competition, and conscientious conservatism upon the part of the Commission in exercising the powers which it possesses to make such exceptions, are among the main duties of the Commission. The merit system on the one hand might easily be brought into disrepute or contempt because of its failure, if an attempt was made to extend it to the impracticable; while on the other hand exceptions and exemptions, if granted inconsiderately, would practically abrogate the system. While we have never been forgetful of the fact recognized both in the constitutional provision and in the civil service law that some exceptions from competition are absolutely required in order that there may be an efficient administration of the civil service by the responsible superior, yet it has been our constant endeavor to see that the general principle of open competition has not been silently and steadily repudiated by exceptions so numerous as to become the rule. It should, however, be borne in mind that the increasing functions of the government undertaken by the state call more and more for work of specialists, and that very frequently either these specialists are persons. of such high and recognized attainments that it is impracticable to ask them to submit to an examination, or that the term of employment is for so short a period that competition is for that reason impracticable. The full list of the exceptions made by us from competition pursuant to the three paragraphs of section 14 of the civil service law and rule VIII of the civil service rules, with the reasons therefor in each case, appear annexed hereto and are made a part of this report as required by law.

Since the extension of the civil service rules to the counties of New York, Kings, Erie, Richmond and Queens, made in June,

1900, the Commission has been in receipt of an unusually large number of requests for authority to transfer persons from one position in the civil service to another, in very many instances from the municipal to the county service or vice versa. The apparent object in many of these cases was a desire to save some person in office, and in a great majority of the cases the applicants for transfer neither owed their positions to appointments from lists established as a result of competition nor seemed inclined to show their qualifications by entering such examinations, but made their request seemingly thinking that the Commission possessed some discretionary power in this respect enabling it to abrogate the constitutional requirement of competition. This matter of the right of persons in the civil service to be transferred from one position to another is one upon which the civil service law is at first glance somewhat obscure. Two provisions concerning it appear in the law-one in section 13 and the other in section 15. To the consideration of the proper construction of these sections and to the further consideration of what, if any, additional restrictions the Commission should in its discretion impose, we have given much time during the past year. The result has been a series of rulings which it is intended by the Commission to submit to you for your approval as a rule, the matter having been held back in order that at the same time we might submit to you for approval further amendments to the rules which we believe are required by the act and by the interests of the civil service of the state. A rigid application of these rulings has compelled the Commission to refuse a great majority of the recent requests for transfers. While in so doing it is possible that in occasional cases the state has been deprived of the services

of experienced employees, yet we believe that our conservative action has done very much to preserve the merit system in full force and effect, and that the persons who have been appointed to the vacancies because of their standing at the head of the eligible lists established as a result of competition open to all residents of the state, either in or out of the public service, have been fully as competent, if not more so, than would have been the persons who sought transfer. It may be noted that with all the restrictions upon the right of transfers which the statute contains a most decided advantage is given to the person in the service, for under the statute such person, if he passes the examination for the position to which he seeks to be transferred and obtains a position anywhere upon the eligible list, may, with the permission of the Commission, and possibly in certain cases without the permission of the Commission, be transferred to a vacant position in preference to the right of a person standing at the head of the eligible list to secure an original appointment to that vacancy. While it is undoubtedly true that the legislature intended to recognize the fact that an experienced person in the public service frequently will be a more competent public employee than will some one without official experience who may possibly stand higher upon the civil service list, yet this is such an exception to the general principle of open competition which the constitution and the statute seek to establish that the Commission is carefully watching the effect upon the public service of those transfers which have been allowed pursuant to statute to see whether or not further restrictions should be made by the Commission itself. If in our judgment the allowance of these requests for transfers shall show that they are impairing the

principle of open competition, and that the transferees are not in fact more efficient as public servants than those likely to be chosen as the result of open competition, we shall submit to your Excellency a rule embodying further restrictions upon this right.

In our last annual report attention was called by us to the extent to which our time was occupied with consideration of resolutions submitted to us for approval by municipal commissions relating to the rules, and more especially, to the classifi cation, or changes in classification, of positions in the various cities in the state. It has been the policy of the State Commission to give heed to the expressed judgment of the munici pal commission as being presumptively correct in its application to local conditions, yet we have not hesitated to disapprove such resolutions in cases where the proposed action departed from the policy which the general experience of the cities of the state showed to be best, and where no satisfactory evidence was offered that local conditions were peculiar and exceptional.

The powers conferred by the civil service law upon state commissions to conduct investigations as to the administration of the civil service law and rules, and the effect thereof in the state departments and also in municipalities, have been exercised by the State Commission in a number of instances during the past year. The most important was an exhaustive investigation made by us into certain police promotion examinations made by the municipal commission of the city of New York. Charges in writing were presented to us by various persons alleging that in the conduct of this examination the municipal commission had been deceived by the certificates of the police commissioners of the city of New York as to the efficiency and previous good conduct of the candidates for examination, which

certificates of the police commissioners were called for by the municipal commission in accordance with their rules based upon the statute. After a protracted investigation, during which many witnesses were called and in which the State Commission had the efficient but gratuitous services of Mr. Samuel H. Ordway, of the New York bar and of the New York Civil Service Reform Association, the Commission came to the conclusion. that the examination was irregular in that the police commissioners had, as a matter of fact, made unfair, erroneous, incomplete and arbitrary statements as to the previous conduct, efficiency and good services of the various candidates in the examination, and that the municipal commission had been misled by these certificates, so that the ratings of the various candidates were unfair.

We made a report to your Excellency containing all our findings of fact, with our conclusions of law, and afterwards submitted the same to the municipal commission to take proper action, the power to set aside the list being apparently vested in the municipal commission rather than in the State Commission, but the former body at the time not having authority to conduct investigations and to swear witnesses, an authority which, however, has been given to it by the revised charter of Greater New York. The municipal commission, after a consideration of the evidence submitted by us, did revoke the eligible list established in this examination, and a taxpayer's action has been instituted by Mr. J. Warren Greene, of Brooklyn, N. Y., to enjoin the disbursing officers of the city from paying salaries to the nineteen persons who were appointed from this fraudulently established list, and thus to secure the practical revocation of those appointments.