THE OUTLOOK FOR THE MERIT SYSTEM

BY ROSCOE C. E. BROWN

THE United States Government is today probably the largest employer of labor in the world. With a civil personnel of more than 560,000 persons and an annual payroll of nearly $750,000,000, it presents a problem of employment administration far more complicated and far more imperatively demanding solution than that of any private industry, to which expert attention is given as a matter of ordinary business prudence. The employees of the States, cities, counties, towns and villages, it is estimated, bring the number of public servants in the United States nearly to three million. About one out of thirty-five persons is on a public payroll of which the total annual charge is over three billion dollars, or more than $100 a family on the pockets of the American taxpayers. This enormous force, its proper recruiting, efficient operation and just treatment, constitute the problem of the Civil Service Reform movement, which this year counts the fortieth anniversary of its great initial success.

The present United States Civil Service law was passed on January 16, 1883. That marked the real beginning of the merit system of public employment in this country; for the earlier legislation was only a gesture of acquiescence to an arousing but not yet dominant public opinion. Perhaps no three words could have been chosen less fitted to inspire public enthusiasm than "Civil Service Reform". They suggested smugness; they were the butt of ridicule; they offered nothing spectacular, or sentimentally inspiring. The movement itself ran counter, not only to political interests, but to popular habit and a natural tolerant attitude toward abuses from which many persons might hope to profit. The spoils system was deeply embedded in American life. Perhaps it was a concomitant of the growth of democracy, without which in the early days of manhood suffrage millions of men could not have been drilled into political

activity. At any rate it and its corollary, "rotation in office," exactly fitted the temper of the times.

In a simple community, where most men were habituated to several callings now specialized, it was natural to think all citizens fit for and in turn entitled to the public places, which were generally within the range of capacity of any intelligent person. But the increasing complexity of government functions would have made the spoils system administratively impossible, even if its excesses had not threatened free government by the use of patronage as an engine of electoral control. The demoralization went so far that after the Civil War wholesale removals were no longer confined to periods of changing administration, but went on all the time in response to the demands of faction and personal rivalry. Four Collectors of the Port of New York, all of the same party, made 1,678 removals during their 1,565 secular days of service. That was typical of the extent to which public service had been prostituted, not merely to party, but to personal ends.

The pioneering work of Thomas A. Jenckes of Rhode Island in forcing on Congress the question of Civil Service legislation in 1868, and the agitation of George William Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton and Charles Sumner, resulted in the act of 1871, allowing the President to make regulations for admission to the service. But after the breakdown of the Liberal Republican movement of 1872, the victorious political machine cut off all appropriations for the commission appointed to enforce the rules. Not until the tragedy of Garfield's assassination by a disgruntled Western office seeker, seizing for an occasion on the President's attitude toward a New York fight for spoils, was the general public aroused to see that Civil Service Reform was something more than a dream of pedants and "man milliners", to recall Conkling's taunt of George William Curtis, and was in fact an imperative though unpalatable remedy for a desperate disease. Then came the Pendleton act of 1883, which is still the basis of the United States Civil Service administration notwithstanding the enormous extension of the classification in after years.

Less than three months later, on May 4, 1883, New York fell in line, with the first State Civil Service law. New York ap

propriately took this leadership, for in New York the spoils system in American politics had its start. Through its old Council of Appointment, perhaps the worst instrument for the distribution of patronage ever devised by man, the State was kept in a ferment of frequent changes, appointments without responsibility and ruthless, wholesale removals. The Albany Regency lived up to the dictum, which Marcy boastfully proclaimed for it before the whole country, "to the victors belong the spoils." Its Whig rivals under the leadership of Thurlow Weed adopted it, and both handed it on to their successors to use to a practical effect that made them the reproach and the envy of politicians in other States.

Massachusetts followed New York with a Civil Service law in 1884. In the succeeding years the merit system was adopted by various cities and particular services like police and fire departments, but not until 1905 was another statewide application of the system made, when Wisconsin passed a comprehensive law and Illinois made a beginning in the same direction, which has since been greatly improved. Then in rapid succession laws or constitutional amendments were passed in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, California, Connecticut, Kansas and Maryland. The law has since been repealed by Connecticut-the only State that after adopting the merit system has ever abandoned it. In the cities the movement has spread until 350 of them have a competitive system. Every one of the twenty largest cities has adopted it, and of the hundred largest cities in the country seventy-two operate under Civil Service rules.

At the beginning under President Arthur the classified Federal service was largely clerical, and at the end of his term 15,573 places had been classified. On June 30, 1922, there were 560,863 persons in the Federal service. Just how many of these were classified is not reported, but so far as can be estimated between 425,000 and 450,000 places under the United States can now be filled only through competitive selection for demonstrated fitness. Such is the advance of forty years, forced in spite of ridicule, the hostility of organized political workers, popular distaste for laws that interfere with largess, and the impatience of some office holders, by the sheer impossibility that Presidents have

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found of carrying on successful work without it. But what of the years to come? With the classification of the great body of Federal employees below the grade of Presidential appointments substantially complete, except for the gigantic scandal of a spoils Prohibition enforcement service, and with even important Presidential nominations determined by competitive tests, is the future problem merely one of meticulous attention to details? The merest glance at conditions and the barest realization of the complexities of administration entailed by the recent enormous extension of government activities will bring an emphatic answer.

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In March, 1920, a Congressional Joint Commission laid before Congress a report on the condition of the service that showed gross extravagance and waste," "unbusinesslike handling of service," "poor organization," "divided authority," "much injustice and inefficiency," "serious discontent among the Federal employees," and a turnover of 33 per cent., a rate of change demoralizing to any work, especially as it is due to the steady exodus of the most efficient employees. The Commission reported that the United States was "without a central employment agency having adequate powers; in short without an employment policy". The result is "glaring inequalities and incongruities in salary schedules", much injustice and dissatisfaction, wasted money and failure to get the work paid for.

The Government was a pioneer in seeking to establish merit as a basis of employment. But private industry has learned the lesson, and while the Government has lagged behind, private employers have gone on to systematize their forces, to adopt scientific methods of recruiting, testing and stimulating efficiency, promoting contentment and eliminating waste. The United States is trying to do the work of a twentieth century Government, with its far flung activities in every field of science and industry, by methods inherited from the eighteenth century, by confused, overlapping organizations, by employees whose pay bears little or no relation to the character of their service and whose conditions of labor and chance of advancement for efficiency rather than by favor are such as to discourage energy and loyalty.

As a result, over 75 per cent. of the Federal employees are enrolled in organizations affiliated with industrial trade unions. The failure of the Government to provide any legitimate channel for the presentation of their grievances and the correction of the injustices that are bound to occur in the operation of a great force has naturally driven them to seek in the American Federation of Labor an opportunity for making their demands influential. This affiliation has been frowned upon by many high officials, including President Roosevelt, but since his administration little resistance has been offered to it except by PostmasterGeneral Burleson. "The National Federation of Federal Employees," declared its official organ, The Federal Employe, some months ago, "is a union which does not strike, but it is not powerless, it goes into districts in which it has enemies and works hard to keep them out of Congress." This combination of Government employees and trade unionists to pull each other's chestnuts out of the fire has ominous possibilities. French experience throws light on them. If the danger here seems fanciful in view of federation bylaws forbidding strikes in Government service, consider this hint from the same organ:

Let us bring the main problem down to practical terms and consider what would happen to a union employe who found his duty to this Government and his duty to his union in conflict. It is to be presumed that he would do precisely what he does when he finds his duty to his Church, to his lodge or to his family to be in conflict with his duty to his Government; that is, he would decide which is the more important to him.

We do not need to question the usefulness of the labor union in its field, nor of the association of public employees in its field. But, even though strikes are barred by the latter, such bylaws can be repealed, or may be ignored at a crisis. The existence in Government service of a body of men closely bound to an outside organization, whose interests at any moment may conflict with those of another part of the community resulting in struggle and perhaps even clashes with public authority, invites burrowing within the Government itself for the defeat of its measures, which may be just as disastrous as a walkout from official service. And on the other hand, to put at the beck of Federal employees a great external body able and ready to back up their demands,