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OUR MERIT SYSTEM AND OUR CIVIL SERVICE

By Julia C. Lathrop

Evening Session, December 6, 1923

It is my understanding that I have been invited to this meeting not because the theory of a sound civil service needs re-enforcement from me, but rather because I have had an experience somewhat unique in testing the adequacy of the federal merit system since I chanced to be the first chief of a scientific bureau in a field new to Government research. Hence in the interest of such small contribution to the study of administration as I may be able to make, you will pardon a narrative more personal than good taste would indicate.

In 1912 Congress created a Bureau "to investigate and report upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children"-manifestly revolutionary in subject though not in its method of scientific approach. For this experimental undertaking Congress wisely provided a small experimental organization, a staff of fifteen persons, an appropriation of $25,000. I was made chief for reasons irrelevant to this discussion but among which doubtless the most nearly relevant was that no one existed who was experienced in conducting a government bureau of this type and therefore an experimental director was necessary. All the positions in the Bureau save those of Chief and one private secretary were within the classified service and the appointments were made, by open competitive examination, under the rules of the United States Civil Service Commission. When I took charge I found a clerk already engaged in entering in a large book the names and qualifications and backing of applicants. This was as it should be and later I saw personally every applicant who cared to call on me. Most of the applica

tions were for transfers from existing bureaus. It soon became apparent that certain applicants had strong political friends and also that on the whole the stronger the political backing, the less the fitness for the new bureau. I was told that some women went out one day saying, "Miss Lathrop is like a sphinx, no one can tell what she is going to do." I have always suspected that the sphinx was non-commital because she did not know the answers. That was my predicament. However, the situation gradually cleared itself. I was of course grateful for all genuine advice and sought it inside and outside the government.

Among other things I soon learned that persons, upon entering the Government classified service, are on probation for six months, after which period, if retained, they can only be "separated from the service" after trial before the Civil Service Commission. Now every one knows that the most detrimental members of a staff are not usually guilty of heinous crime, but are rather the indifferent, half-baked, perhaps "temperamental;" who lower general efficiency and render a vigorous contented working atmosphere impossible and who become the great cause of inefficiency in the classified service if they owe place or promotion to political influence. They are doubly irritating to merit appointees who see promotions gained by pull and "desert a beggar." I was solemnly warned against taking on by transfer persons who had records of this type and who were naturally known and always encouraged by their superiors to seek transfers. I found that these were the applicants who invoked political influence in direct proportion to their uselessness to the Government. Would you like an instance? A caller one day came in who had been given a Presidential appointment, placing him in the classified service without examination, in compliance with a letter of recommendation whose

absurdity must have given our chief executive vast amusement if he ever saw it, which is highly improbable. The candidate had been promised-by personages not here named-promotion to one of the highest salaried clerkships in the new Bureau. Upon being asked as to his experience he said "can do most anything." Pushing to the detailed knowledge the salary called for I mentioned preparing schedules, when he exclaimed, "Oh, Miss Lathrop, you know so much about all these things it won't be necessary for the rest of us to understand them." To which I answered that on the contrary it would be necessary for a good many persons in the Bureau to know more than I did about a good many things. This reply saddened him but in a moment he pulled himself together and replied with naive invention: "A man in the Immigration Bureau said that after your Bureau was established they had to change their budget for next year. They have done field work and they must have schedules left. You could get some of them if you want to do field work." Later he telephoned to ask if I had seen all the papers in his case and realized who wanted him-the President and all. But the best stories of our early struggles to secure a competent staff under the rules of the Civil Service Commission are far too spirited to relate until several of us are dead and then it wouldn't be worth while.

One lesson I soon learned and that was that pubilc dignitaries-members of house and senate and otherswere not spontaneously interfering to prevent good administration. They were nagged and teased by applicants and applicants' relations and friends.

The list of applicants for the thirteen available. places in the Children's Bureau contained one hundred and five names backed by one hundred and twenty-five senators and representatives who recommended from one to six candidates each.

The list of endorsers included some of the ablest and finest men in public life. They all had more important occupations than to act as employment agents or errand boys, but they endorsed because that was easier for them than to refuse. Rule 9, Section 3, Twenty-seventh Annual Report Civil Service Commission, doubtless would have penalized every one of the candidates if enforced. Of course, it was not enforced; but its enforcement would also have relieved the one hundred and twenty-five Congressional backers from the embarrassment of "flouting the law they made," as an English poet charges Americans with doing.

So far as the Children's Bureau is concerned, I can say in all honesty that I am sure my superiors, the President and the Secretary, desired to have it succeed and I know they supported me when they knew the whole case. Finally, after more than six months' delay, I was told that the insistence would cease.

When once freed from the incubus of demands for unsuitable appointments, it was easy and inspiring to gather by transfer from the ranks of the Washington service the small staff required and it was one of high competency. I should add that it must not be thought that all demands were confined to Washington. Even powerful religious influence was invoked; but no appointments were made except for merit.

The Civil Service Commission during the nine years I was connected with the Bureau proved a constant help. As the Bureau grew to more than ten fold its original personnel, it was necessary to hold repeated examinations of varying character. In every instance the results proved that the present law is effective and elastic. The assembled examination is not suitable for positions which offer opportunities inviting persons of assured scientific standing. Hence the non-assembled examination was increasingly used. This embodies

such inquiries for information about the candidate as would be made by any intelligent administrative officer in business or professional life, and is conducted by correspondence.

For positions especially requiring good powers of approaching and dealing with people, personal interviews were had with candidates successful in the examinations. These interviews were held by a representative of the Bureau and a representative of the Commission who jointly interviewed the candidates and gave to the result of this oral and visual test due weight in the final rating. No one in ordinary life would willingly appoint, a professor or an employment expert without a personal interview. Why should the public have less protection?

The Civil Service Commission has power under Section 10 of its law, to appoint without competitive test a person whom the Commission is convinced has such unique fitness for work of special responsibility that it would be futile to announce an examination. This power was exercised in the appointment of Grace Abbott to administer the first Child Labor Law. In this position she was thoroughly successful and because of this piece of work among other good reasons her appointment by President Harding in 1921 as Chief of the Children's Bureau is recognized as a merit appointment, although unfortunately not within the scope of the Classified Service.

Under all the Presidential administrations since its creation in 1912, the Children's Bureau has been recognized as a scientific bureau, whose progress was dependent upon the merit system. Of course, mistakes and disappointments are unavoidable even under the most careful and elastic use of a merit system. But mistakes of judgment every one may make and I confess to my full share. There are honest ways of correcting

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