The Striking Features of the Kansas City Civil Service Commission.

HON. JAMES W. S. PETERS, OF THE KANSAS CITY CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION.

Messrs. E. C. Meservey, an ex-city counselor, John H. Thacher, a member of the Kansas City Charter Board of 1908, and James W. S. Peters, were appointed civil service commissioners April 26, 1910, by the duly elected Republican Mayor, Darius A. Brown, to organize a new system of civil service for Kansas City.

Kansas City has the power to frame its own charter. Exercising this power by a three-to-one vote cast August 4th, 1908, it adopted a charter incorporating stringent civil service provisions to become effective at the beginning of the fiscal term of 1910. One unusual and one unprecedented feature were in this civil service law. In the first place, the charter required the commission to certify for appointment to the appointing officer the candidate standing highest on the eligible list resulting from an open, public and competitive examination and in the second place, the charter endeavored to sweep the deck clean for an entirely new manning of the municipal ship, by providing that incumbents of all positions at the time the charter took effect should continue in service until the commission should promulgate rules and obtain an eligible list, whereupon such incumbents should be deemed to have vacated their several positions.

Looking the cold logic of this situation boldly in the face the commission convinced itself that there were three urgent necessities demanded of any methods adopted in carrying out their civil service plans. First: To adopt some method of ascertaining merit and fitness that would not only ensure technical knowledge, but also ability in the person selected to handle an oar or command a ship at once;

Second: To hold the ship off the rocks while changing the personnel of its crew; and

Third: To keep the passengers in a placid frame of mind meanwhile.

Where the top man is certified for appointment greater responsibility is thrown on the civil service commission than where the appointing power has choice of three or four successful candidates presented to him. In the former case the appointing officer has no chance at that stage of the proceeding to come face to face with several candidates and decide among them but must take the one offered him however unpromising the personality, and probable administrative and executive ability of such candidate may appear to him after inspection.

Before deciding in any case whether civil service or, in fact, any other function of municipal government in any particular city is being worked out on proper lines, it is necessary to know somewhat of the spirit of the city and its general ideas of municipal policies. Kansas City, practically from its inception as a city, not a half century ago, has used committees of citizens in a supervisory capacity for its several departmental bureaus, serving much in the same way as directors of corporations, or committees of typical English cities, or the trustees of colleges and universities. In the charter of 1908, the main body of the administrative functions of Kansas City falls under the control and charge of the boards of citizens, three members to each board, with overlapping terms of three years each, serving for the most part for no other pay than the satisfaction of feeling that they are doing that prime duty of citizenship which is the trade mark of the Commercial Club, "Make Kansas City a good place to live in." These boards are the board of public works, charged with all municipal properties and having subdepartments of engineering, street repairs and street cleaning, and for the supervision of municipal improvements such as grading, paving, drainage and sewerage; the fire and water board, responsible for the city fire department and superintending the $5,000,000 waterworks plant owned by the city; the park board, building up and maintaining 45 miles of boulevards and parks aggregating 2,465 acres, representing an actual investment by the city

of over $10,000,000; and the hospital and health board vested with the responsibility of preserving and promoting the public health and having control of all the city's hospital arrangements. In addition to these boards there are also similarly constructed boards as follows: The public utilities commission, the civil service commission, and the board of public welfare, the last named constituted not by the charter but by ordinance provisions, to superintend the city workhouse, the municipal farm, and such benevolences as the city sees fit to undertake in the nature of public charities. So far as civil service is concerned these boards are really the appointing heads of city bureaus. The comptroller and treasurer, both elected; the city counselor, assessor, auditor and purchasing agent, appointed by the mayor, and the city clerk, elected by the two houses of the common council are additional heads of departments not subject to any board. The legislative department of the city is vested in a bicameral council of sixteen members for each house.

Under the civil service enactments all these board members and other designated heads of departments are in the exempt class, as is also a secretary for each of the boards; two deputies for the comptroller, three deputies for the city treasurer, one assistant for the city counselor and one assistant for the city clerk; the fire chief, the landscape architect for the parks, the commissioner of health and the superintendent and visiting physicians of the hospitals. The whole residue of the city's officers and employes is subject to the competitive merit system.

In Kansas City neither the schools nor the police is subject to the civil service system of Kansas City as neither is under the jurisdiction of the city government. The former are managed by a board of education of six members elected by the voters of Kansas City, but the department is in law a part of the state and a corporation distinct from Kansas City. The police are supervised by a board of three members, two appointed by the governor of the state, the mayor being ex officio the third member. The only legal connection Kansas City has with the police department is to pay its bills when rendered, with no substantial method specified in the law for con

trol thereof except by moral suasion. The police board has charge of granting and revoking saloon licenses which makes that body a very potential machine. There is a growing sentiment in Kansas City that the police should be put under civil service rule and there is a provision in the Kansas City charter that the provisions of the civil service article shall extend to and govern the police department whenever and so far as the state laws shall authorize or permit.

After receiving their appointment the civil service commissioners visited Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, New York and Chicago investigating the best modern methods of civil service both in the workings of the various civil service commissions and by conferences with outside civil service experts. The commission feels that civil service in Kansas City and the city itself is especially indebted for valuable assistance and many courtesies to Clinton Rogers Woodruff of Philadelphia, Elliott H. Goodwin, Elton Lower of Chicago; John C. Black of the United States Commission; S. William Briscoe of New York; Warren P. Dudley of Boston; Delos F. Wilcox and R. H. Dana of Boston.

After organizing the Commission appointed E. M. Bainter, who was vice-principal of Manual Training High School of Kansas City, Missouri, as its secretary and chief examiner. The city appropriated $20,000 for its first year's work and the commission now has commodious quarters with an office force consisting of the secretary and chief examiner, two assistants and two clerks-all except the secretary selected by civil service examinations.

By the courtesy of the United States civil service commission its secretary Mr. John T. Doyle, a man who has been identified with this movement practically from its inception, spent two months in Kansas City assisting by his advice and presence to bring a real merit system into being and the city, as well as civil service in the entire Southwest, owes a debt of gratitude to him and to the United States commission for his inspiration to square deal government.

After pondering over the situation and consultation with Mr. Doyle and other experts the commission began

its inauguration of civil service with the following agreed general principles:

First: To employ as examiners for each examination a board of citizen experts, preferably three, to co-operate with the commission and its secretary, in formulating examination questions and lists, to conduct the oral examining in person and actually to grade the papers. It is believed by the commission that this policy inspires the public and applicants with confidence in the fairness of the system and with the feeling that the applicants are tested by persons capable of treating them fairly according to relative merit, not only as to their technical knowledge, but also as to their executive and administrative ability. The plan adopted spreads abroad in the community knowledge of what civil service really is and is trying to accomplish under methods pursued by the commission, thereby building for the system a foundation of popular sentiment in its favor and a demand for its continuance as a fundamental necessity of city government. Before this preliminary work of civil service is completed it is probable that two hundred and fifty or three hundred citizens, experts in the various specialties of city endeavors, will have learned first hand what civil service means, will have lent a hand to accomplish its ends and after their experience will be active advocates of the merit idea. Prof. Carl Fish in his "Civil Service and Patronage" says: "What people can see and touch and find good they will have."

Second: In starting the merit system the plan is being pursued as far as practicable of holding examinations for the higher positions first. This will assist discipline, as subordinate employes will feel that those having control over them hold permanent positions acquired by personal merit and are not merely holding on precariously awaiting a call, any minute, from the civil service bureau to compete for their positions. It is of service to the commission and the boards of citizen expert examiners to have the co-operation of officials who have established their merit. and ability in open competition, in framing examinations and lists for subordinate employes in their departments.

Third: The commission is by force of circumstances at present without any previous scientific classification of