October 4, 1902 - Persons employed on construction of Government Printing Office building continued on War College and Washington Barracks under special civil-service rule.

February 11, 1903- Temporary employees in insular naval stations transferred to the classified service.

February 11, 1903- Employees at Post Office given free delivery between July 1, 1901, and June 30, 1903, covered by the classified service.

June 30, 1904 By operation of the rules- employees in sixty-six post offices classified.

August 10, 1904- The position of one clerk at each pension agency to act for the pension agent during his absence, transferred from the excepted to the competitive class.

March 26, 1904- All positions under the War Department in the Philippines except those filled by persons employed as skilled laborers or persons appointed by the President, classified.

November 15, 1904 Positions under the Isthmian Canal Commission, except those filled by persons employed as laborers, and persons whose appointment is confirmed by the Senate and engineers detailed from the army, classified. November 23, 1904- Positions of deputy collector, deputy surveyor, cashier, and naval officer in the customs service transferred from the excepted list to the classified service.

December 19, 1904- Positions in the forestry service of the Department of the Interior made competitive.

June 22, 1904- The positions of mail feeder and press feeder at the Philadelphia and New Orleans Mints included in the classified service at the request of the Treasury Department.

March 28, 1905- Special agents of the Immigration Bureau on duty in foreign territory brought within the classified service.

April 3, 1905- Positions of cashiers and finance clerks in post offices throughout the country, taken out of the excepted class, to be filled by promotion. Another order of the same date, relating to laborers in the departments at Washington, has been made familiar in recent despatches.

At the time Mr. Roosevelt became President there were, in round numbers, 83,000 persons in the classified service. The number is now 155,000. Within the last twelve months the service has shown a growth of about 14 per cent. Part of this is, of course, due to the natural growth of the system. In addition to these orders it has been provided that unclassified laborers at Washington and elsewhere should be selected by a system of competitive registration, taking account of age, physical condition, experience, and character. Thus 24,000 unclassified positions were made competitive.

RURAL FREE DELIVERY CLASSIFICATION

The order of the President that stands out most conspicuously is that placing the rural free delivery service in the classified list. At the time it was issued only 6,500 men were employed; now more than 25,000 are included.

One notable rule promulgated requires public officers in the Federal service to give testimony under oath before the Civil Service Commission when investigations are instituted. An honest effort has been made to cure abuses relating to transfers and reinstatements, and auditing and disbursing officers have been forbidden to pay salaries to persons holding positions in violation of the civil-service rules.

It is well understood that the President has further extensions of the classified service in mind. The rule that fourth-class postmasters are to be removed for cause may prove to be the forerunner of an executive order putting these public servants on a more secure basis. It is a reasonably safe guess that if the members of Congress do not accept without murmurings the rule that such postmasters shall be retained in office during good behavior and faithful service, the President will settle the whole controversy by classifying the 95,000 postmasters.

BACK DOOR CLOSED

In their vain quest for places for constituents members of Congress have come to believe that the President has effectually closed the "back door" entrance to clerkships. From 1896 to 1901 it was an easy thing for a member of Congress with influence to find some back door through which he could push a constituent into a place without the trouble of consulting the Civil Service Commission. One of the favorite "back doors" led first to some remote country post office that was about to become a free delivery office. If the congressman had the proper amount of influence his constituent was put on the pay-roll of the remote post office, and as soon as it came into the classified service by reason of becoming a free delivery office the constituent was transferred to the place originally intended for him in one of the departments here. The postoffice investigation revealed this crooked business, and in some instances persons who were found to be drawing salaries in post offices they had never seen, were made to give up their illegal salaries. The President soon put a stop to this by applying a rule that a transfer should not be made unless a person had actually served six months in the office from which he asked transfer, and also providing that the person in question must qualify for the new place by taking an examination.

Another "back door" which members of Congress found so convenient led to the laborers' rolls. Under the old régime, it was a common thing to appoint men as unclassified laborers and then, in due time, put them to work in the classified service. With the laborers covered by the classified service, this abuse no longer exists.

A BETTER ATMOSPHERE

After all, it is the civil service "atmosphere" that is doing most to strengthen the merit system. The average departmental official, from

the cabinet officer down, is about what the President of the United States wants him to be. The knowledge that Mr. Roosevelt believes in the merit system affects public sentiment mightily. A member of Congress from Indiana remarked, after he had failed to find places available for constituents, that officials said to him privately: "Of course, we might edge in a man notwithstanding the executive orders and the extensions of rules, but we do not dare do it."

Abuses of the system still exist. The late Senator Quay was not prosecuted for collecting campaign funds from the Federal appointees in Pennsylvania, while C. O. Self, a competent clerk in the internal revenue office at Terre Haute, was dismissed for the same offense. No one avers that the President did wrong in dismissing young Self, as that act settled the controverted question as to whether a person could be compelled to testify before the Commission, but to persons who watched the courses of the two cases it always seemed that the President ought to have insisted on a trial in the Quay case.

Undoubtedly the system needs corrective legislation, but Congress does not seem disposed to act. What to do with the men and women who have reached the age that unfits them for service is the great problem. Year by year the departments are becoming more topheavy. Cabinet officers have it within their power to discharge the aged and the infirm, but they will not do it, and perhaps they should not. Ten or twelve bills, offering remedies for this one defect, were before Congress last session, but none received consideration. The Civil Service Commission looks with favor on the plan to establish by law an annuity insurance system in the departments, and, generally speaking, the clerks favor this plan. Representative Gillett of Massachusetts, who was chairman of the Committee on the Reform of the Civil Service in the last Congress, and will probably be reassigned to that chairmanship, hopes for action of some kind at the coming session.

1

SENATOR HOAR ON APPOINTMENTS TO OFFICE 1 [This extract deals briefly with the relations of the President to Congress in the matter of appointments.]

AMONG the great satisfactions in the life of public men is that of sometimes being instrumental in the advancement to places of public honor of worthy men, and of being able to have a great and salutary influence upon their lives. I have always held to the doctrine of what is called Civil Service Reform, and have maintained to the best of my ability the doctrine of the absolute independence of the Executive in such matters, as his right to disregard the wishes or opinions of members of

1 From Senator Hoar's Autobiography.

either House of Congress, and to make his appointments executive and judicial, without advice, or on such advice as he shall think best. But, at the same time, there can be no doubt that the Executive must depend upon some advice other than his own, to learn the quality of men in different parts of this vast Republic, and to learn what will be agreeable to public opinion and to the party which is administering the Government and is responsible for its administration. He will, ordinarily, find no better source of such information than in the men whom the people have shown their own confidence in by entrusting them with the important function of Senator or Representative. He will soon learn to know his men, and how far he can safely take such advice. He must be careful to see to it that he is not induced to build up a faction in his party, or to fill up the public offices with the partisans of ambitious but unscrupulous politicians. When I entered the House of Representatives, before the Civil Service Reform had made any progress, I addressed and had put on file with the Secretary of the Treasury a letter in which I said that I desired him to understand when I made a recommendation to him of any person for public office, it was to be taken merely as my opinion of the merit of the candidate, and not as an expression of a personal request; and that if he found any other person who would in his judgment be better for the public service, I hoped he would make the selection without regard to my recommendation.

I have never undertaken to use public office as personal patronage, or to claim the right to dictate to the President of the United States, or that the Executive was not entirely free, upon such advice as he saw fit, or without advice, if he thought fit, in making his selection for public office.

XIV

THE COURTS

FROM AN ADDRESS OF MR. JUSTICE FIELD DELIVERED UPON THE OCCASION OF THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE COURT1

AND now, with its history in the century past, what is needed, that the Supreme Court of the United States should sustain its character and be as useful in the century to come? I answer, as a matter of the first consideration, that it should not be overborne with work, and by that I mean it should have some relief from the immense burden now cast upon it. This can only be done by legislative action, and in determining what measures shall be adopted for that purpose Congress will undoubtedly receive with favor suggestions from the Bar Associations of the country. The Justices already do all in their power, for each one examines every case and passes his individual judgment upon it. No case in the Supreme Court is ever referred to any one Justice, or to several of the Justices, to decide and report to the others. Every suitor, however humble, is entitled to and receives the judgment of every Justice upon his case.

In considering this matter it must be borne in mind that, in addition to the great increase in the number of admiralty and maritime cases, from the enlarged commerce on the seas, and on the navigable waters of the United States, and in the number of patent cases from the multitude of inventions brought forth by the genius of our people, calling for judicial determination, even to the extent of occupying a large portion of the time of the court, many causes, which did not exist upon its organization or during the first quarter of the century, have added enormously to its business. Thus by the new agencies of steam and electricity in the movement of the machinery and transmission of intelligence, creating railways and steamboats, telegraphs and telephones, and adding almost without number to establishments for the manufacture of fabrics, transactions are carried on to an infinitely greater extent than before between different States, leading to innumerable

1 Reprinted in Carson, History of the Supreme Court, I, 713.