otherwise prejudiced for refusing to do so. Furthermore, no person in the public service has a right to use his authority to coerce the political action of any person. No recommendation by a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives, except as to the character or residence of an applicant, can be lawfully received or considered by any person concerned in making examinations or appointments under the Civil Service Act. Members of Congress and executive, judicial, military, and naval officers are forbidden to be involved in soliciting or receiving political assistance or contributions from any officer employed by the United States or from any person receiving compensation from the United States. The practice of soliciting campaign contributions in the buildings occupied by branches of the federal government is likewise forbidden by law. Other forms of political activities, however, were left by the Act to the control of the heads of departments, and from time to time executive and departmental orders were issued for the purpose of eliminating abuses arising from the active participation of inferior office-holders in party affairs. At length, in 1907, political activity in the broadest sense was placed under the supervision of the Civil Service Commission by an amendment to the rules, adopted by the President, providing that "all persons who by the provisions of these rules are in the competitive classified service, while retaining the right to vote as they please and to express privately their opinions on all political subjects, shall take no active part in political management or in political campaigns.” This rule has been construed by the Commission to forbid the use of official positions for the benefit of any political party; and since its adoption it has been interpreted to prohibit the following types of political activity: "Service on political committees, service as delegates to county, state, or district conventions of a political party, although it was understood that they were not 'to take or use any political activity in going to these conventions or otherwise violate the civil service rules'; continued political activity and leadership; the publication of a newspaper in the interest of a political party; membership in a club taking an active part in political campaigns and management; the circulation of petitions having a political object; service as a com 1 1 There is, no doubt, more or less violation in practice. missioner of elections in a community where it was notorious that a commissioner of elections must be an active politician." 1 The principle of permanent tenure involved in the merit. system of appointment raises the question as to what shall be done with government employees who have passed the age of efficient service. It is only possible to keep the civil service up to a high standard by constantly recruiting it from able young men in the prime of life. This throws upon the officer responsible for administration the unwelcome duty of reducing the pay and the rank of the older men or discharging them altogether. If these older men are kept in service, it is frankly out of a generous appreciation of their condition. They are not only inefficient themselves, but by holding high places which they have won by meritorious services they block the way for the promotion of capable and energetic younger men. "No man," said the quartermastergeneral recently, "with the slightest appreciation of the loyalty of these old, tried, and faithful employees will urge that they should be discharged, and a reduction in salary is so disheartening to them as to render nugatory their services after such action. No matter how kindly the necessity is explained to them, reduction is a severe blow. . . . If they are retained in the grades attained by merit in the period when they could and did do all or more than their duty, the effect on the younger clerks who then do the work is depressing in the extreme. Some provision for retiring the old clerks ought to be made. More good effects on administration would probably come through provision for retirement than any other one action that could now be taken, and its effect would doubtless prove as beneficial as did the establishment of the merit system.' President Taft took this view of the situation in his message of December 7, 1909, in which he declared that, in spite of the opposition to the establishment of civil pensions, which had naturally grown out of the heavy burden of military pensions, he was strongly convinced that no other practical solution of the difficulties presented by superannuation in the civil service could be found, than that of a system of civil pensions. 1 Report of the Civil Service Commission (1908), p. 10. CHAPTER XII THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES THE, Congress of the United States is composed of two houses: a Senate representing the commonwealths in their corporate capacities, and a House of Representatives apportioned among the states according to their respective populations. Two leading motives were responsible for the adoption of this bicameral system. In the first place, it was necessary to secure the support of the smaller states for the new Constitution by granting them equality of power in one branch of the federal government. In the second place, the Fathers believed that some check was necessary upon the impulses and passions of the more popular body. Then, of course, they had before them the examples of the English Parliament and their colonial assemblies. The House of Representatives The number of members in the House of Representatives is fixed by Congress, subject to the limitation that it shall never exceed one for every 30,000 of the population. The first House consisted of sixty-five members, and, with one exception (the reapportionment of 1842) the number has been regularly increased until it has now reached 435. At each recurrence of the decennial apportionment there is a strong pressure on Congress to add more members to the already unwieldy assembly. This is due to the fact that those states whose populations have increased only slightly, or not at all, are unwilling to have their representation reduced in order that the rapidly growing states may receive the proportion due them under the numerical rule. It must be noted also that with the growth of population the number of inhabitants in each congressional district has increased enormously, from about 33,000 in 1793 to about 200,000 at the apportionment of 1911. This makes a constituency of great size when compared with the parliamentary district in England or in France. A member of the House of Representatives must be a citizen of the United States of at least seven years' standing; he must be not less than twenty-five years old and an inhabitant of the state in which he is chosen. He cannot be at the same time a military or civil officer of the United States; and nearly all of the states have, by law or constitutional provision, forbidden their officers to hold positions of trust under the federal government. Some states have gone further and provided that each member must be a resident of the district which he represents; but this restriction is regarded by most lawyers as unconstitutional, because it adds a qualification to those imposed by the federal Constitution.1 As a matter of fact, however, it is practically an unwritten law that the member must be a resident of his district, although there are a few exceptions, as for example in New York, where downtown constituencies are often represented by men residing in uptown districts. Mr. Bryce has summarized the reasons for the adoption of this general custom as follows: State pride, of course, will prevent a district from going outside of the commonwealth for its Representative; the member of the House is relatively well paid, and the party in the district does not want to waste the post on strangers, but prefers to reserve it to strengthen the local organization; owing to the vast amount of party work required by our complicated system, it is necessary to have as many offices as possible to reward the workers; the Representative in Congress is expected to know and primarily represent local needs and to secure harbor and river appropriations, post-office buildings, special protection for industries and other favors for his constituents, for Americans regard the Representative as a spokesman of local interests rather than as a statesman, "formulating reason and justice into law." It is, therefore, highly improbable that any change will be made in this unwritten law, at least in the near future, notwithstanding the fact that it often. excludes able men from Congress because talent is not distributed by nature according to congressional districts. While it seems clear that states cannot add qualifications to those imposed by the federal Constitution on members of Congress, it is conceded in practice that either house, in the exercise of its constitutional powers to be judge of the elections, returns, 1 But it is difficult to see how it could be set aside by legal process. and qualifications of its members, may exclude persons on other grounds than those laid down in the Constitution. For example, in 1900, the House excluded Mr. Brigham H. Roberts of Utah on the ground that he was a polygamist. The committee reporting in favor of this action contended: "Must it be said that the constitutional provision, phrased as it is, really means that every person who is twenty-five years of age and who has been for seven years a citizen of the United States and was when elected an inhabitant of that state in which he was chosen, is eligible to be a member of the House of Representatives and must be admitted thereto even though he be insane or disloyal or a leper or a criminal? Is it conceivable that the Constitution meant that crime could not disqualify? The whole spirit of the government revolts against such a conclusion." The minority of the committee reported, however, against this view, declaring: "The adding by this House alone of a disqualification not established by law would not only be a violation of both the Constitution and the law, but it would be a most dangerous precedent which could hardly fail to 'return to plague the inventor.' . . . What warrant have you, when the barriers of the Constitution are once broken down, that there may not come after us a House, with other standards of morality and propriety, which will create other qualifications with no rightful foundations? . . . It will no longer be a government of laws but of men. To thus depart from the Constitution and substitute force for law is to embark upon a trackless sea without chart or compass. ." This view was also held by those who claimed that the proper way of getting rid of Mr. Roberts was to admit him to membership and then expel him under the right to eject by twothirds vote; but the party of exclusion triumphed. The Constitution provides that no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office. Under this provision several army officers have been excluded from the House of Representatives. For example, in 1803, Mr. John P. Van Ness, a Representative from New York, was appointed major of the militia under the authority of the United States in the District of Columbia, and 'It has been done, however, in only a few cases. 2 Hinds, Precedents of the House of Representatives, Vol. I, pp. 527 ff. |