First Commission, 1871. The reformers were persistent, and late in the session, 1871, were able to attach a "rider" to the appropriation bill in which congress established what is known as the first civil service commission. It authorized the president to prescribe rules for admission to the civil service and to appoint a commission to inquire into the fitness of applicants; and it gave $25,000 for the expenses of the same. The commission was named at once, with Curtis for chairman. It formulated rules for appointments, which Grant adopted and promulgated, April, 1872, for use in the departments in Washington and the federal offices in New York. Trouble now began. Individual congressmen urged the president to appoint their friends. In some cases he made bad selections, which disgusted the reformers, and finally Curtis resigned in despair. Grant had little patience with the situation; he gradually yielded to the arguments of practical advisers who declared reform an impossible dream, and when congress in 1873 refused to renew the appropriation he ceased to enforce the rules of 1872. The commission continued a formal existence with Dorman B. Eaton as chairman. Efforts of Hayes would have revived the energy of the commission if congress had given the necessary money, for the law of 1871 was unrepealed. As it was, he tried to reform the New York customhouse. A committee appointed by him reported that one-fifth of the clerks there should be dismissed as unnecessary. Hayes followed the suggestion, removing the collector, Chester A. Arthur, a favorite of Conkling, because Arthur would not indorse the reforms. He also applied the merit system to the New York post office, placing at the head of it Thomas L. James, a reformer. Senator Conkling resented this policy. He thought the reform movement contained a great deal of cant, and once expressed his contempt in the following words uttered with a withering drawl, "When Doctor-r-r Ja-a-awson said that patr-r-riotism was the l-a-w-s-t r-r-refuge of a scoundr-r-rel, he ignor-r-red the enor-r-rmous possibilities of the word r-refa-awr-r-rm!" The house of representatives in something of the same spirit made Benjamin F. Butler chairman of its committee on civil service reform. Hayes realized the utter opposition of congress and dared not attempt to reform the departments, as he might have done under the law of 1871. Garfield's Meanwhile, the movement progressed outside of congress. Associations to promote it were formed in many cities, and in 1881 a national civil service league was organized. A mass of literature appeared in support of the movement, and among its and Arthur's defenders were leading men of thought. Garfield when candidate for the presidency gave open allegiance, and his election gave hope to the reformers. The accession of Arthur, Conkling's friend, and victim of Hayes's New York reforms, filled Attitudes. THE REFORMS WIN 709 them with dread. They breathed easily when in his first annual message he discussed competitive examinations mildly, pointed out some defects, but said that he would execute such a plan fairly if congress adopted it. No law followed at that session, but when the elections of 1882 went against the republicans, they were willing to pass one. The fact that Garfield's assassin was a disappointed office seeker was an added motive for adopting the merit system. Pendleton The "Pendleton Act," 1883, took its name from George H. Pendleton, chairman of the senate committee on civil service reform, but it was written by Dorman B. Eaton. It created a classified service, to be organized by the president and to Act, 1883. apply to clerks in the departments and in post offices and custom houses having over fifty employees. Examinations in keeping with the requirement should be given, and they were to determine appointments, and applicants should bring no other recommendation than as to residence and moral character. They were to be taken as nearly as possible from the states in proportion to population. The president might by his order include within the classified service employees not originally included, and strict measures were taken to abolish campaign contributions by employees. The president was to appoint a commission of three members to supervise the examinations, keep records, recommend clerks on the approved lists, investigate alleged violations of the law, and report annually to the president and congress. under Arthur and Arthur, true to his promise, executed the law faithfully and placed Eaton at the head of the commission. In 1884 both parties indorsed it; and although its enforcement has sometimes been evaded, its expediency has generally been granted. Suc- Execution cessive presidents have extended its scope. Cleveland's party came into power with an office-hunger created in a Cleveland. long period of exclusion, and he had much trouble to keep them from overturning the system. But he respected the classified service, and satisfied his supporters out of the unclassified offices. The reformers complained that he did not keep the spirit of the reform. Some of his appointments were undoubtedly bad, which brought other complaints. But Cleveland personally favored the law, and just before he went out of office brought the railway mail clerks under the civil service rules. Under The republicans, returning to power in 1889, were greatly incensed at the railway mail order. It was, they said, a trick to give immunity to recently appointed democrats. Harrison suspended the operations of the order, made many removals, and Harrison. when it was at last operative, few railway clerks were democrats. Cleveland resisted the party pressure for removals as much as he could. In his entire term 20,000 occurred: under Harrison there were 35,850 dismissals within a little more than a year after his inauguration. Clarkson, controlling appointments in the postoffice department, was so active that he was called "the headman." But Harrison enforced the rules within the classified service and brought within the rules a part of the Indian service, hitherto liable to peculiarly bad appointments. He did the same for the fish commission and the clerks of free-delivery post offices; but none of these steps were taken until the offices affected were generally filled by republicans. Harrison appointed Theodore Roosevelt, of New York, to the civil service commission, and afterwards made him its chairman. Roosevelt as Commissioner. This vigorous young reformer wished at first to be assistant secretary of state, but Secretary Blaine desired a milder spirited man for an assistant. Until then the commission had sought to obtain its objects without antagonizing congressmen. Membership on it was so inconspicuous that Roosevelt's friends advised him not to accept. He disregarded the advice and gave the civil service commission a new kind of force. There was no more hesitation in its actions: whoever criticized it was met by a rejoinder which took away his argument. Foolish assertions that the examinations were fantastical, that appointments went by favoritism, and that the commission was nerveless, were dispelled. Once when the press said that it was well known that only republicans could get office, Roosevelt took a striking means of refuting the charge. He called before him the Washington correspondents of the Southern newspapers, told them the South had not its full share of clerks, and asked them to induce more Southerners to take the examinations. He told them to say in their papers that politics would play no part in the appointments. The result was a large increase in appointments from the section indicated, and most of them went to democrats. The discomfited politicians ceased to call the civil service commission a nonentity. His Dealing with Congressmen. Roosevelt's activity piqued congress, and in the committee-ofthe-whole, where the yeas and nays were not taken, it cut down the appropriation for the commission. When the bill came up for final action, where the voters must go on record, the discontented ones would refuse to vote, and the appropriation would be restored. This happened several times. Once the opposition cut down the appropriation for examinations. Roosevelt omitted to hold them in the districts of the members who thought them unnecessary, much to the dissatisfaction of the constituencies concerned. He thus appealed to the people over the head of the representatives. As a result, he was little loved but much feared by the spoilsmen, but the people trusted him and admired his fearlessness. Cleveland was not popular with his party in his second term, and RECENT EXTENSIONS 711 Cleveland's could ignore the democratic spoilsmen. Some of his appointments were made without due investigation, and he made others to force the repeal of the Sherman silver law; but he Second widely extended the classified service, adding 29,399 places Term. by one order. His successor, President McKinley, had trouble to keep congress from revoking all such orders. Delay and reflection was secured by creating a senate committee appointed to investigate the subject. After a while it reported that the classified service should be reduced. It looked gloomy for the Under advocates of reform, but at just this moment war with McKinley. Spain intervened and drew away the attention of the spoilsmen. The war created many new places, and this served partly to divert the attack on the classified service. The subject was taken up again in 1899, when the president removed 3693 places from the classified service and transferred 6414 from the oversight of the commission to that of the secretary of war. It was a questionable step, though defended on the ground that the places involved had to do with expert service or with confidential clerkships, and that in such cases competitive examinations ought not to apply. The reformers replied that even if this was true in principle, the number of positions involved in this instance was far too large. Since 1899 the classified service has been several times extended, last of all by President Taft, but the traces of the spoils system have not been removed from our public life. The agitation for national reform stimulated action in some states, notably New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Louisiana, and Connecticut, where the reform system was wholly or partially adopted. BALLOT REFORM Former Closely connected with civil service reform was the fight for better laws, which depended on state rather than federal action. The old ballot system was weak in that it was not secret, that the ballots were privately printed and capable of various Conditions. forms of juggling for party interests, and that they were printed on various small slips confusing to the voter, and by this means profitable to the party tricksters. Abuses under this condition had existed from early times, but it was only the new reform spirit that resented and sought to remedy them. This was made easier by the rapid growth of the evil practices in the early eighties. The increasing prominence of the tariff in elections is supposed to have brought forth large campaign funds which might be used corruptly. It also went with an open manifestation of the manufacturer's desire to control the vote of his operatives. Agents of employers were known to hand ballots to employees and see them safely deposited in the boxes. Black-lists were sometimes kept by which refractory voters were dropped from the factory pay rolls. In the agitation of the day the amount of such an evil would naturally be exaggerated, but it cannot be doubted that it existed extensively. Bribery also flourished. Both parties used it, and conservative people could see no way of abolishing it outright, while less sensitive people only smiled at it. There existed a purchasable Bribery. vote which was as willing to sell itself as the purchaser was willing to buy. This abuse was most glaring in the election of 1888, and soon afterwards arose the movement for reform. It demanded the "Australian Ballot," the chief features of which were that the ballot be secret and officially printed in "blanket" form. The system originated in Australia, but it had been adopted in England. The movement in the United States had rapid success. The first step forward was when the New York legislature, 1888, passed a law of the desired kind, but the veto of Governor Hill robbed the state of the honor of leading in the reform. This distinction went to Massachusetts instead, which in the same year passed such a law and put it into operation in her election of 1889. The ice was now broken, and nine states followed in 1889, seven in 1890, and eighteen in 1891. Five of these laws were pronounced "poor" or "bad" by the reformers. They were later amended, and in 1909 thirty-nine of the forty-six states had blanket ballots, and of the others only four Connecticut, North and South Carolina, and Georgia — used unofficial ballots. In the last three the voting is entirely public. The Two TARIFF REFORM Most of the political reformers were also tariff reformers. The inequalities they saw in protection appealed to them in nearly the same way as the political evils. On the other hand, not all tariff reformers were political reformers. The large Reformers. majority who favored a lower tariff acted from economic reasons, or because party loyalty demanded it. Among tariff reformers were at least two classes, those who would readjust the schedules slightly and conformably with the revenue needs of government, and those who were theoretical free-traders. Many of the political reformers belonged to this second class of tariff reformers. Numerous new industries sprang up during the war, and under protection some made large, and others small, profits. The first class did not want the tariff reduction, and the second could not afford it. The mass of consumers, when they gave the matter serious thought, felt they were paying to support a system artificial in itself and badly adapted to revenue purposes. But it yielded large sums to the treasury, and these were needed to pay the war debt and aid in reëstablishing the public credit after the war. Two Sides of the Tariff. |