Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1937-07-29

| of machine in place OF an informed
and organized public opinion.
The spoils system converts office
holders into servants of party or
faction and undermines the discipline
and morals in public service.
The spoils system keeps in high
political places persons whose chief
ability consists in holding a personal
following by manipulation of patron
age.
| The Spoils system promotes doubts
as to the practicability of democratic
institutions.
Of all reforms in government, civil
service is probably the most funda-
mental. 1t is the reform on which
all other improvements in national,
state and municipal administration
necessarily depend. The explanation
of this fact is that the efficiency of all
governmental services in these days
depends on the adoption throughout
such services of the merit system of
selection and promotion.
While governmental administra-
ton was simple, and required only
ordinary intelligence and common
honesty, it was possible to conduct
it through men who came into it
on a sudden from other employmentS,
and left it after few years to make
room for a new set of inexperienced
/ men.
The nature of the work to be done
in all branches of the public service
has undergone great changes within
the past 40 years, and these changes
are progressive. Practically all kinds
of public work now require appro-
pirate previous training and the pos
session of a good degree of knowledge
and skill In an old-faShiOned new
England town any fairly intelligent
farmer or mechanic could be elected
or appointed to direct the annual re-
pairs on the roads, and any citizen
could work on the roads because road
construction was everywhere ex-
tremely simple and Intellectual, done
with a plough and scraper and
without expectation of its lasting be-
yond one season.
Modern road building has become
highly important and complicated
matter, necessitating chemists, engl-
neers, and experts in landscape beauty
and design In fact the nation, the
state. the county and city are now
Obliged to undertake for the public
welfare great variety of works
which are complex applications OF
modern science, and can only be
managed by engineers, chemists, ply
sicians and highly trained artisans.
In an age when public administration
depends upon the slide rule, the elm
| ical thermometer, the test-tube and
higher mathematics it is manlfestly
impossible to operate government on
the idea that the duties of all pub
lie officers are so simple that any
one may perform them without train
ing or previous experience.
Despite this fact civil service is
not generally and widely practiced as
some people may suppose. Even after
half century of effort to establish
the merit system in government, 1t
falls far short of being universally
applied. The situation reminds one
of modern parody on those we'll
known lines of Shakespeare which
declares:
There are sermons in stones,
Books in running brooks,
And good in everything"
Some skeptical modern, realizing
the value of stone-pits and water
power, changed the lines to read
this way:
There is money in stones,
| Assets in running brooks,
And graft in everything"
Undoubtedly this is an exaggerated
view of the situation but there is
further need of applying civil serv-
ice much more widely, to the end
of greater efficiency and economy
| in government.
In the federal government, patron
age has been substantially elimin-
ated in the classified service. To
maintain our federal staff of 835 900
people, the civil service places about
10000 persons per year. Of course
many of the new activities of the fed
eral government have come about
so rapidly as to preclude the appli-
cation of civil service, although I
understand that such federal projects,
as the Tennessee Valley Authority,
though exempt from civil service re-
quirements, have built up an excel
lent personnel system of their own.
In the mater of civil service, the
states do not make so good a show
ing as the federal government, nor
have they built up the tradition of
efficiency which the federal govern
ment has, Ten states have formal
merit systems and enforcement is rea-
sonably satisfactory in most of them.
These states include New York, Mas
sachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland,
Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas,
Colorado and California. Some other
states have partial merit systems and
still others have a working arrange
ment whereby merit is recognized