St. Paul daily globe., 1889-05-26

sal of the commissions policy hitherto.
For what were then deemed excel
lent reasons, the commission when it
was first established, had the eligible
list kept secret, the idea being that this
secrecy would prevent politicians from
bringing pressure to bear upon any
public officer to secure the appointment
of given man Oh the eligible list. 1t
has, however. in practice, he said. re-
suited very frequently that politicians
were able to get hold of the standing of
applicants OH the eligible list, while the
outside public and all but the favored
applicants themselves remained in igno-
rance of it, so that the commission is
now inclined to think the regulation
has not produced the results intended
cellent reasons to think it would pro-
duce. The commission believes in the
doctrine that in our form of government
PUBLICITY IS GOOD THING,
unless special reasons to the contrary
can be shown; and they are now going
to apply it fully in the case of the eligi-
BILE list. The commission feels that it
Is above all things necessary to drill
into the minds of the public belief in
the absolute honesty and fairness of the
present system of selecting public en-
ployeS. and of the way in which it is
carried out. las far as we have
power" said Mr.. Roosevelt. 1--WE intend
to have the law enforced with absolute
honesty and without the least reference
TO the politics of the applicant. The
commission wants to give the public
confidence in the law, and it feels that
the best way to bring about that result
is to have the work of the commission
le fectly open and above board
and perfectly simple. Of course,
while l believe implicitly that the merit
system, as opposed to the old spoils
system, has come to stay, realize that
any of our methods are more or less on
trial. even yet, and the commission
has to
MAKE EXPERIMENTS
all the time, and it is absolutely iney-
liable that there should be occasional
mistakes. When we find we have made
such mistake, we shall simply reverse
our action. Now, it is exactly so in
this case, 1t was believed, with what
seemed good reasons by the original
commission, that secrecy in the matter
of the eligible list would work we'll.
Now we are inclined to think that. on
the whole, it has worked injustice, and
the commission is going, therefore,
to make the eligible list and
the standing list, and the stand
ing of each applicant public and
try how it works, reServing to itself full
liberty to alter the couse if it is found
to work badly. We recognize at the
outset that there are certain disadvan-
tages connected with publicity, while
the certificatiOn for appointment in
cludeS three names at time. There is
a chance that people will bring pres
sure to bear upon the appointing pow
ers to have them choose some particular
favored one of the three. But even
when the lists were kept secret it too
often happened that the politicians
found out what the public remained
ignorant of, and brought pressure to
bear anyhow. So the commission thinks
that the numerous advantages of pub
licity more than counterDalance its dis
advanta geS. If the commission finds
that any
SERIOUS EVASION
of the spirit OF the law occurs through
Improper pressure being brought to bear
on the appointing power. in conSe-
quence OF the lists being made public,
then we shall try to establish some reg
ulation to check the evil so we might
advise that only two names at time be
certified, or take some other step. At
any rate, for the time being, we are con-
WINGED that we want to haze everything
made as public as possible, so as to do
away even with the possibility of the
accusation of favOritiSm or underhand
work in the examinations, and the ar
rangement of eligibleS.