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became its sponsor, a member of our State Senate, which has enabled us, partly as the result of previous agitation, partly as the result of the amendment to the State Constitution and partly as the result of a great deal of quiet and of some public work, to begin to get something like a fair and adequate, but by no means yet a really adequate and competent administration of the State civil service law in our own State.

Now I appeal to you, if during the period of our struggles, one of the New York civil service reformers had gone to some other State and advocated the establishment of the Merit System, to what record of accomplishment could we point in our own State that would have encouraged the citizens of Michigan, for instance, or Wisconsin, to believe in the need and desirability of entering upon the same sea of trouble we were in the midst of in New York? It is very different now.

Mrs. Glendower Evans:

A recent speaker has referred to the opposition which an effort to extend the civil service system met in his locality from officials who feared that they might be displaced were they subjected to a competitive examination. Such a condition has actually arisen in Massachusetts in a department of which I have knowledge, and it is a condition that not only works a hardship to faithful employes, but has seriously handicapped à department which was doing first class work. In another department an official of years' standing, experienced and particularly efficient, really the right hand of the superintendent of the office, has been outranked and is liable to be displaced by a novice whose capacity has been tested only by an examination paper. It seems to me civil service reformers should realize that such an occurrence gives a great set-back to the system. It enlists as opponents people who in principle are with us, people who believe in the merit system as much as we do, but who protest when success in passing an examination is preferred, as a test of capacity, to success in actually doing the job. We civil service advocates are often called abstract and theoretical. And we must acknowledge that is a danger

which besets us. In an instance such as I have quoted, it would seem as if the representatives of the system had inadvertently done the very thing our enemies taunt us with doing. We need to keep close to life, close to the officials whose departments we are attempting to regulate. We need to understand how the system works in the concrete as well as in the abstract. We should take pains that our rules fit the needs of each case, and that the good of the service is not sacrificed to our methods.

It ought to be possible to enlist all good citizens on our side, all the people who want the public work well done. And every time it happens that civil service regulations act as a handicap upon good work, those devising and enforcing such regulations are undermining the very system they are trying to build up, and in effect are joining hands with the enemies of a true merit system.

Professor Henry W. Farnam:

I would like to say the same policy has been pursued in New Haven. When rules were made they were not applied to those already in office, and unless I am mistaken the case mentioned by Mayor Henney was not of those already in office, but referred simply to candidates for employment.

Mr. Elliot H. Goodwin:

I do not know on just what points to speak in this connection. Mr. Almy's paper interested me very much, and I believe thoroughly in the work that he advocates. Also, I shall be glad to do all that I possibly can to further it personally, and if arrangements can be made for sending someone West this winter, I shall be glad to undertake the job if I am selected for it. But I think it may be well to point out, in regard to what Mr. Almy said, that in the years in which he said none of this work was done there was something of which he does not take account which held us back, something which I have found it necessary to keep in mind in all the proselyting work that I have done for the League. If a man goes out from New York to preach civil service reform he is

expected to teach the lesson of civil service reform from his own city or else he will be told to go home and begin work there. In the Federal service in the three years Mr. Almy described we were fighting to hold our own, and not always holding our own, and in some of the recent years in New York we have had too much to do at home to allow us to go abroad and preach on what had been accomplished through civil service reform. In other words, if a man is going out to represent the League or to represent the New York Association, to advocate civil service reform, he has got to show what he has left behind and what civil service reform has accomplished, and that means that a man must be sent out in times when things are going favorably and when we have results to show and can say to people just what civil service reform will do. In those years to which Mr. Almy referred we were very active making investigations showing the violations and evasions of the civil service that were being practiced so that when we now go forward we have something better to show to them in the way of results accomplished than those officers who were in charge of the activities of the League at that time would have had if they had then undertaken this proselyting work which we are now better prepared to carry forward.

Mr. William H. Hale:

That very amusing statement of Mr. Bonaparte's as to the exclusion of the highest on the list, is not without a parallel. A number of you from New York City will not forget, I think, that until a recent decision of the Court of Appeals it seemed to be the rule of appointing officers there to prefer the lower end of the list rather than the upper end of the list for their appointments, and from my own knowledge of public happenings in Brooklyn I recall a certain Commissioner of Public Works in Brooklyn whose remarks, made in my hearing, were very much to the effect that people near the head of the list were somewhat discredited because the probability would be that they were not practical men.

Hon. Henry A. Richmond:

In civil service reform, as in many other matters, it

is wise not to attempt to carry too much at one time. Take our own experience in Buffalo. When the move to apply the civil service reform system in the selection of teachers in the public schools of Buffalo was first made, there was a strong feeling that the teachers then holding places in the public schools, should pass an examination. But a number of us who had the bill in charge decided to insert a clause that these examinations did not apply to teachers now employed in the public schools. This caused a very great sensation. A number of reformers came to me and said: "Mr. Richmond, there has been a very grave oversight made. This bill does not apply examination tests to teachers now employed in the public schools." I answered, “I am aware of that, and in favor of exempting them." "Do you not think that some of these teachers are incompetent?" I stated that to my personal knowledge some of them were, but that if the six or seven hundred teachers in the public schools believed they would have to enter an examination to hold their places, they would probably organize and beat the bill. My idea was that there should be no more incompetent teachers admitted and rely on slowly but surely getting rid of the incompetents then holding office in the Educational Departments. That was ten years ago, and of the latter class of teacher practically all of them have dropped out. While, on the other hand, the standard of the teachers now in the public schools, practically nearly all of whom have come in under civil service reform methods, at the very lowest estimate, is at least 50 per cent. higher than it was ten years ago, and is steadily advancing.

In civil service reform methods, as in everything else, we have got to exercise good, practical common sense. The best way to get a foothold is to carry as much as you can, but not to attempt to carry so much that you lose everything.

Hon. Everett P. Wheeler:

We did have in the New York Association for several years a field secretary, who certainly did excellent work, and it does seem to me the suggestion of Mr.

Almy, that we should take that up again and have such an official of the League, is an admirable one. It should also be stated that our secretary, Mr. Goodwin, has to some extent acted as a field secretary and has carried the banner in some places where up to that time civil service had only been known as a distant object. I sincerely hope that during the coming year these suggestions of Mr. Almy may bear fruit and that we may succeed to such an extent that we shall have a secretary whose time shall be chiefly devoted to missionary work.

Mr. Ansley Wilcox:

In connection with this discussion I would like to say a word in regard to the President's recent Executive Order for the application of the merit system in the consular service, about which a report was made this morning.

You will recall in that order there is no requirement that those now in the consular service shall be subject to examination, but there is a provision that those now in the consular service may take the examination and thus put themselves in line for promotion. This is an admirable idea, leaving an incumbent in his present position but requiring that he shall be examined before he can obtain a higher position.

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