The Sunday herald., 1886-11-21
A QUEER KIND OF REFORM.

Absurdities OF the Civil Service System
AS Now Applied In the Departments,
"Civi! Service Reform, as now administered, has
produced curious results In this Department. said
Treasury employe yesterday. "What would you
think of service in which there is absolutely no
promotion either for merit or for seniority and in
which all the responsible places are held by men
who have never passed an examination, who
could not pass an examination II they were
required to do so, and hye-sixths OF whom mere
fgure-heads, incompetent to oversee and direct the
work of their subordinates?"
"1s 1t as bad as that?"
"why, of course it is. The theory Is that the 1T
ness Of employees Is to be determined by competitive
examinations. In practice that is applied only to
the unimportant places, the 81 500 clerkshlps and
those below that figure. 1.-THE examination panacea
is good for anything 1t ought TO he applied to the
offices where 1t is most needed, that ia to say, to
those where the most difficult and responsible busi-
ness is transacted. Otherwise examinations are
farce At present the chiefs of divisiens and all
other responsible officers In the Treasury are new
men, who know nothing at all about the complicated
business Of the Department except what they have
been able to learn from their own subordinates
| within a year or 80. Having had no training
| In ONCE, most them have failed to master the
intricate routine Of business, which 1t takes years
for the experts to acquire, and the real work and
the final decisions in most cases arc therefore de.
volved upon obscure third and fourth.class clerks
| The old chiefs of division, instead OF being dis
missed, have generally been retained at reduced
grade, to make for the Ignorant outsiders, who
draw the pay but cannot do the work. But of course
the real power remains In the hands Of the experts
who are simply less responsible in the obscurer
| grades to which they have been reegated. AS re-
suit OF the old rings have been broken up, and
there has been an absolute retrogression In the
whole tone and personnel Of the service. The prin-
cipe Of reducing the trained men to make room for
unframed ones Is radically wrong. 1t recourse
that could only be Jushable In exceptional cases.
The chiefs who could be spared, or who were oh.
noxious partisans or inefficient, should have been
got rid of entirely. The total stoppage of promotion
is serious evil, of the kld which only works out its
bad results by the lapse OF time No service be
healthy without promotion; least OF all one In which
the pay ia 30 small and the rewards for efficiency
and faithful service 30 meagre at best"
"But it IS said that more work is done with lesi
force now than formerly"
"That Is true In a certain sense; the mere scry.
eners the copylsts, examiners, counters, etc., DO ge
through more work per head than formerly. A goot
many drones are afraid to go on idling and depend
ing upon influence to keep them In their places. II
other words there is little saving In the unsklet
labor, few less clerks required In the lower grades
but no real reform in the personnel of IN,
more important positions, no improvement
in methods, no increased esprit du corps
J in fact, just the reverse The result Ia tina
there are more likely than ever before to be seriou
| and costly bIunders. What there is good and EN-
cient in the Department is the old Republican ma
chine, retained. reduced In rank, dissatisfied, an
u growing less careful and efficient. / know whereo
speak when aver that the chiefs OF division art
l., generally incompetent"
swell, what Ia the remedy you propose ?"
= "Promotion, of course. There plenty OF com
petent men in the Departments who, II not actual
Democrats, have never taken any active part II
politics. These men ought to he promoted and thei
, knowledge made available, instead Of being keI
down to make room for the ofrensvely partisa
= = chiefs, who have been merely reduced when the
ought to have been discharged. The Department
will be on the wrong track as long as this is nc
dDnap