case, if a maximum age limit were established and we felt it improper to place any obstacle in the way of their establishing their fitness and capacity and thereby securing a place upon the eligible list. Such a place if attained gives them a preference in appointment and employment.

Growth in Official Favor of Merit System

There have been several evidences before the Commission during the past year tending to show that more and more do the heads of departments realize that greater efficiency of service is secured by placing subordinates in the competitive class. Inasmuch as this classification tends to render more secure those who are incumbents at the time of classification, some of these requests are quite as disingenuous and are prompted by quite as improper motives as are the numerous requests for exemptions. Still two of the requests before the Commission this year are so important as to be worthy of mention in this report since they come from boards and commissions which are almost wholly uninfluenced by partisan politics. During the past year we have not only been requested by the State Board of Charities to place in the competitive class the superintendents of the various county almshouses, as has been mentioned, but we have also complied with the request of the State Lunacy Commission to place in the competitive class the stewards of the various state hospitals. When one considers the important duties of these officials, involving the purchase and distribution of supplies of great value under a system which does not permit of such checks and safeguards upon dishonesty as does the collection and disbursement of moneys; when one further considers the rare executive qualities and the excellence of judgment and the variety of prelimi

nary experience required of these officials, in addition to honesty and purity of character, all of them traits difficult to determine by competitive examination, one is struck by the character of these requests. Coming as they do from boards and commissions whose fidelity to the interests they have in charge has never been questioned, it is impossible to be otherwise than persuaded that the experience of these boards and commissions has been such that they are thoroughly convinced that as a practical means of obtaining the best and most efficient assistants a method of competitive examinations even for places requiring rare executive ability, good judgment, foresight, honesty and general probity is far preferable to the power of appointment unrestrained except by political and personal influence. These requests, made unquestionably in good faith and as the result of experience and observation, are a high commendation of the workings of the competitive system in the other departments of the state service which have fallen under the notice of the State Board of Charities and the State Lunacy Commission. The generally cordial acquiescence of the heads of other departments in the action of the Commission as to the many places in their respective departments which were placed in the competitive class is, we believe, a cumulative proof of the general conviction that the competitive system is not only a benefit to the people at large by securing efficient service and by removing the bribery of patronage, but is a relief to officials by lessening the intolerable pressure of office seekers and is a boon to all persons in the civil service of the state in securing a tenure which lasts as long as the incumbents continue efficient and meritorious.

Statistical Information

The report of the Commission will be supplemented by that of its chief examiner and secretary, which follow in this volume, and by the abstracts of its minutes as to exemptions and suspensions of the rules (which appear hereinafter, but are referred to and made a part of this report), and by the carefully compiled statistical tables which follow. Brief mention of these statistics is here made. The number of appointments during the year is 2,652, divided as follows: exempt class, 124; competitive class, 421; non-competitive class (attendants, nurses and similar positions in the state hospitals and institutions), 1,564; after noncompetitive provisional examination under rule 8, section 4, 42; without examination under rule 8, sections 5 and 9, 501. The number of removals is 304, divided as follows: exempt class, 10; competitive class, 48; non-competitive class, 246. The number of resignations is 1,589, divided as follows: exempt class, 59; competitive class, 212; non-competitive class, 1,318. The number of deaths is 38, divided as follows: exempt class, 6; competitive class, 24; non-competitive class, 8. The number of transfers is 40, and the number of promotions is 196.

These statistics give but a slight idea of the labor of the Commission. In fact, its work and its benefits can not be expressed in figures any more accurately than can the advantage of laws which aim to promote good morals or to prevent crime be summed up in dollars and cents. The value of the work of the Civil Service Commission does not consist in the number of appointments made or the number of persons examined. Neither is it quite true to say that the benefit of its service is inversely in proportion to the number of appointments, although this is more nearly a statement of the truth. The indirect benefits of the

competitive system of appointment are vast. Leaving entirely out of consideration the purification of political life by the prohibition of using offices as bribes or improper rewards, the competitive system of appointment to office is one of the greatest agencies of the state in lessening expenditure, in economizing in administration, and in preventing extravagance. All these things it does by securing efficiency in those appointed, by giving to appointing officers their official business hours for the discharge of their official duties rather than for the consideration of the claims of partisan office seekers, by securing to the subordinates their time and energy for the use of the state rather than for the fulfilment of party obligations, and by preserving for the state the benefits of the experience and acquired knowledge of those who have been in its service rather than by depriving it of this trained service whenever the administration of the state government passes into the control of another political party, and by the removal of the temptation to needlessly multiply places for personal or partisan beneficiaries. It is only necessary to contemplate the vast number who are in the employ of the state and the still greater figures which represent in dollars and cents the amount paid as salaries to these office holders and employees, to see that if but a small percentage of increased efficiency can be secured, if but a fraction more of the time of the heads of departments can be given to the state service, if only a small proportion of the experienced subordinates who would under the old patronage system be removed from office upon the changing of party power can be retained under each successive administration, if the subordinate officials and employees of the state can give to state service but a slight part of the time and energy which under former political conditions they would have to give

to party work, if only a few of the needless offices and sinecures will go unfilled because those who would otherwise occupy them are deterred by the fear of competitive examination, if these partial benefits can be secured, then the saving to the state in so great a service and in a salary list so enormous, is a sum many times in excess of the cost of the Civil Service Commission. Furthermore, it should be borne in mind in considering the saving and economy between an efficient and inefficient public service that only a small part of it is represented by the difference between the salaries of the competent and the incompetent. The loss by negligence and incompetency and inefficiency is so many times greater than the difference in salary, if in fact the difference between the efficient and inefficient is ever recognized in salary lists, that the amount saved to the state by a competitive system of ascertaining merit and fitness is a most extraordinary sum. While data and statistics to show the saving of this loss which would otherwise result from negligence and inefficiency are difficult or impossible to obtain, nevertheless the experience and observation of every well informed citizen satisfies him not only that this loss by negligence and inefficiency does exist in a particularly large degree under the old system of appointments to public offices as rewards for political services, but that the aggregate amount of this loss can scarcely be overestimated.

The Civil Service Commission reports its work for the past year to your Excellency and through you to the people, whose will it seeks to enforce and the administration of whose great empire state in its civil service it aims to regulate, firmly believing that the welfare of the people and the purity and efficiency of its government have been promoted by the provisions of the civil service law and by the measures taken for its proper enforcement.