labor shall assist the postal unions in any strike against the United States, this condition in effect legalizes the affilia- tion of the postal unions with the American Federation of Labor. During the debate on the retirement bill in 1920 an amend- ment was moved in the Senate barring from the benefits of the act any employee who was a member of any organization of government employees which is "affiliated with, subject to, or a member of, or component part of, or acknowledges the authority of, any higher or superior body or institution of or- ganized labor." x The arguments advanced in the extended speeches made in support of this amendment may be reduced to four: first, that the American Federation of Labor had taken a position against the government in the steel strike and the coal strike, and that affiliation with the Federation, therefore, put the employees themselves in the position of being "against the government" ; second, that the American Federation of Labor was a class organization and that it was improper for a mem- ber of the government service to be affiliated with an organiza- tion which represented a particular class ; third, that the Ameri- can Federation of Labor was engaged in a political campaign against the Congressmen and Senators who had incurred its disfavor by their votes upon legislation, and their affiliation with it, therefore, put the organized federal employees in the position of conducting a political warfare against members of Congress; and fourth, that through this affiliation, the federal employees were attempting to coerce Congress into the en- actment of legislation favorable to their own interests. The first three of these objections are beyond the range of the present volume and merely call for a remark upon the 1 Congressional Record, April 2, 19J20, p. 5530. It can hardly be be- lieved that the enactment of this resolution was really expected or even hoped for by its mover. Its practice would have meant the exclusion from the benefit of the act of the overwhelming majority of the employees of the government. 558 THE FEDERAL SERVICE pernicious tendency to restrict still further the anomalous posi- tion of the federal employee by adding to the restrictions upon his political activity restrictions upon his expression of eco- nomic views. The last objection mentioned, however, is ger- mane to the present discussion. Right of Employee's' Organizations to Strike. — It now remains to take notice of a question which is now and again raised — the right of the federal employees to strike. Properly regarded, this is not a problem of personnel administration at all. The threat or possibility of a strike in any branch of the federal service is a symptom of a gravely defective 'system of personnel administration in that branch. Did there exist in the federal service a well designed machinery for the pre- sentation by the employees of their views, both on current minor grievances and on the basic questions of compensation, hours, and working conditions, and an impartial administrative board vested with adequate authority to rectify improper conditions, thus presented to it, the possibility of an attempt to strike wduld never arise. Even- under present conditions, where virtually no machinery exists, where in certain branches of the service the administrative officers have flatly refused even to discuss matters with the representatives of the em- ployees' organizations, and where relief can be had in most cases only through the tedious process of legislation, there has never (except perhaps in two or three instances so peculiar and doubtful as to be insignificant) been any resort to the strike weapon by the federal employees. If the experience of the past and an impartial estimate of the present situation may be relied on, so long as reasonably tolerable compensation and working conditions are provided in the federal service, there is no danger whatever that the question of the right of federal employees to strike will be- come a practical one. For the present it seems somewhat ideal, therefore, to consider the controversial, legal, and theoretical aspects of the question. Such discussion usually tends, more- over, to obscure rather than to emphasize the need of the de- velopment of a system of personnel administration which will EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 559 make strikes of federal employees improbable rather than il- legal. All this rests, of course, on the assumption that the wholly reasonable, not to say submissive, temper which the federal employees have consistently manifested, will continue. Should a different temper develop among any important bodies of federal employees, a different question would be presented. There is little likelihood that even so the question would be raised in any important way by any group of federal employees in the ordinary administrative or mechanical branches, since it is hardly conceivable that the government would be coerced by a strike or threatened strike of such a group. It is only in a few services, of which the postal service is far the most important, that a strike, if permitted, might actually bring the government to terms ; and it is only in such services, con- sequently, that the strike weapon would be likely to be in- voked by the employees under any circumstances. Should a disposition ever develop among the employees in such services to use the strategic power which their employment confers upon them to enforce demands which are rejected by the common judgment of the nation, there will be presented a fundamental political and social problem which lies wholly outside the sphere of technical personnel administration to which this problem is devoted, in the contentious realms of political theory and practical politics. General Conclusions Regarding Place of Employees' Organizations in a Government Personnel System. — A situation in. which the personnel Jegislation of Congress is shaped largely by the political power of the organized em- ployees is wholly improper. A just and equitable solution of the federal personnel question is not to be expected from the action of Congress or a committee of Congress susceptible to such coercion. The employees represent a special interest, and their demands by no means may be consistent in all cases with public interest. It is idle to retort that the public should organize itself as thoroughly as the employees to oppose such demands of special interests as are inconsistent with the gen- S6o THE FEDERAL SERVICE eral public interest. No general public interest is ever organ- ized as thoroughly or as consistently as a special interest. On the other hand, to condemn the employees for the course the yhavel aken would Beworse than futile. Without organiza- tion they were for years entirely at the mercy of their ad- ministrative superiors, and of Congress, and in large measure they still a re, and, a s a study of _sj ji>eeq«eflfr--pages* ; will show, their interests haye be^jif-f^ trrt i,u, vitaL respect^— ~QnJy through organization have some of the most essentia,Vimprove- irfentsol recent 1 years been "errectedT " Aga in, as l ong as p ower over personneLm atlers is wholly retain ed in the nands 01 Congress, the employ ees have no alternati ve but to organize and to attempt to secure "from Congress the enactment of what they regard a s their just de- ma nds; "-Con gress.,, how ever, fias heen nntnrinnslv slow to act i n personn el m atters when impelled merely by the force of r ight reason, but notoriously quick to act-Hzfa en its memb ers fear that the effect of their inaction may be reflected in the pmninc Hfrtinti rrtwrn,^ It is thus wh611y~nltural" "and in- evitable that the employees should seek to influence Congres- sional action by the quicker and more certain methods. The remedy for the wholly undesirable relationship that now exists between the employees' unions and Congress is to be found unquestionably only in the delegation by Congress of virtually all ( its present control over personnel matters to an administrative body, the members of which, on the one hand, would not be subject as are the members of Congress to political pressure from the employees, and on the other hand, would be free from domination by the administration. Despite their increasing success in securing desired legislation from Con- gress, the employees' organizations, or at least the National Federation of Federal Employees, have themselves recognized the impropriety of Congressional regulations of personnel mat- ters in detail. The National Federation has stood consistently for the development in the government of a central personnel agency vested with large powers over personnel matters, sub- stantially as herein urged. EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 561 N or must it be thought that because e xception hasj jgsp ta ken on prmclpIeToTfi e puliLical actt^viai^n uikttiees^gati- iz ations, critic ism is intended of the specific meas ures for ; en^etaienTthe tmp\av^,agSSBAifMM^^^^^^^^ ^s co mpletely responsible. With the single exception* of t"neT3e- j tirement Act, the measures contended for by the employees , , J4 .,M<-'«««W. S M*^'-winwWMk t- ijmiwi- j:iiu-|m__, jiff — * organizations have been in the main well considered, and, would long ago have Jbeen ^Jaced^, upon Ohe^&tatute. books .wjthout the intervention of the employees, h ad Congress had a correct understanding of th e persennel problem. Itis rather to the 111 " 1 future that the exception herein taken to the continuance of political activity on the part of employees' organizations is directed. Employees' Committees. — The desirability of providing some machinery by which the opinions of the body of the sub- , ordinate personnel on matters of personnel administration may be authoritatively brought before the responsible administra- tive officer is obvious. Where the service is small, a formal machinery for securing such an expression of opinion may not be necessary. As soon as a service reaches any considerable size, however, conditions change and the institution of formal machinery for the securing of an authoritative and general expression of opinion becomes desirable. In general it may be said that the system of personnel administration now in force in the federal service is auto- cratic. Only here and there has provision been made whereby the rank and file may be given an opportunity even to express themselves with respect to the conditions under which they work, much less to have any voice in determining those con- ditions. In the smaller services the absence of any formal pro- vision of this kind has not been felt keenly because the in- formal contact between the directing and the subordinate per- sonnel has served, however imperfectly, a similar purpose. In the larger services, however, of which the postal service is the outstanding example, the total absence of provision for confer- ence between the rank and file and the management which now exists is rarely found in the more progressive industrial con- cerns of the country. 562 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Existing Machinery for Employees' Representatidn. — The progress which has been made up to the present time in the federal service in the development of official machinery for conference is minor. In some of the administrative branches there has long been in vogue the institution of the staff con- ference, in which all the employees, or, as more commonly happens, all above the routine grades, are periodically as- sembled by the chief for the more or less free discussion of service matters. Aside from these, which can be regarded as falling under the head of conference machinery only by courtesy, the actual experiments in conference machinery in the federal service are so few that they can be specially enumerated. In the navy yards since shortly after the outbreak of the war the mechanical employees have had representation on the so-called wage boards. The function of these boards is limited to the collection of data concerning the compensation rates paid in similar employments in private industry. At this writing there has yet displayed itself no tendency towards the development of these wage boards into conference committees of general jurisdiction. Undoubtedly the most complete and thoroughgoing action in the direction of creating conference machinery in the federal service thus far taken was that taken by the Commanding Officer of the Rock Island Arsenal (Colonel Harry B. Jordan), on July I, 1 9 19. By an order issued on that date there was created in the arsenal a central council composed of three em- ployees from each department, this council to select from its number five members to meet with the commanding officer and four officers appointed by the commanding officer as the rep- resentatives Of the management, in a so-called Joint Confer- ence Committee. In addition the three representatives from each department are constituted a departmental committee to confer with the head of the department on departmental mat- ters. From all reports the institution of this system of organized machinery for conference between the employees and the man- EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 563 agement has had the happiest results not merely in eliminating causes of dissatisfaction on the part of the employees but in enlisting the employees as a constructive force in the manage- ment with resulting increased production. Particularly interesting in connection with the Rock Island machinery is the decision of the temporary conference com- mittee handed down on August 14, 1919, shortly after the act of personal selection of representatives to the council had been held: The Temporary Conference Committee having been asked for a ruling on the eligibility of foremen to represent em- ployees on the Central Council is unanimously of the follow- ing opinion: The Central Council is wholly an organization of employ-, ees, intended to represent the point of view and needs of the employees to the management. It would, therefore, mani- festly take away from the Council its representative charac- ter if members of the managerial force were upon it. Con- sequently, it is now definitely agreed between the Temporary Conference Committee and the Commanding Officer that no person having supervisory power with the power of recom- mending employment or discharge shall be eligible to act as departmental representative on the Central Council. The action taken in the Rock Island Arsenal has not yet been extended even to the other arsenals operated by the Ordnance Department, nor has the Secretary of War as yet seen fit to impose the same plan upon the other industrial services under his direction. In the non-industrial units there does not yet appear to be any significant development of official machinery for confer- ence with employees. A comprehensive plan of this kind was proposed, indeed, for one of the largest of the non-industrial units, the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, in 1919, but owing to the instability of the personnel of the organization at that time the proposed plan was eventually abandoned. The plan was .sponsored by the National Federation of Federal Em- ployees, and it is worthy of note that it provided for the selec- tion of the employee representatives not by the general body of 564 THE FEDERAL SERVICE employees but by the War Risk Branch of the Federal Em- ployees' Union. It further provided that the President of the National Federation of Federal Employees should be ex officio Chairman of the employees' delegation on the confer- ence committee. It is believed that this proposed plan embodies clearly the defects inhering in the system of conference machinery based upon unofficial employees' organi- zations. V Attitude of Reclassification Commission in Respect to Employees' Representation. — To the Joint Congressional Commission on Reclassification of Salaries in the District of Columbia belongs the distinction of having been the first federal organization to make definite provision for a general system of employees' conference machinery. At the outset of its work in the spring of 191 9, the Commission ar- ranged for the selection of conference committees of employees for the several departments and services and also for the more* important specific classes of employment over the whole service. Many of these committees, especially those representing par- ticular classes of employment, were active throughout the work of the Commission and rendered great assistance. In the formation of the central departmental committees, the Commis- sion permitted the officers of the National Federation of Fed- eral Employees to designate the employee representatives, in- stead of resorting to a general election. The Reclassification Commission, furthermore, has gone on record as definitely favoring a system of "personnel commit- tees," by which presumably are meant conference committees. The Commission recommends that "one-half of the members of each personnel committee shall be selected by and from among employees exercising supervisory powers within the department or unit thereof and the remaining members shall be selected by and from among employees not exercising such supervisory powers." 1 The Commission also recommends the establishment of a board to be known as the Civil Service Advisory Council to be composed of twelve members, six to 1 Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 142. EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 565 be appointed by the President from among the employees above the rank of division chief, the remaining six to be selected by the employees (two from among the manual employees, two from among the clerical employees, and two from among the scientific and professional employees). 1 It will thus be seen that, according to the recommenda- tions of the Reclassification Commission, while the "person- nel committees" are to be constituted on departmental lines, the employees' representation on the "advisory council" is to disregard those lines entirely and be based upon the division of the employees into groups by character of employment. Aside from the fact that the three groups mentioned are by no means comprehensive in their relation to the whole service, it is difficult to see why the Commission proposes an entirely new basis of representation in the council instead of allowing the council to be built up upon the departmental personnel com- mittees. Particularly does this seem inconsistent in view of the function which the Commission assigns to the personnel committees. The important part which such committees can and should play in the day to day administration in the sev- eral departments and subordinate units through the confer- ence with the departmental and division officers is apparently lost sight of, the recommendation being merely that to the extent that the Civil Service Commission "may deem proper, it may by rule or regulation provide that any grievance, dis- pute, or other matter arising in any department or unit thereof shall be conciliated by the personnel committee." But on the substantive matters of personnel policy and working conditions, the recommendation merely is that "it shall be the duty of each personnel committee from time to time to make sugges- tions and recommendations to the council." It is a question whether the function of such a committee should not be to make recommendations of this character first to the depart- mental officers concerned, the council being brought into play x lb\d., p. 141. The recommendations also provide for at least one of the six members appointed by the President to be a woman and one of the two members appointed by the three groups of employees to be a woman. 566 THE FEDERAL SERVICE only when the departmental officers find themselves unable or unwilling to meet the views of the departmental employees. An interesting minor provision contained in the recom- mendations of the commission is that "members of the council shall be allowed, subject to such regulations as the Civil Service Commission may prescribe, a reasonable amount of time away from the regular duties of their positions without loss of com- pensation when necessary in order to enable them to attend the meetings of the council or to perform other duties as members thereof." The Commission does not make a similar recommendation with respect to members of the personnel committee, though a similar provision is obviously equally called for. Machinery for Conference in the British Service. — In the civil service of Great Britain conference machinery has reached a high degree of development. As in this country the first development was in the industrial establishments of the gov- ernment. On July i, 19 1 8, the War Cabinet decided to adopt in principle the application of the recommendations of the Whitley Report, with any necessary adaptations to govern- mental industrial establishments where the conditions were sufficiently analogous to those existing in outside industries. Conference Committees now exist in virtually all the govern- ment local industrial establishments, and departmental confer- ence committees, known as departmental joint councils also exist in each of the departments having such industrial estab- lishments under its jurisdiction. There has not as yet been developed, however, any conference bodies covering all the departments of the government having industrial establish- ments. This fact is interesting as emphasizing the fact that the primary field for the activity of conference machinery is in the local establishments and their subdivisions, and it is only after the principle has been effectively applied locally that it can be extended with much result to the larger units — the department and the service as a whole. The standard constitution adopted for the conference ma- chinery of the several industrial establishments differs widely EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 567 from that established at the Rock Island Arsenal. In the first place the committees are constituted not merely for each department of the establishment but for each shop. In the second place it is provided that all these committees "shall con- sider only matters of a general nature." 1 Matters that are regarded ordinarily as exclusively trade questions, such as wages, piece prices, shop rules in relation to union rules, etc., fall under the jurisdiction of an entirely distinct committee known as the "Trade Committee." The final point of differ- ence is that both the shop, department, and works committees on the one hand and the trade committees on the other are composed of representatives or stewards of the trade unions having members employed in the shop. In short, the trade union has been accepted, as the sole and complete basis for em- ployees' representation. The emphasis upon the trade as opposed to the organiza- tion unit as the basis of employees' representation and of con- ference machinery is further emphasized by the fact that 1 The following are specified as being matters "of a general nature." (a) The issue and revision of works rules. (b) The distribution of working hours; breaks; time recording, etc, (c) The payment of wages (time, form of pay ticket, etc.) ; ex- planation of methods of payment. (d) The settlement of grievances; other than those of a spe- cific trade character. Holiday arrangements. Questions of physical welfare (provision of meals, drinking water, lavatories and washing accommodation, cloakrooms, ventilation, heating and sanitation; accidents, safety ap- pliances, first aid, ambulance, etc.). (ff) Questions of promotion, position of foremen, etc. (A) Questions of discipline and conduct as between management and _ workpeople (malingering, bullying, ■ time-keeping,; publicity in regard to rules; supervision of notice boards, etc.). («') Terms of engagement of workpeople. (/) The training of apprentices and young persons. (k) Technical library, lectures on the technical and social as- pects of industry. (/) Suggestions of improvements in method and organization of work; the testing of suggestions. (m) Investigation of circumstances tending to reduce efficiency or in any way to interfere with the satisfactory working of the establishments. («) Collections (for clubs, charities, etc.). (o) Entertainments and sports. {?! 568 THE FEDERAL SERVICE though no central body covering all the industrial establish- ments in the government service has yet been formed there are being developed trade councils having jurisdiction over all the trade committees of a given trade in all the industrial establishments over the whole service. The Ministry of Labour and the Treasury are also represented on these trade councils. 1 Separate provision has been made for the organization of conference machinery for the non-industrial branches of the service. To these the name of "Administrative and Legal Departments of the Civil Service" have been applied. It is in- teresting to note that here the first body to be created was the service-wide body covering all departments. This is known as the "National Council for the Administrative and Legal Departments of the Civil Service." In addition, de- partmental machinery has been set up in no less than 62 de- partments according to the latest information. It does not appear that the development has proceeded as yet to any level below that of the department itself. It is to be recalled, how- ever, that in the British government the departments are in many cases no more significant units of organization than are bureaus in our own system. Perhaps the most striking thing about the scheme of or- ganization provided for the departmental council is that mem- bership in associations of employees instead of employment is made the basis for representation. The employee representa- tives are to consist "of members of the associations or groups of associations having members employed in the department." It is provided further than even "where an association has members outside as well as inside the department the electors for the department shall be the members of the association in the department." It is specifically left open to the electors so constituted "to use as their representative any member or official in the association who is employed in the civil service, or if not a person so employed a full-time officer of the asso- 1 The Ministry of Labour is represented likewise on the departmental council. EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 569 ciation. The election shall in all cases be under the authority of the association itself." The National Council for the Administrative and Legal Departments, promptly upon its organization, appointed several committees, of which the most important is the committee on the organization of the civil service. This committee rendered on February 17, 1920, a brief report dealing with the whole organization of the civil service, a most interesting document, not only because of the substantive recommendations which it makes, but because it supplements the several reports of Royal Commissions on the Civil Service. In contrast with those reports, which are based upon extensive testimony taken by commissioners not themselves in intimate contact with the services, this report embodies the result of the actual ex- perience of the members of the committee in the Civil Service. Particularly interesting are the divergencies of opinion which developed between the members of the council representing the management and those representing the employees. 1 Composition of Employees' Committees. — Like most other organization phases of the personnel system the organization of machinery for conference with the employees should be developed along both structural and functional lines; that is to say, conference machinery should be provided for all the employees in each unit of organization regardless of the char- acter of their employment, and supplementary machinery should be organized whereby all those following a given em- ployment, either over the service as a whole, or in major groups of organization units, may also be enabled to confer regarding matters especially concerning that employment. The size of the primary unit of representation for which machinery ^shall be organized and the several intermediate bodies between the primary unit and the final body are matters which cannot be arbitrarily or categorically defined but must be determined for each branch of the organization in the light of conditions there obtaining. 'Civil Service National Whitley Council, Report of the Joint Com- mittee on the Organization of the Civil Service, 1920, Document No. 3804. 570 THE FEDERAL SERVICE , When the work of organizing political machinery for con- ference is undertaken, especial care must be taken that the machinery shall actually function, that is to say, that it shall really succeed in securing an authoritative expression of em- ployees' opinion. The danger in any system of conference machinery organized by the management is that even with the best intentions the management may so obtrude itself into the picture that unconsciously it dominates the selection of the employees' representatives and checks the free expression of employee opinion. To prevent such a result from ensuing the management should withdraw entirely from the proceedings at the earliest possible stage in the organization process. The time and place of employee meetings, at which representatives are elected and instructed, are not without their influence in this connection. The administrator sincerely desirous of ob- taining a really frank expression of employee opinion will so arrange in these respects that the presence and the influence of the management is felt as little as possible if at all. Another error to be avoided in the development of confer- ence machinery is the inclusion with the subordinate employees of the intermediate directing personnel. Invariably this leads to constraint on the part of subordinate employees. A com- mon form which this error assumes is that of the so-called "staff conference" in which representatives of all the different grades of employees meet together in conference with the head of the organization without any of the groups having had any opportunity to meet individually in advance and instruct their representatives. The Function of Employees' Committees. — The line be- tween mere representation of employees on conference com- mittees and their actual participation in the making of ad- ministrative decisions affecting personnel matters is, in private industry, not an easy one to draw. Even though the function of the employees' committee be nominally that of advice only, there is apt to be manifest an unexpressed but nevertheless real threat that if the wishes of the employees are not met a strike may result. To this extent any plan for conference with EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS $71 employees involves to a greater or less degree the actual par- ticipation by the employees in the making of the decision, the degree of participation being determined by the actual strength of the employees and their ability to compel acceptance of their demands if it is necessary. In the public service the same situation hardly exists except perhaps in the industrial establishments in which the questions raised by conference committees are in a great many cases not peculiar to the gov- ernment establishment but are general trade questions affecting also those employed in that trade in private industry. In the non-industrial branches of the service, however, the chances that the employees could or would strike are so slight that, for practical purposes, they may be neglected by the administra- tive officer. In these branches of the service, therefore, mere representation of the employees carries with it no implica- tion of actual participation in the management. If it is de- sired to award any such participation to the employee, it must be done expressly. The question of what further share, if any, may be awarded to the rank and file in the substantive administration of the federal business is one which, in the present state of affairs, is so entirely academic and speculative that present discussion is hardly warranted. None of the employees' organizations appears as yet to have developed even the beginnings of a program in this direction. Employees' Organizations as Representatives of Em- ployees before Management. — The dangers of domination by the management that are inherent in every system of conference machinery set up by the management itself has led some to take the view that the free and authoritative expression of employees' opinions can be obtained only when the management, instead of itself setting up conference ma- chinery by administrative action, enters into conference ar- rangements with employees' organizations or unions already formed independently of the management. The outstanding respect in which an arrangement of this kind is likely to be superior to a system set up by the management is 572 THE FEDERAL SERVICE that the independent associations or unions of employees may have, and usually do have, leaders who are not themselves employed in the particular organization unit, or perhaps in the service at all, and who, therefore, can meet the executives in conference with greater freedom and boldness on behalf of the employees. It is believed, however, that this view has far more validity in the field of private industry than in the federal service. Unless it is to be assumed, as it should not be, that the employees are prepared to back up the demands which they put forth in conference by a strike, it is clear that nothing can be accomplished except through a cooperative attitude on the part of the officer in charge. If such a co- operative and sympathetic attitude exists, there will be no reason ordinarily why the employees' representatives, even though they are themselves employed in the organization, should have any hesitancy about putting their demands for- ward. The difficulty in the federal service or in any public service, of according to any organization standing outside the service the right to speak for the employees is that membership in such organization almost invariably involves the payment of dues and, quite frequently, the liability to additional assess- ment for special purposes from time to time. Almost in- variably also, especially when, as in the case of the National Federation of Federal Employees and of all the postal unions, the organization is affiliated with organized labor generally, membership involves also a certain measure of financial, or at any rate moral, support of movements and principles which have no direct connection with federal employment. For these reasons it seems manifestly improper for the federal service to require of an employee, as a condition to his ob- taining permission to participate in the selection and instruc- tion of conference representatives and the like, that he assume these wholly external, and from the official standpoint wholly irrelevant, financial and moral obligations. Even aside from this aspect of the case, however, em- ployees' organizations are not in their nature fully efficient EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 573 as a medium of conference. In all such organizations there is an insistent pressure at all times to build up the organiza- tion. The result of this is to lay emphasis on those factors and forces which are common to the service as a whole and to neglect the peculiar and special conditions obtaining in the several • branches and subordinate organization units. It is precisely in these minor divisions of the service, however, that conference machinery most needs to be consistently "de- veloped. There is another danger here, moreover, that needs to be guarded against fully as carefully as the danger of official interference where the system of selection is official. This is the danger that the control of the employees' organizations will tend to concentrate itself in the hands of professional union officers. When a union is developed without official assistance and indeed, as so often happens*, in defiance of the wishes of the management, there often comes to the fore in union circles a type of aggressive individual who sees in the organization an opportunity for self-aggrandizement which would not be open to him in the service itself. Individuals of this type, however necessary they may be in the development of the organization during its formative period, are not neces- sarily or even generally the most desirable type of leader or representative. When employee representation is based upon membership in the organization rather than merely upon em- ployment itself, the tendency is, however, for this type of leadership to persist. Up to the present time the employees' organizations, how- ever, have furnished the chief medium of conference between employees and management in the federal service. In the industrial establishments, notably in the arsenals and navy yards, it has long been customary for the management to recog- nize the officers of the several trades unions to which the vari- ous classes of employees belong as speaking for the employees. In the Navy Department, this recognition has gone so far as to permit the officers of the several national trade unions affected to appear before the Assistant Secretary of the Navy to 574 THE FEDERAL SERVICE prosecute appeals from the wage scales recommended by the departmental wage board. For many years after the formation of the postal organiza- tions it was customary for their national officers to confer with the departmental officers at Washington, but this condition was permitted by the departmental officers to continue only as long as the organization remained under the tutelage of the department, advocating, at least publicly, no measures with which the department did not accord. About 1912 the rela- tions between the department and some of the postal organiza- tions became strained; and, with the increasing militancy of those organizations, and the increasing hostility to them on the part of the Postmaster General and his assistants, it was not many months before amicable relations between the de- partment and the unions ceased entirely. From this it was a short step to the position taken by Postmaster General Burleson of refusing to meet the representatives of the unions. Since about 19 1 6 the contact of the postal organizations with the department has been limited to the presentation of grievances. Outside the postal service, the organization of employees not in the recognized trades has developed only within the last few years. The National Federation of Federal Em- ployees, however, has had remarkable success in securing recognition from the departmental authorities of its right to speak for the employees. On a number of occasions its national officers have conferred with the heads of services and departments. In one case — that of the Picatinny Arsenal — it effected an agreement with the commanding officer to treat the president of the local union as the employees' rep- resentative for the consideration of all grievances. Perhaps the most striking success of the Federation in receiving ac- ceptance as the employees' representative, hqwever, was that accorded it by the Reclassification Commission, which au- thorized the President of the Federation to nominate a mem- ber of the organization from each department to represent the employees on the central departmental cooperating com- mittees set up by the Commission. APPENDIX TABLE I Approximate Number of Civil Employees in the Executive and Administrative Services of the Federal Government July i 3 1919 1 The White House 47 Department of State Departmental Secretary's Office 7 Office of Under Secretary of State 23 Assistant Secretary's Office , 6 Second Assistant Secretary's Office 9 Third Assistant Secretary's Office 10 Solicitor's Office 38 Office of the Director of the Consular Service 4 Chief Clerk's Office 65 Diplomatic Bureau .- 35 Consular Bureau 35 Division, of Latin-American Affairs 6 Division of Western European Affairs 16 Division of Mexican Affairs 7 Division of Far Eastern Affairs 7 Division of Near Eastern Affairs 6 Division of Foreign Intelligence 16 Division of Russian Affairs 6 ' Division of Passport Control 174 Bureau of Appointments 10 Bureau of. Indexes and Archives 181 Bureau of Accounts 20 Bureau of Rolls and Library 11 Translators 3 Office of Foreign Trade Adviser 51 Office of Adviser on Commercial Treaties 3 i Law Editor's Office 2 War Trade Board Section 200 Total : Departmental 951 1 Official Register of the United States, 1919. 575 576 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Department of State — Continued Foreign Service Diplomatic Service (approximate) 132 Consular Service (approximate) 936 Total : Foreign Service (approximate) 1,068 Total: Department of State (approximate) 2,019 Treasury Department Departmental Secretary's Office 33 Division of Appointments 22 Auditor for the Interior Department 89 Auditor for the Navy Department 232 Auditor for the Post Office Department 551 Auditor for the State and Other Departments 106 Auditor for the Treasury Department 192 Auditor for the War Department 966 Division of Bookkeeping and Warrants 51 Chief Clerk's Office 913 Coast Guard 56 Comptroller of the Currency 165 Comptroller of the Treasury 63 Division of Customs 43 Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue 4,088 Federal Farm Loan Bureau 71 Division of Loans and Currency 2,204 Bureau of the Mint 13 Public Health Service 61 Register of the Treasury 554 Secret Service Division 10 Office of the Supervising Architect 215 Office of the Treasurer of the United States 1,095 Bureau of War Risk Insurance "11,268 Bureau of Engraving and Printing 6,779 War Savings Division 102 Disbursing Clerk 17 Division of Mails and Files 9 Division of Printing and Stationery 28 Division of Public Moneys 23 Section of Surety Bonds 7 Secretary's Bond Roll 284 Total : Departmental 30,310 'As returned October 15, 1919. APPENDIX 577 Treasury Department — Continued Field Service Customs Service (approximate) 6,500 Internal Revenue Service (approximate) 9,9^7 Public Health Service (approximate) 2,500 Coast Guard Service (approximate) 5,023 Subtreasury Service 320 Custodian- Janitor Service (approximate) 5»5°° Public Building Service (approximate) 120 Mint and Assay Service (approximate) 700 National Bank Examiners, Receivers, Attorneys, etc., (ap- proximate) 7°° Total : Field Service 3!.330 Total: Treasury Department (approximate) 61,640 Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General (including Bureau of Investigation) 1,020 Special assistant attorneys 200 Offices of United States attorneys 5 10 Office of United States marshals 800 Customs Division 20 National Training School "for Boys 62 Penitentiaries 3 10 United States court officials and employees (including about 200 justices, judges, officials, and employees of courts in the District of Columbia, connected with or under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice) (approximate) 2,800 Total: Department of Justice (approximate) 5.7 2 2 War Department Departmental Office of the Secretary of War 397 Office of the Chief of Staff (including War College) .-. 444 The Adjutant General's Office 4.532 Office of the Chief of Coast Artillery 30 Militia Bureau 37 Office of the Inspector General 34 Office of the Judge Advocate General 125 Office of the Quartermaster General, Director of Pur- chase and Storage I >9 1 & Construction Division I » I 97 Office of the Chief of the Motor Transport Corps 442 Office of the Surgeon General 603 578 THE FEDERAL SERVICE War Department — Continued Departmental — Continued Office of the Chief of Engineers 192 Office of the Chief of Ordnance I >537 Office of the Chief Signal Officer 209 Office of the Director of Air Service 1.474 Bureau of Insular Affairs 63 Office of the Director of the Chemical Warfare Service 150 War Credits Board 3 Total : Departmental 13.387 Field Service Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Service 59>7°6 Transportation Service 361 Finance Service 2,110 Real Estate Service 112 Medical Department '. 3.691 , Engineer Department 24,030 Ordnance Department 44,964 Signal Service 841 Air Service 7,223 Motor Transport Corps J 7.46i Chemical Warfare Service 926 Construction Division 19,670 Tank Corps 4 Military Headquarters ' 68 Board of Ordnance and Fortification 1 United States Military Academy 183 National Military Park Commissions 166 Alaska Road Commission '. 349 Lincoln Farm Commission "3 Total : Field Service 181,869 Total : War Department (as of August 1, 1919) . . 195,256 .Navy Department Departmental Office of the Secretary 106 Office of the Solicitor 16 Office of Naval Records and Library 17 Office of Judge Advocate General 22 Office of Naval Intelligence 18 Hydrographic Office 142 Naval Observatory 46 Nautical Almanac Office 15 APPENDIX 579 Navy Department — Continued Departmental — Continued Bureau of Navigation I4 g Bureau of Steam Engineering 214 Bureau of Construction and Repair 322 Bureau of Ordnance 8 4 Bureau of Supplies and Accounts 448 Bureau of Medicine and Surgery 34 Bureau of Yards and Docks 257 Office of Chief of Naval Operations 71 Office of General Board 7 Office of Board of Inspection and Survey 15 Office of Compensation Board 13 Office of Naval Examining Board 4 Office of Naval Consulting Board 1 Navy Allotment Office 29 Navy Disbursing Office 117 Office of Director of Naval Communications 23 Total : Departmental 2,166 Field Service Navy yards and shore stations (approximate) 165,622 Total : Navy Department (approximate) 107,788 Post Office Department Office of the Postmaster General Department i>336 Post office inspectors 422 Clerks at headquarters, Division of Post Office Inspectors 100 Total : Office of the Postmaster General 1,858 Office of the First Assistant Postmaster General Department ~ I2 Postmasters : First-class 665 Second-class 2,539 Third-class 7,621 Fourth-class 42,259 Assistant Postmasters 2,648 Clerks First and second class offices 44,681 Third-class offices (estimated) 13,000 Fourth-class offices (estimated) 42,259 580 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Post Office Department — Continued Office of the First Assistant Postmaster General — Continued In charge of contract stations S» I 7o City letter carriers 35,024 Watchmen, messengers, laborers, printers, etc 1,931 Screen^wagon contractors 261 Mail messengers 8,589 Motor-vehicle employees 1,809 Total : Office of the First Assistant Postmaster Gen- eral 208,468 Office of the Second Assistant Postmaster General Department 114 Railway Mail Service: Officers : , 142 Railway postal clerks 17,916 Substitute railway postal clerks 2,770 Steamboat contractors 262 Air mail employees 164 Star route contractors in Alaska 40 Total: Office of the Second Assistant Postmaster General 21,408 Office of the Third Assistant Postmaster General Department 15 Stamped-envelope agency 11 Total: Office of the Third Assistant Postmaster General 26 Office of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General Department 7 Equipment shops 274 Shipment of supplies 17 Rural carriers .". 43, 111 Village carriers 845 Motor-truck drivers and mechanics 50 Traveling mechanicians 3 Star route contractors 10,773 Total: Office of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General 55,o8o Total ; Post Office Department 286,840 APPENDIX 581 Department of the Interior Office of the Secretary 577 Office of the Solicitor 45 General Land Office and Land Service 1,381 Office of Indian Affairs and Indian Service (approxi- mate) 5,835 Pension Office 904 Patent Office 951 Bureau of Education and Alaska Service 274 Geological Survey 930 Reclamation Service 3,305 Bureau of Mines 774 Office of Superintendent of Capitol Building and Grounds 306 Alaskan Engineering Commission (approximate) 2,064 National Park Service, and Parks and Reservations .... 247 St. Elizabeth's Hospital 726 Freedmen's Hospital 111 Howard University 65 Columbia Institution for the Deaf 67 Office of Recorder of Deeds 42 Office of Register of Wills 34 Territorial — Alaska (19) and Hawaii (3) 22 Total : Department of the Interior 18,660 Department of Agriculture Office of the Secretary 474 Office of Farm Management 148 Weather Bureau 952 Bureau of Animal Industry 4,763 Bureau of Plant Industry 1,735 Forest Service 2,835 Bureau of Chemistry 683 Bureau of Soils 164 Bureau of Entomology 4^5 Bureau of Biological Survey 160 Division of Publications 178 Bureau of Crop Estimates 214 States Relations Service 4 2 ° Library 34 Bureau of Public Roads 613' Division of Accounts and Disbursements 36 Insecticide and Fungicide Board 55 Federal Horticultural Board 122 Bureau of Markets 1,567 Temporary Employees 407 582 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Department of Agriculture — Continued Miscellaneous (Includes collaborators, cooperative agents, special meteorological observers, etc.) 6,987 Total : Department of Agriculture 22,972 Department of Commerce Office of the Secretary 183 Bureau of the Census 1,348 Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce 305 Bureau of Standards • 996 Bureau of Fisheries 428' Bureau of Lighthouses S,8i8 Coast and Geodetic Survey 942 Bureau of Navigation 204 Steamboat-Inspection Service 408 Total : Department of Commerce 10,632 Department of Labor Office of the Secretary 113 Bureau of Labor Statistics 214 Bureau of Immigration 65 Immigration Service at large 1,326 Division of Information 6 Contract Labor 44 Children's Bureau 81 Children's Bureau at large 126 Bureau of Naturalization 75 Naturalization Service at large 156 United States Employment Service 186 United States Employment Service at large ■ 1,269 Women in Industry 14 Total : Department of Labor 3,675 Interstate Commerce Commission Offices of the Commissioners 28 Office of the Secretary 22 Car Service 2 Carriers' Accounts ' 86 Office of the Chief Examiner 54 Correspondence and Claims 27 Disbursements and Accounts 18 Dockets 23 Documents 6 Fifteenth Section Board 20 APPENDIX ' 583 Interstate Commerce Commission — Continued Fourth Section Board 1 4 Indices 6 Inguiry ''"' lg Law 6 Library „ , Locomotive Inspection 76 Mails and Files 44 Printing Section 2 Safety «e Statistics 85 Stenography 40 Supplies 70 Tariffs n8 Valuation 1,380 Total : Interstate Commerce Commission 2,214 Civil Service Commission Office of the Commission 11 Chief Examiner's Office 3 Application Division 54 Appointment Division 96 Examining Division 68 Custodian Service 25 Field Force 49 Total : Civil Service Commission 306 Federal Reserve Board Office of members of board 9 Office of the Secretary 31 Office of Counsel 9 Division of Audit and Examination 26 Division of Statistics 32 Division of Analysis and Research 10 Division of Architecture 1 Division of Issue 49 Total : Federal Reserve Board 167 Federal Trade. Commission Office of Commissioners 9 Administrative Department 101 Economic Department 162 Legal Department 63 Total : Federal Trade Commission 335 584 THE FEDERAL SERVICE United States Shipping Board (including Emergency Fleet Corporation) Office of the Shipping Board 933 Emergency Fleet Corporation » a 6,458 Division of Operations i»73 2 Division of the Comptroller 1,948 Total: United States Shipping Board (including Emergency Fleet Corporation) 11.071 The Panama Canal Washington Office 107 United States, outside District of Columbia 31 In the Canal Zone (estimated) : Silver Gold Department Force Force Operation and maintenance 8,880 1,720 10,600 Supply 4,443 382 4,825 Accounting 14 193 207 Health , 1,038 204 1,242 Executive 198 384 582 Total 14,573 2,883 17,456 Total : The Panama Canal 17,594 Government Printing Office Office of the Public Printer 1 Office of the Deputy Public Printer 3 Office of the Chief Clerk 27 Office of the Purchasing Agent 17 Office of the Accountant 54 Computing Division 33 Emergency Hospital Section" 3 Office of the Superintendent of Documents 213 Office of the Superintendent of Work 49 Office of the Foreman of Printing 14 Delivery Section 41 White House detail 6 Proof Section v 304 Linotype Section , . . . 338 Monotype Section 500 Hand Section 222 Job Section 116 a Includes only employees of administrative and executive divisions, and excludes mechanics and other employees of the various shipyards. APPENDIX 585 Government Printing Office — Continued Money-order Section 16 Foundry Section 118 Plate-vault Section 16 Library of Congress Branch Printing Section 25 Press Division 626 Postal-card Section 36 Office of Foreman of Building 25 Forwarding and Finishing Section 401 Pamphlet-binding Section 659 Ruling and Sewing Section 293 Library of Congress Branch Binding Section 73 Office of Superintendent of Building 35 Watch-force Section 67 Engineer's Section 63 Electrical Section 79 Machine-shop Section 35 Carpenter and Paint Shop Section 25 Sanitary Section 77 Stores Division 136 Congressional Record 7 Metal Section H Legislative detail 9 Total : Government Printing Office .' . 4.773 Smithsonian Institution National Museum 3 2 7 International Exchanges 16 Bureau of American Ethnology 17 National Zoological Park 59 . Astrophysical Observatory 8 International Catalogue of Scientific Literature 6 Total : Smithsonian Institution 433 Alien Property Custodian Office of Alien Property Custodian 3 Office of Managing Director 2 Bureau of Administration 99 Bureau of Investigation r 5 Bureau of Trusts I21 Bureau of Law 43 Bureau of Sales 45 Total : Alien Property Custodian 328 586 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Other Independent Establishments, Boards, Commissions, etc. ' Bureau of Efficiency 24 United States Tariff Commission 54 Employees' Compensation Commission 49 Federal Board for Vocational Education 2,441 Council of National Defense 91 Office of the Superintendent of the State, War, and Navy Building 1,806 Miscellaneous boards, commissions, etc. (Board of Mediation and Conciliation, International (Canadian) Boundary Commission, International High Commission — United States Section, International Joint Commis- sion of the United States and Canada, Commission of Fine Arts, Arlington Memorial Amphitheater Commis- sion, Lincoln Memorial Commission, Commission on Memorial to Women of the Civil War, and United States Botanic Garden) a 158 Total: Other Independent Establishments, Boards, Commissions, etc 4,623 Grand Total: Executive and Administrative Serv- ices (approximate) 757j°95 a Does not include officers and members who serve without compensa- tion. TABLE II Extent of the Classified Service in Greater New York 1 Service Assay Office Board of General Appraisers . Bureau of Animal Industry Custodian Service: Custom house building Barge office Appraisers stores Courthouse and post office New post office building . . Brooklyn post office Total: Custodian Service Supervi- sory, tech- nical and cler- ical Sub- clerical 32 So iSi 2 3 1 2 10 12 7 14 5 *3 23 13 9 77 Trades 42 33 7 17 19 6 11 93 Total 86 57 152 49 12 32 45 20 22 180 "Thirtieth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1913), p. 173. APPENDIX 587 Extent of the Classified Service New York — Continued in Greater Customs Service: 1,164 438 154 105 390 321 15 10 5 5 i,559 764 169 *i5 Naval Office Surveyor's Office Total : Customs Service . . . 1,861 736 10 2,607 Depot Quartermaster, United States 87 25 46 45 39 68 5 7 4 1 33 12 20 188 United States attorney's office, southern district, New York .... United States Engineer's Office : 30 65 69 40 Third district Total: United States Engi- 130 12 32 174 Headquarters, Eastern Depart- ment, United States Army Immigration Service 26 249 4 2 6 7 127 1 26 7 60 26 436 5 Internal Revenue Service: First district Second district 32 14 Third district Total : Internal Revenue 15 33 ,, 48 Lighthouse Service, third district -37 12 449 10 11,021 11 48 ' 3 351 14 34 88 6 10 11 13 86 7 152 11 2 27 2 213 3,334 26 10 17 *3 261 25 3,869 43 11,031 163 76 3 351 16 Public Health Service Quartermaster, United States Army, Eastern Department . . . Radio Service, Inspector's Office . Railway Mail Service, Second Di- Signal Office, United States Army, Eastern Department Steamboat Inspection Service .... Superintendent of Public Buildings United States Weather Bureau . . 34 "5 19 12 14,734 i,39o 3,883 20,007 588 THE FEDERAL SERVICE TABLE III Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 1 Service and Class (where number in class is 100 or more) 's CO E Sex not reported AH Services 78,133 29,409 48,628 96 Services involving Clerical, Office, or 54,"5 I4,6l0 39,431 74 1. Total for Classes having 100 or more in the Administrative and Supervisory Clerical 37i 349 21 1 Junior Clerical Adminis- 2. Total for Classes having 100 or more in the Department Publications and Informa- 221 150 383 205 144 "5 16 5 268 1 Junior Information Clerk 105 104 174 6,042 38 21 56 3,149 67 83 118 2,889 3. Total for Classes having 100 or more in the Fiscal and 4 Under Accounting Clerk . . . Junior Accounting Clerk . . . Senior Accounting Clerk . . . Principal Accounting Clerk. Income Tax Audit Clerk . . . Junior Income Tax Account- 128 1,361 2,130 647 231 482 243 188 267 365 128 302 817 509 216 284 192 109 257 335 1,056 1,312 138 15 198 5i 79 10 30 1 Associate Income Tax Ac- From unpublished data in the files of the Reclassification Commission. APPENDIX 589 Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 — Continued 4. Total for Classes having 100 or more in the Mail, File, and 17,742 3,519 14,200 23 157 i,«3 106 441 10,841 2,74i 522 100 485 682 138 202 214 3,392 20 207 66 186 1,674 600 273 85 115 126 60 Si 56 2,873 : 137 904 40 253 9^55 2,137 248 14 369 556 78 151 158 503 Under File Clerk 2 Junior File and Record Clerk Senior File and Record Clerk (Group) Principal File and Record 12 4 1 Head File and Record Clerk 1 Junior Mail Routing Clerk . Senior Mail Routing Clerk . Principal Mail Routing Clerk Junior Mail Despatching Clerk Senior Mail Despatching Clerk 5. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Messenger 1 16 Junior Messenger 1,136 i,95i 305 5,546 856 1,721 296 1,120 274 222 7 4,418 6 8 6. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Miscellaneous 2 8 594 1,406 713 158 383 662 I5S 894 58i 112 321 390 143 15 10 77 52 482 1,081 322 15 383 647 144 815 529 4 1 Principal- Clerk (Group) .. 1 2 59° THE FEDERAL SERVICE Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 — Continued 7. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Office Appli- ance Operating Service . i,572 290 1,278 4 Address Plate Verifier Address Plate File Clerk . . Principal Address Machine Clerk Multigraph Operator Adding Machine Operator . Calculating Machine Oper- 8. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Personnel Junior Personnel Clerk Senior Personnel Clerk Under Time and Pay Roll Clerk Junior Time and Pay Roll Clerk 9. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Specialized 23S 135 232 170 116 122 247 315 951 256 156 260 279 154 8 2 16 54 93 78 30 9 195 56 72 22 45 131 226 133 216 116 21 44 217 305 756 200 -84 238 234 23 1 2 1 Senior Transportation Rate Clerk 10. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Supply and 154 2,171 131 994 23 i,i77 Junior Property Accounts Junior Purchasing Office Clerk Junior Publications Dis- 290 121 169 612 169 57 35 81 127 119 233 86 88 485 50 Junior Stores Clerk (Mili- Senior Stores Clerk (Mili- APPENDIX S9i Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 — Continued Under Supplies Clerk Junior Supplies Clerk . Senior Supplies Clerk 11. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Telephone and Telegraph Operating Serv- ice 12. Junior Telephone Operator . Total for classes having 100 or more in the Typing, Stenographic, Correspond- ence and Secretarial Serv- ice Junior Correspondence Clerk Senior Correspondence Clerk (Group) Stenographer Secretary Junior Stenographer ...... Senior Stenographer Principal Stenographer Junior Stenographer-clerk . Senior Stenographer-clerk . Under Typist Junior Typist Senior Typist Under Typist-clerk Junior Typist-clerk Services Involving the Skilled Trades, Manual Labor, Public Safety, or Related Work . 1. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Custodial and Janitor Service Guard Cleaners Charwoman . . School Janitor 2. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Domestic Service Rag Washer 125 481 204 213 213 15.578 1,563 315 279 3,639 737 236 2,282 i,i55 3,256 733 200 800 383 15,860 3,376 i,585 1,079 578 134 «3 "3 113 292 170 12 12 1,863 331 227 61 202 9i 7i 210 196 252 77 22 79 44 ",215 2,759 1,585 1,061 "3 "3 "3 12 189 34 200 200 13,698 1,231 87 217 3,429 646 165 2,072 17 1 1 1 8 958 1 3,000 4 656 178 720 1 339 4,635 10 613 4 14 4 578 21 592 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full Time and Receiving No Allowance, April .30, 1919 — Continued 3. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Farm, Garden, and Park Maintenance 135 135 Park Laborer 135 4SS 135 455 4. Total for classes having' 100 or more in the Fire Service . Subprivate (Fire Depart- Senior Private (Fire De- 5. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Police and Criminal Investigation 224 231 522 224 231 522 Subprivate (Police Depart- Senior Private (Police De- 6. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Printing Trades Service 104 418 6,342 104 418 2,626 3.713 3 Bindery Worker 430 386 1.233 907 291 247 366 125 144 119 238 131 542 133 235 815 3 386 3 907 1 247, 353 125 140 106 220 131 2 1 1 427 1,227 290 13 4 13 18 540 132 235 814 Bookbinder Plate Printers' Assistant . . . Steel and Copper Plate Printers 3 Press Feeder Flatbed Pressman Maker-up Linotype Operator Monotype Keyboard Oper- Proof reader Helper— G.P.O Machine Operator (Light) . Hydraulic and Plater Press Money and Tissue Separator Paper Security Examiner . APPENDIX 593 Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 — Continued 7. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Skilled Trades and Labor Service Chauffeur General Carpenter Electrician Elevator Operator Laborer Freight Handler Mail Bag Sewer Mailer and Wrapper Helper Mechanical Trades Packer Teamster Shop Porter Laboratory Helper Services Involving Scientific, Tech- nical, Professional, or Subsidiary W or k 1. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Arts Service . Photographic Aid Laboratory 2. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Educational Service Kindergartner Teacher, Elementary Schools . Special Teacher, Elemen- tary School (Group) Teaching Principal, Ele- mentary Schools Teacher, High School (Group) 3. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Engineering Service Junior Civil Engineer Mechanical Engineering Draftsman Junior Mechanical Engineer 4,917 450 302 167 256 1,069 493 "3 141 407 132 175 1,112 IOO I36 I36 1,744 137 1,052 127 128 300 506 137 "3 114 4,6os 450 302 167 181 1,069 493 3 87 407 107 175 1,084 80 8,158 3,584 139 29 6 14 90 103 "3 309 75 no 54 25 ?7 18 4.562 28 28 i,598 12 137 1,020 120 114 207 11 10 1 594 THE FEDERAL SERVICE Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 — Continued Assistant Mechanical Engi- 142 2,604 142 1,800 801 4. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Law and Ex- 3 Assistant Attorney (Group) Senior Attorney (Group) . . Under Examiner Junior Examiner (Group) . Senior Examiner (Group) . Principal Examiner (Group) 5. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Library Serv- ice 117 278 216 177 627 SS9 442 188 305 113 263 214 177 108 402 342 181 70 4 15 2 5i8 156 99 7 234 1 1 I 1 Junior Library Assistant . . 6. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Physical Sci- 194 in 225 38 32 200 155 79 24 1 1 Associate Chemist IOI I24 2,638 78 122 772 22 2 1,866 1 7. Total for classes having 100 or more in the Statistical Mechanical Tabulation Coder Special Mechanical Tabula- 301 IS2 IO4 929 755 397 20 13 1 169 287 282 281 139 103 760 468 "5 Junior Statistical Clerk Senior Statistical Clerk Principal Statistical Clerk INDEX Absence, leaves of, 521-525; laws providing, 522; Reclassifica- tion Commission recommenda- tions, 524; ruling of Comp- troller of Treasury, 522; sick leave, 523. Accounting positions, promotions in, 251-252. Administration of personnel, 147- 148; and classification, 207. Administrative discretion, 322- 323- Administrative review, 502. Advancement, opportunity for, in the public service, 511-517. Advisory Council of Civil Service recommended, 564-565. Age limits for recruitment, 353- 355- Allocation of positions, 206. Ambassadors and other public ministers, 139-142; and the permanent personnel, 141-142. American Federation of Labor, 166, 546, 550, .556; on the re- striction of political activities of federal employees, 166. American Political Science Asso- ciation, on education for the civil service, 351. Annual leave, 521-525. Appeals for re-rating of candi- dates, 406. Appointing power, 28-32. Appointment and promotion in the civil service, Attorney-Gen- eral on, 108-109; probationary, 444-446; rule for, 444. Appointment in selection of civil service employees, 293-294, 381. Appointments, presidential, 102. Apportioned positions, certifica- tion of, 413-428; Attorney- General on, 421; Civil Service Commission on, 421-424, 427; inefficiency of, 415, 425-428; positions waived from appoint- ment, 414; procedure in, 416- 421; rules providing, 413-414; Secretary of Commerce and Labor on, 426. Appraisal of positions, 206. Appropriation technique and classification, 208-213. Appropriations for salaries, 185- 193 ; lump sum, 185-193. Arrangement of classes, 202-203. Area of selection of personnel within the service, 264-292. Assembled examinations, 358- 361. Assistant secretaries and analo- / gous officers, 98-99; and pro- motion within the service, 99. Attorney-General on appoint- ment and promotion in the civil service, 108-109. Auditors of the Departments, in. Bank examiner, chief national, 132-133- Blind alleys in promotion, 246; causes of, 246-248. Boards and commissions, 116- 117; employees of, 116-117; local boards, 386. Bonaparte, Charles J., on the merit system as applied in the Department of Justice, 115- 116. British Civil Service, conference machinery in, 566-567. British Civil Service system and the American conditions, 255- 258. British personnel system, 254- 255; and American conditions, 595 596 INDEX 255-258; and the universities, 255- Bryan, William Jennings, on tenure in office, 87. Budget, bureau of, and classifi- cation, 207, 212-213. Campaign contribution, prohibi- tion of forced, 155-158; inves- tigation of, by the Civil Serv- ice Commission, 156-158. Central personnel administration, 538-543; dual character of, 538; recruitment and regula- tion, 538-543. Certification, administration of, 435-439; apportioned positions, 413-428; labors, method' for, 467; local commissioners, rule of, 433; objections to a candi- date, 430; objections to certifi- cation, 432; politics and, 432, 434 ; Postmaster-General on, 434-435; results of, 435-44°; restriction of, 428-429; rural carriers and, 432; theory of, 432; "three name" rule, 429- 440. Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commission, 111-113. Civil Service, activities in pro- motion, 239-246; administration of personnel in, 147-148; ad- ' vancement, opportunity for, 511-517; advisory council rec- ommended, 564-566; area of selection from, attitude of the Civil Service Commission on, 271-274; appointing power, 28- 32; appointment and promotion in, 108-109; Attorney-General on appointment, 108-109; at- tractions of, 508-510; boards, local, 386; campaign contribu- tions, 156-158; classification of positions in, 6-17; control of, 176-177; distribution, depart- mental, 4; distribution, geo- graphical, 4-6 ; distribution, nu- merical, 8-1 1 ; distribution ac- cording to status, 82-84; em- ployments in, character of, 6- 18; examiner of, chief, 111- 113; examinations for, 27- 29 ; examinations, exceptions from, 60-73; includes whom, 1-2; investigation of forced campaign contributions and em- ployees, 156-158; laborers in, 73-74; local boards of, 386; machinery needed for adminis- tration, 147-148; MacVeagh, Franklin, on, 19; merit basis, 510-51 1 ; opportunity for ad- vancement, 511-517; political influence in, 20-25; political ac- tivity in, 162-164; Postal Serv- ice, 231; prestige of, 509; pro- motion within the service, 236- 246; recommendation of ad- visory council, 564-566; rules and orders, 54-56, 60-64; selection for, 26-54; security of, 510; size of, 2-6; women in, 17-18; see also "Personnel Ad- ministration." Civil Service Commission, atti- tude toward area of selection from within the service, 271- 274; investigation of forced campaign contributions of em- ployees, 156-158. Civil service reform, 26. Civilians, in the War Depart- ment, 234-235. Class positions,, defined, 200; al- location and appraisal of, 206; classification of, 200-203; series of, 202-203; series de- fined, 202 ; services defined, 202. Classification, administration and, current, 207 ; appropriation technique and, 208-213; ar- rangement of classes, 202-203; budget and, 207, 212-213; class defined, 200 ; conditions of, 188- 190 ; determination adminis- trative, 185-193; determination, legislative, 181-185; imperfec- tions of, 192; installation of, 206-207; need of, 180-181; po- sitions and salaries, 180-214; series, 202-203; services, 202- 203; summary of, general, 213- 214; unit of, 200-203. INDEX 597 Classified service, g6-g^ J com- petitive, 56-57; definition of, S6-57; definition of Attorney- General, 497; MacVeagh, Franklin, on, 19; non-competi- tive positions, 57-60; recruit- ment methods, 378-454. See also unclassified service. Clerical positions, competitive ex- aminations for promotion in, 249-250 ; sub-clerical promo- tions, 249-250. Clerks, confidential, 1 17-120. Cleveland, President, on sub-cler- ical promotions, 249. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 227- 228; promotion within, 227-228; recruitment of, 464-465. Coast Guard, civilian and naval status, 3. Columbia University, courses for public service, 351. Committees, employees', 561-562; composition of, 569 ; function, 570. Compensation rates, 193-195; de- termination of, legal, 205-206; determination, method of, 203- 205; maximum and minimum, 205. Compensation standards, 172- 173- Competition, area of in recruit- ment, 380-385. Competitive examination system, efficiency in, 446-452; illustra- tions of efficiency, 447-451. Competitive service defined by Attorney-General, 497 ; exam- inations for, 446-447; recruit- ment methods of, 378-454. Commissions and boards, 116-117; employees of, 116-117. Committee on Reclassification. See Reclassification Commis- sion. Conditions, working, 518-528. Conference machinery in the British Service, 566-569. Confidential clerks, 1 17-120. Confidential inspectors, 118. Congress, attitude of an area of selection within the civil serv- ice, 274-275; positions created by, 185-193. Congressmen and political inter- ference in civil service, 145-148. Consular Service, 139-142; ap- portionment and, 475; board of examiners for, 472-474; classi- fication of, 185; examinations for, 473-476; history of, 471- 472; method of, 474-475; order of President Roosevelt, 472; politics and, 473; promotions within, 226-227 ; recruitment for, 471-476. Control of personnel, 176-177. Demotion and dismissal, liability to, as a means of promoting in- dividual efficiency, 492-495 ; control of power of removal, 501-507; difficulties of, 493; existing law governing, 495- 507; politics in, 493, 500; power of, 493-495. 498; pro- cedure of dismissals, 495-499. Departmental organization for recruitment, 543. Departmental service, defined, 2. Detectives, 118-119; of New York, 119. Development of personnel sys- tems, organization of, I77" I 79> procedure of, 175-176. Diplomatic Service, 139-142; ap- pointment to, 226; career in, 142; merit principle -and, 477; merit principle, President Taft on, 477; method of, 476-477; non-competitive examinations, 477; order of President Taft, 476; personnel, permanent, 141- 142; politics and, 226; promo- tion within, 225-226. Dismissal, liability to, as a means of promoting individual effi- ciency, 492-495; control of power of removal, 495-499 ; dif- ficulties of, 493; existing law governing, 495-5°7; politics in, 493. 500; power of, 493-494. 498; procedure of dismissals, 495-499- 598 INDEX Dismissal, power of, 493-495 ; ad- ministrative review of, 502; judicial review of, s ol -5 02 ; machinery for control of, 501- 507 ; trial board review of, 502- ' SOS- Districts of field positions, 382- 38s. Doty, F. E., on psychological tests, 373n. Education for the Civil Service, American Political Science As- sociation on, 351 ; British sys- tem, 346; Columbia University and, 351 ; Consular and Diplo- . matic Service, 350; entrance, training for, 351-353; facili- ties for, 258-264; foreign serv- ice, education in, 347; New York Bureau of Municipal Re- search on, 351 ; personnel, reg- ular and, 346; promotion and, 247, 252-255; provided how, 346, 350-351 ; recruitment and, 345-347; special fields, require- ments in, 347-351 ; standards, 252-254; tests in, 367-369. Educational facilities, provision for in the U. S., 258-264; edu- cational requirements, 263 ; morale and, 259; private educa- tional institutions and, 264; promotion on, 260; provisions for, 258-264; Washington, in, 260-261.; Washington, outside of, 260-261 ; working hours and, 262. Educational standards in the Civil Service, 252-254. Educational tests in recruitment, 367-369; difficulties of, 368; schooling and, 368; State De- partment and, 368. Efficiency, maintenance of, indi- vidual, 480-517; need of reputa- tion for, 509, 513 ; promotion of, 481-495, 508-517. Efficiency records, 321-332, 481- 482 ; administrative discretion and, 322-323; appeal from by employees, right of, 331; Civil Service Commission on, 323; forms of, 328-329; National Civil Service Reform League on, 335-336; promotion and, 481-482; Reclassification Com- mission on, 325; reliance on, 330; review of, 332; trans- fers and, 324; uniformity of, 325- Eligible registers, 404-406; de- lay of, 404; laborers and, 467; non-publicity, results of, 442- 443; production of, 404-406; publicity of, 441-443; rule for, 443- Elimination of politics from the Civil Service, 537; intervention of politics, prohibition of, 148- I 5 I » 537; within the service, 144-167. Employment manager, need of, 177-179. Employees' boards and commis- sions and, 116-117; Bryan, W. J., on terms of office, 87; con- tributions to postal campaign funds, 153-154; Executive or- der of 1918, 452-453; Federal Farm Loan Board, 137; in- ternal revenue collector, 133- 136; laid off when, 452; legal employees, 114-116; political influence on employees of su- perior officers, 153-154; postal employees of star routes and third and fourth class post of- fices, 137-138; prohibition of political influence on, 155-160; protection against removal, 89- 95; reemployment of, 452-453; removal for political reasons of, 89-95; rotation in office, 87, 89-95 ; tenure of office, 87, gon ; term of office, 84-89. Employees' committees, 561-562; composition of, 569; function, 570. Employees' Compensation Com- mission, salaries of, 182-184. Employees' organization and com- mittees, 544-574; act of 1912, 556; activities in District of Columbia, 554; affiliations with INDEX 599 other organizations, right of, 556-558; American Federation of Labor, 546, 550-556; compo- sition of employees committees, 569 ; conclusion on, 559-561 ; dangers of, 571-573; employees' committees, 561 - 562 ; Em- ployees' Retirement Confer- ence, 553n; existing organiza- tions, 545-546; Federal Em- ployees' Unions, 545, 552 ; func- tion of employees' committees, 570; Glassberg, Benjamin, on, 547; Great Britain and, 545, 566; history of political activi- ties of, 437; influence in Con- gress, 551 ; Jordan, Col. H. B., and, 562; legislative activities of, 546-556; leaders who are federal employees, 571-573 > Loud, E. F"., on, 547 ; machinery for employees' representation, 562; National Federation of Federal Employees, 545, 560, 574; National Federation of Post Office clerks, activities, 550-551, 553-556; personnel system, government, and, 559- 561 ; Picatinny Arsenal and, 574; political activities, pro- hibition of, 548-549 ; Post Office Clerks' Federation, 550; Re- classification Commission's at- titude toward employees' repre- sentation, 564-566; representa- tives of employees before man- agement, 571 ; Rock Island Ar- senal, 563; Roosevelt, Presi- dent, on, 548; San Francisco Federal Employees' Union, 552; strike rights, 558-5595 United Association of Post Of- fice Clerks, 550. Employees' representation, 562- 564; British service and, 566; compensation of committees, 569; danger of, 571-573! func- tions of Employees' Commis- sion, 570; Jordan, Col. H. B., and, 562; leaders who are not federal employees, 57 r -573 > machinery for, existing, 562; management, representation be- fore, 571 ; Picatinny Arsenal, 574 ; Reclassification Commit- tee's attitude, 564-566; Rock Island Arsenal, 562. Employees' retirement confer- ence, 553n. Engineers, civilian, in the War Department, 234. England, civil service in, 545; Conference Committees, 566- S 6 °- Examination for the civil service, 27-29; advertising > of , 389-392; competitive, 28-29; efficiency of the competitive examination system, 446-452; efficiency of illustrations, 447-451 ; exception and exemptions from, 60-73, 96-143, 451; exception from formal methods of selection, 74- 80, 137; exception of, for vari- ous positions, 60-73 ; extension of, 96-143; fourth class post- masters, 398-404; held where, 386-387; individuals, 68-73; in- formation of, popular, needed, 390; integrity of, safeguard- ing, 392-398; New York Com- mission's experience with, 392; ordered how, 387-389; pass ex- aminations, 27-28 ; personal, ex- amination of, 531-536; post- masters, fourth class, 398-404; postmasters, presidential, sub- jects, for examinations of, 456, 464n; positions excepted from, 60-73; presidential ex- ceptions, 68-71 ; rules and orders, 60-64; rural carriers, 398-404 ; statutory exceptions, 64-68; unification of, 388- 389. Examination, for promotion, 332- 337; advantages of, 333; disad- vantages of, 333-334; Reclassi- fication Commission on, 336- 337. Examinations for recruitment, as- sembled how, 358-361; educa- tion tests, 367-369; experience tests, 364-367; for the foreign service, 358-360 ; fully-as- sembled, 358; locally-assembled, 6oo INDEX 360-361 ; manual, 363-364 ; non- assembled, 361 ; oral and writ- ten, 361-363; personality tests, 376-377 ; psychological tests, 372-376 ; technical capacity tests, 369-372. Examinations, non-competitive, 468; Civil Service Commission on, 468-471; Newcomb, H. T., on, 469; Roosevelt, President, on, 469; Twelfth Census, ap- plication to, 469; Wright, C. D., on, 469. Examinations, organization for, 385-386. Examinations, pass, 468; Civil Service Commission on, 468- 471 ; Hines, F. H., on, 469 ; Newcomb, H. D., on, 469; Twelfth Census, application to personnel for, 469-470; Roosevelt, President, on, 469; Wright, Carroll D., on, 469. Examiner, Chief National Bank, I32-I33- Examiner, Chief, of the Civil Service Commission, 111-113. Examining staff, Coast and Geo- detic Survey, 536; compensa*- tion of, 5345 development of, 532; inadequacy of, 404-405; independent and departmental staffs, 532-534; methods of, 534- 535; Public Health Service, 536. Exceptions from examinations in the Civil Service, 60-73, 96-143, 451 ; in Federal Farm Loan Board, 137; list of positions excepted, 10 1. Exemptions from examinations, 96-143; deputy collector and deputy marshals of internal revenue, 135-136; list of po- sitions exempted, 101. Experience tests, 364-367; chief examiner on, 366-367; classified service, 365; foreign service, 365- Environment, physical, 525-528 ; Reclassification Commission on, 526-527. Federal Employees' Union, 545. Federal Employees' Union of San Francisco, 552; see also em- ployees' organizations. Federal Farm Loan Board, field employees, 137. Federation of Federal Employees, 520; and overtime work, 520. Field employees of the Federal Farm Loan Board, 137. Field Service, advantages of transfer to Washington, 288- 289 ; chief officers, 120-121 ; list of, 120-121 ; merit system and, 124-126; personnel in, 133-139; transfers to Washington, 287- 292. Foreign Service, 139-142. Four-year term, 123-124. Geodetic and Coast Survey, 464- 465 ; recruitment of, 464-465. Glassberg, Benjamin, on political activities of federal employees, 547- Great Britain, civil service of, 545, 566-569. Harding, President, and the merit system in the postal service, i32n. Heads of bureau and services, 99-110; and political appoint- ment, 100-102, 105; tenure of, 100-102. Heads of departments, 96-98; as administrators, 97; as political advisors, 97. Hours of Labor, 518-519. Increases of salary, 482-492. Independent establishments, 96- 98. Independent examining staffs, 532-534- Individual efficiency, maintenance of, 480-517; promotion of, 481- 495. 508, 517. Inspectors, confidential, 118. Installation of classification, 206. INDEX Internal Revenue Service deputy collectors and deputy marshals, 133-136; location of legal power in personnel, matters of, n;i- 152. International Association of Machinists, 55. See also Em- ployees' Organizations. 1 Johnson, President, and the tenure of office acts, oon. Joint Commission on Reclassifica- tion of Salaries. See Reclassi- fication Commission. Jordan, Colonel Harry B. and employees' representation, 562. Labor, hours of, 518-519. Labor unions of civil service em- ployees. See Employees' Or- ganizations. Laborers in the civil service, 73- 74- Laborers, recruitment of, 465- 471, act of, 1871, 466; age limits, 466; boards, labor, 466; clerks and, 465; eligible regis- ters, 467; rating of labors, 467; recruitment of, 465-471; spoils system, 465; Washington, la- borers outside of, 138-139. Law clerks, 114-116. Laws. See Legislation. Leaves of absence, 521-525; law pending, 522 ; Reclassification Commission's recommendations, 524; ruling of Comptroller of Treasury, 522; sick leave, 523. Legal basis of recruitment meth- ods, 379-380. Legal employees, 114-116. Legal positions, promotion in, 251-252. Legal power in personnel matter, 151-154; location of, 151-154. Legislation, Acts of Congress, 41- 43-54; of 1853, 41; of 1855, 41; of 1856, 41, of 1871, 43-44; of 1883, 44-54. Legislative determination of po- sitions and salaries, 181-185. 601; Local civil service boards, 386. Longevity pay. See Salary In- creases. Loud, E. F., on political activi- ties Of federal employees, 547. Lowell, A. L., on employees' unions in Great Britain, 546. Lump sum, appropriations for salaries, 185-193; example of, 1 86. Lyman, Charles, on women in the civil service, 17-18. MacVeagh, Franklin, on the classified service, 19. Manual of examinations, 363- 364- Medical services, 525-528; Re- classification Commission on, 526-527. Meriam, Lewis, on statistics of employees, 8-1 1. Merit basis of public service, 510- Sii- Merit system, extension of, 96- 143; Bonaparte, C. J., on, 115- 116; bureau heads and, 102; field service, 124-126; Harding, President and, 126-128; meth- ods of extension, 103-107; Roosevelt, President, and, 128; Taft, President, on, 125-128; Wilson, President, and, 126- 128. Methods of recruitment, 378-529. Military preference in the civil service, 406-413; attorney-gen- eral on, 408; act of July 11, 1919, 409; applies to what, 413; Civil Service Commission on, 410-413; effects of, 410-412; history of, 407; nature of, 407- 408; procedure in determining, 406-407. Minor positions, how established, 182. Nagel, Charles, on formal meth- ods of promotion, 338-340. National Bank Examiner, chief, 132-133. 602 INDEX National Civil Service Reform League, on the Foreign Service \ examinations, 359-360 ; on. post- masterships, 230; on postmast- erships, presidential, 459-460. National Council for the Admin- istrative and Legal Department in Great Britain, 568-569. National Federation of Federal Employees, 116, 545-546, 560, 574- National Federation of Post Of- fice Clerks, 550-551, 553-556. See also Employees' Organiza- tions. Nationalization of the civil serv- ice, 291. Navy Department, 233-234; se- lection of personnel for, 233- 234. Newcomb, H. T., on pass exam- inations, 469. New York Bureau of Municipal Research and training for the public service, 351. Non-political positions, list of, 101-102. Oral examinations, 361-363. Organization, for examining and recruiting, 385-386. Organization for personnel ad- ministration, 538-543; advisory body to, 537; analysis of the problem, 529; classification of positions and salaries, 536-537; central administration, 538-543; danger in, 530; examining per- sonnel, 531-536; physical work conditions, 537; political con- siderations, elimination of, 537; recruitment and, 530-536, 543- Organizations, employees'. See Employees' Organizations. Overtime work, 519-521 ; law gov- erning, 520; weakness of, 520- 521. Patent Office, examining force, 228; promotion within, 228, Pensions in the civil service, 72, 87; act of 1920, 512; procedure of, 512. Periodical increases in salary, 482-492. Personality tests, 376-377; for what positions, 376-377; for presidential postmasters, 377. Personnel administration, organ- ization* for, 529-543; advisory body to, 537; aim and scope of, 173-174; analysis of the prob- lem, 529; central administra- tion, 538-543; danger in, 530; employees' organizations, 559 ; examining staffs, 532-534; fac- tors in, special, 168-173; in- ternal administration, 536; per- sonnel in Washington, 110-113; physical conditions, working, 537 ; political considerations, elimination of, 537. Personnel committees, 565. Personnel control, 176-177. Personnel and legal power, 151- 154. Personnel manager, need of, 177- 179. Personnel problem, dual character of, 19-20. Personnel, subordinate, in the field service, 133-139; list of, not in the competitive service, 133- Personnel system, development of, 174-176; in Great Britain, 254-255- Physical environment, 525-528 ; Reclassification Commission on, 526-528. Picatinny Arsenal, employees' representation at, 574. Piece work, 482. Political activity of employees, 160-167, 546-556; activities per- mitted, where, 16m, i63n; ac- tivity, voluntary, 160-167; Civil Service Commission, in- vestigation by, 162-164; forms of, 162-164; National Federa- tion of Federal Employees, 166 ; restrictions on, 158^167; Roose- velt, President, on, 161-164. INDEX 603 See also Employees' Organiza- tions. Political appointees and non-po- litical appointees in the federal service, 170, 172. Political influence, Civil Service Commission on, 313-314; con- gressman and, 145-148; diffi- culty of, 144-145; factor, 20-25; elimination of, 24-25, 144-167, 305-306, 537; employees, influ- ence of evils of, 20-24 ; superior officers on, 154-155; inside the service, 144-167; outside the service, 116-117; prohibition of, 148-151 ; promotion and, 312- 316; salary increases, 153- 154- Political positions, list of, 101. Position specifications, method of determining, 197-200, 205-206; legal determination of, 205-206; scope and character of, 200. Positions, classification and stan- dardization of, 180-214; admin- istrative determination of, 185- 193; departmental heads and, 185-193 ; determination of, method, 197-200, 205-206; de- termination, legislative, 181- 183 ; information regarding, need of popular, 390-392; minor positions, how estab- lished, 182; need of, 183; num- ber of, 183; presidential po- sitions, 185-193; statutory po- sitions, 185-193; variety of, 183. Positions, Postal Service, 186- 187; clerical, 185-191; Reclassi- fication Commission on, 190- 191 ; technical and professional, 191; titles of, 191-192. Postal employees of star routes and third and fourth-class post offices, 137-138. Postal Service, Civil Service Commission, 231 ; competitive examinations and, 222; merit system, 126-132; politics and, 230-231 ; positions in, peculi- arity of, 186-187; promotions within, 222-233; Roper, D. C, on, 257-258 ; Wilson, President, and, 229. Postmasters, compensation of, 455; number of, 455. Postmasters, fourth class, exam- ination of, 398-404; President Roosevelt and, 402; procedure of, 402-403. Postmasters, presidential, 454- 463. See presidential post- masters. Postmasterships and veteran preference, 461. Post Office clerks, federal, 550. See also employees' organiza- tions. Preference, military, 406-413. Presidential appointments, 29-40, 99-!ii3, 120-121, 123, 185-193; Congressional power over, 31- 33; list of positions, 33-37; non- presidential appointments, 40- 41- Presidential postmasters, recruit- ment of, 454-463; examination subjects, 4§4n; National Civil Service Reform League on, 459-460; order of, 1917, 454- 455; order of 1920, 455; order of 1921, 463n; prerequisites for, 464n; procedure, 461-463; rat- ing, 458; residence require- ments, 455. Private secretaries, 1 17-120. Probationary period in recruit- ment, 444-446; rule for, 444; Reclassification Commission on, 445-446. Procedure, in recruitment, 357- 358. Professional examining staffs, 532-534- Prohibition, Civil Service Com- mission on, 158-160; coercion prohibited, 1 59-160; contribu- tions prohibited, 155-158; inter- vention prohibited, 148-151; investigation of, 156-158. Promotion, administration of- ficer, discretion of, 304-305; British personnel system and, 1254-255 ; central restrictions on, 307-310; civil service rule 604 INDEX on, 308; in clerical positions, 250 ; departmental restrictions on, 310-312; Diplomatic serv- ice, 225-226; education and, 247, 252-254; educational facil- ities and, 260; efficiency rec- ords, 481 ; examinations, cler- ical competitive for, 249-250; methods, extent of formal, 306; methods, need of formal, 303-307 ; methods, existing, 307-317; natural line of, 222- 223; Patent Office, 228; poli- tics, exclusion of, 305-306; po- sitions barred to employees, 99; Postal Service, 228-233; Public Health Service, 223- 225; restrictions on promotion in Coast and Geodetic Survey, Public Health and Foreign Service, 309-312; standard of efficiency for, 308; statistical accounting and legal positions, 251-252; stenographic po- sitions, 250-251 ; sub-clerical positions, 249-250 ; technical positions, 252. Promotion and reassignment, 298- 344; distinguished from in- crease of compensation, 298- 299; methods, formal, need of, 303-307; reassignment versus promotion, 299-300; technical problem of promotion methods, 3I7-3I8. Promotion from within the serv- ice, 216-222; area of, within the service, 264-292; "blind al- leys," 246-248; bureaucy and, 219-220; control of, central, 240-246; Civil Service Com- mission on, 236-239, 271-274; Congress, attitude of, 274-275; disadvantages of existing re- strictions upon transfers, 275- 284; direction of personnel from outside the service, 218- 219; equalizing opportunity in, 266; England, France, and Germany, 219-220; limitations of natural, 267; objections to, 217-219; positions not in the natural line of> 246-254; re- assignment and, 267-268; Re- classification Commission, 239- 240; rules governing, 242-243; stagnation and, 268; transfers from departments, 270-273 ; transfer from field to Wash- ington, 269-270. See also se- lection. Promotion methods, 318-344; ad- ministration of, 342-344; Civil Service Commission on effi- ciency records, 323 ; combination of methods of, 337-338; com- petitive examination, 332-337 ; efficiency record, method of, 321-332; efficiency record and administration discretion, 322- 323; Nagel, Charles, on, 338- 340; seniority method of, 318- 321 ; special personnel to ad- minister, 342-344; summary of methods, 338-344- Proportional representation of the states in Federal service, 171. Public Health Service,' appoint- ment to, 223; civilian status, 1-2; medical, 478-479; promo- tion in, 223-225; recruitment of officers, 471-479; scientific personnel in, 225. Public Service advancement in, opportunity for, 511-517; at- tractiveness of, 508-510 ; entry to, 170-171 ; merit basis, 510- 511; prestige of, 509; security of, 510. Psychological tests, 372-376 ; alpha test, 374; Civil Service Commission experience with, 373-376; Doty, F. K, on, 373n; in industries, 372; for what positions, 374. Quasi-military service, 1. Rates, compensation, 193-195 ; 440-441 ; discretion in fixing, for entrance, 440-441; legal determination of, 205-206; maximum and minimum, 205. INDEX 605 Rating for laborers, 469; for presidential postmasters, 458; re-rating, 406. Reassignment and promotion, 215, 298-344; advantage of, 302; distinguished from in- crease of compensation, 298- 299, 300-303; promotion versus reassignment, 299-300 ; reas- signment with no change of compensation or grade, 300- 303- . Reclassification Commission, ap- propriation for, 196; assistance of, technical, 196-197; civil service, positions in, 190-191; 10 4-i95; class, defined, 200; ^ composed of whom, 195; func- tioned when, ,196; hours of labor, 518; methods of deter- mining position specifications, 197-200; organization of, 196- I 97i m promotion within the service,- attitude of toward, 239-240; salary increases, rec- ommendations regarding, 490- 492; series defined and ar- ranged, 202-203; services de- fined and arranged, 202-203; transfers, attitude toward, re- striction of, 276n, 284-286; work of, 195-214. Records, efficiency, 481-482; and promotion, 481. Recruitment, probationary period in, 444-446; and promotion, 215-297. Recruitment methods, 345-479 ; basic aspects, 345-377; of classified competitive service, 378-454; legal basis of, 379- 380. Recruitment, organization for, 530-536; danger in, 530; de- partmental, 543 ; independent body, 540. Reemployment of employees, 452- 4535 when laid off, 452; exec- utive order of 1918, 452- 453- Registers of eligibles for the civil service, 404-406; delay of, 404; labor, 467; publicity of, 441-443; non-publicity, results, 442-443; rule for, 443. Removal, power of, 493-495; ad- ministrative review of, 502; judicial review of, 501-502; machinery for control of, 501- 507; trial board review of, 502- 505. Removal of officers, 102-103. Representation, employees, 562- 564; British Service, 556; composition of employees' com- mittees, 569; danger of, 571- 573; functions of employees' commissions, 579; Jordan, Col. H. B., on, 562; leaders not fed- eral employees, 571-573; ma- chinery for, existing, 562; at Picatinny Arsenal, 574; Re- classification Commission's at- titude, 564-566 ; representation before management, 571 ; at Rock Island Arsenal, 562. Re-rating, appeals for, 406. Residence requirements, 381-382; of presidential postmasters, 455- Retirement. See pensions. Rock Island Arsenal, employees' representation at, 562. Roper, Daniel C, on the Postal Service, 257-258. Roosevelt, President, and the Consular Service, 472; and ex- aminations for the Postal Service, 402) and the merit system, 128; and political ac- tivities of federal employees, 161, 164, 548. Rural carriers, examination of, 398-404; "three name" rule ap- plied to, 431-432- Rural Carriers' Association. See Employees' Organizations. Salaries, classification and stan- dardization of, 180-214; ad- ministrative determination of, 185-193 ; Employees' Compen- sation Commission, 182-184 > legislative determination of, 181-185; need of, 180-181. 6o6 INDEX Salary increases, periodic, 482- 492; automatic and semi-auto- matic, 483; Coast and Geodetic Survey, 485-486 ; effect of, 491 ; methods of, 490-491 ; Patent Office, 488-489; Postal Service, 486-488; Public Health Serv- ice, 485-486; Reclassification Commission's' recommendations, 490-492 ;' statutory position, 489; theory of, 483. Salary increases and politics, 153- Scope of personnel administra- tion, 173-174. Secretaries, assistant, and analo- gous officers, 98-99. Selection for the civil service, 26-54; exceptions from formal method of selection, 14-80; ex- tension of formal systems of, 96-143; legislation for, 41-54; recruitment and, 215-297; sta- tistics of employees according to method of selection status, 80-84; systems of, 26-29; tradi- tion in selection, 81-84. Selection from within the serv- ice, act of 1912, on, 295; ap : portionment principle, 293-294; appropriation and statutory positions, 295-297; competitive and excepted positions, 292- 293; promotion and reassign- ment, 298-344; technical ob- stacles to, 292-298. Senate, advice and consent in civil service appointments, 103; abolition of, 103. Seniority in promotion 318-321; advantages of, 319-320; evils of, 320. Series of classes of positions, 202-203; defined and arranged, 202-203. Services defined and classified, 202-203. Sick leave, 523; cumulative, 524- 525 ; Reclassification Commis- sion's recommendations, 524 ; statistics of, 524-525. Smithsonian Institution, 113; of- ficials of, 113. Soldiers, National Home for Dis- abled Volunteer, 113; man- agers of, 113. Solicitors of the departments, IIO-III. Special agents, 118. Specialized education required, 347-351; in Consular and Dip- lomatic service, 350; how pro- vided, 35°-35i. Specifications of positions, method of determining, 197- 200, 205-206; legal determina- tion, 205-206 ; scope and char- acter of, 200. Standardization of positions and salaries, 180-214; adminis- trative determination, 185-193; legislative determination, 180- 185; need of, 180-181. Standards, educational, in the civil service, 252-254. Statistical positions, promotions in, 251-252. Statistics of employees, 8-12, 80- 84. Statutory positions, 181-185. Statutory roll, 181-185. Stenographic positions, promo- tions in, 250-251. Stewart, Luther C, on relations of federal employees with the American Federation of Labor, 556n. Stratification of civil service, 248. Sub-clerical positions, promo- tion in, 249-250; competitive examination for promotion, 249-250 ; President Cleveland on, 249. Suspension, power of, 507-508; as a means of providing indi- vidual efficiency, 507-508. Taft, President, and the merit system, 125-129; on tenure of office, 87-88. Technical capacity tests, 369- 372; Civil Service Commission, 372; for Consular and Diplo- matic Service, 372; classes of, 3;o. INDEX 607 Technical positions, promotion in, 251-252. Tenure of heads of bureaus and services, 100-102. Tenure of office acts, gon; Presi- dent Johnson and, o,on. Titles of positions, 191, 193-195. Training for the civil service, 351-353 ; American Political Science Association on, 351 ; Columbia University and, 351; New York Bureau of Munici- pal Research, 351. Transfers, advantages of inter- change of field service and Washington, 288-289 ; depart- mental transfers, 270-273; dis- advantages of existing restric- tions upon, 275-284; eligibles for, absence of, means for lo- cating, 286; field service to Washington, 269-270, 287-292; morale, effect on, 289-290; na- tionalization of the service by, 291; politics and, 290. Transfers, restriction upon, 275- 281; act of 1912 on, 283-284, 295; act of 1917 on, 279; agencies and, new, 275; au- thority for, 281 ; Civil Service Commission on, 277-278; com- petitive class, 275; Depart- mental, 276-277; disadvantages of, 275-284; employees, mo- tives of, 277; important restric- tions, 278-279 ; mobility of serv- ice and, 284; Reclassification Commission on, 276n, 284-286; Secretary of Commerce and Labor on, 280-282; War, dur- ing the, 283. Unclassified service, recruitment methods, 454-479. Uniformity in titles and compen- sation rates, 193-195; lack of, 193-195- Unions, employees, 554-574. See also "Employees' Organiza- tions." United Association of Post Office Clerks, 550. See also Em- ployees' Organizations. Universities and the civil service examinations in England, 255. Vacancies, benefit of, 512-514; causes of, 511-514, 517; disad- vantages of, 514; by whom filled, 516. Veteran preference and postmas- terships, 451. War Department, 233-234; civ- ilian engineers in, 234-235; selection of personnel for, 233- 234- Washington, personnel in, 110- 113; subordinate personnel in, 1 13-120. Wilson, President, and the merit system, 126-131; and the postal service examinations, 229. Women, recruitment of, 355-357; discrimination against, 356 ; elimination of discrimination, 356-357- Working conditions, 518-528. Wright, C. D., on pass examina- tions, 469. Written examinations, 361-363. Cornell University Library JK 765.M3 The federal service; a study of the syste 3 1924 002 646 937 ■- ■ ■ ■ ■'•■■■- ■ ■ : '•' ■