The Civil Service: The Merit System, the Spoils System (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

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Excerpt from The Civil Service: The Merit System, the Spoils System

The chief aim of the merit system is, on the one hand, to get the best service for the Government - that is, for the people - and, on the other hand, to remove from the party contests of the country the corrupting influence of the vast number of business places offered as spoils to the victors. The methods of competition and probation are not perfect, and, like all other human methods, are liable to mismanage ment. But they are the best that have ever been tried, and they are very efl'ective. The test of competitive examination is shown to be thorough and practical by the fact that only a very small number of those who pass that test are dropped after probation or trial. Another proof is the much larger amount of work done by persons so selected. During ten years before the adoption of the merit system in the Depart ments at Washington the number of clerks increased from to or more than two-thirds. In the thirteen years after the system was adopted the number actually fell off 21 1, or three per cent., while the work of the departments had largely increased. Another proof of the efficiency of the system is the small number of changes that take place in it compared with those that take place in the branches of the service where the system is not yet applied.

Two facts are noteworthy with regard to the efl'ect of the use of the merit system on partisan contests in politics. The total cost of the executive service is over Of this nearly $7 or three-fourths, is now paid to those employees who are under the merit system. This very large sum is no longer held out as prizes for partisan activity, or treated as the spoils of the enemy. The other fact is that the feeling of the people that the government is theirs, and does not belong to the party in power for the time being, is greatly strengthened. The entrance examinations are held in all parts of the land, and men and women are selected for the departments at Washington with no regard whatever for their party views or the influence of politicians. This has been of great effect in laying to rest the passions bred by the civil war, and giving to the dwellers in the South a sense of their common rights and duties as citizens of the nation. It is a great and lasting gain.

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