tions of said law; and for that purpose, the said committee be and it is hereby empowered to employ a stenographer and to subpoena witnesses to attend before it and to compel the production of books, documents and papers, and that the said committee have power to sit for the purposes of said investigation after the adjournment of the Legislature at any place or places in the State of New York where it may elect to take evidence on such investigation, and that the said committee report to the Senate at the commencement of the session of 1895, together with such recommendations as to legislation as it may deem proper.

The committee held the investigation directed by the foregoing resolution at the office of the New York Civil Service Commission, at the capitol, at Albany, on July 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20, 1894. The following witnesses were examined: Siias W. Burt, ex-chief examiner of the New York Civil Service Commission; William H. Webster, chief examiner of the United States Civil Service Commission; Henry Sherwin, chief examiner of the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission; William J. D. Campbell, secretary and executive officer of the Municipal Civil Ser viee Commission of Brooklyn; George McAneny, secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association; William Potts, ex-chief examiner of the New York Civil Service Commission; John B. Riley, ex-chief examiner of the New York Civil Service Commission; DeForest Van Vleet, E. Prentiss Bailey and Willard McKinstry, members of the New York State Civil Service Commission, in office at the time of the investigation; Clarence B. Angle, the secretary, and Thomas Carmody, the chief examiner of said commission. The committee also caused an examination to be made of the records of said commission.

The said memorial, the documents submitted in reply thereto on the part of the State Civil Service Commission, and the testimony taken before the committee are submitted herewith.

The central principle of civil service reform, and by consequence of every genuine civil service reform law, is that appointments to and promotions in the public service shall be based on merit and fitness ascertained by impartial tests, in which the political or religious beliefs or affilia

tions of the applicant are not inquired into and if known, are deemed of no importance; and that such tests, so far as practicable, shall be by open competitive examinations. This method of making appointments to and promotions in the public service is known as the merit system.

In 1883 the federal government and the State of New York enacted the merit system into law; Massachusetts followed in 1884. These three laws, while differing in some details, are precisely alike in their declaration of purpose and in creating a board or commission of three members, which, in connection with the executive, is charged with the duty of formulating rules and methods to carry the purpose of the law into practical effect, and is clothed with the power of administering the law and the rules.

The National. Civil Service Act (passed January 16, 1893) specifically excludes from its operation all presidential appointments, all laborers and all employes not in the executive branches. of the government, and lodges with the President the discretion as to the extent and the rapidity of the practical application of the merit system to the offices covered by the law.

The New York Civil Service Act (passed May 4, 1883) directs the Governor to classify, so far as practicable, all subordinate places, clerks and officers in the public service of the State except laborers, elective officers and appointees requiring confirmation by the Senate; it provides that no person shall be admitted to or promoted in the classified service until he has passed an examination or is shown to be especially exempted from such examination in conformity with the rules, which must provide for competitive examinations so far as practicable, and for noncompeti tive examinations when "competition is not found to be practical." The commission is directed to aid the Governor as he may request in preparing rules in conformity with the act, and subject to the rules that may be made by the Governor, to make regulations for and have control of the examinations.

The original act made it optional with mayors of cities to apply the law to the municipal civil service, but an amendment in 1884 made the provisions of the law compulsory as to cities; and the municipal civil service is under the supervision and control of the State commission.

The Massachusetts Civil Service Act (passed June 3, 1884) expressly excluded from its operation judicial officers and officers elected by the people, or a city council whose appointment is subject to confirmation by the executive council of the commonwealth, (i. e. an elected body of eight, who act as advisers of the Governor) or the city council of any city, officers elected by either branch of the Legislature and their appointees, heads of departments, employes of the State Treasurer, of the treasurer and collector of taxes of any city, two employes of the city clerk of any city, public school teachers, secretaries and confidential stenographers of the Governor or of mayor. As originally passed the act excluded a number of other officers, among them "officers for the faithful discharge of whose duties a superior officer is required to give a bond." With the exceptions noted, the entire public service of the State and its cities were placed under the jurisdiction of a board of three commissioners, who, with the approval of the Governor and his council, were authorized to make, alter and rescind rules "for the selection of persons to fill offices in the government of the commonwealth and of the several cities thereof, which are required to be filled by appointment, and for the selection of persons to be employed as laborers or otherwise in the service of the commonwealth and of the sev eral cities thereof."

These three laws identical in their central principle and pur pose and so similar in their character of their administrative machinery, have been put to the crucial test of actual trial in the public service of the national government and of Massachusetts as well as of New York, for approximately the same period of time. The advocates of the merit system have claimed that fairly and honestly applied by competent hands its great public value would be satisfactorily shown and the practicability of making all or nearly all appointments to the public service from the eligible lists composed of those graded highest as the result of open competitive examinations would be demonstrated. If these claims are well founded substantially the same results should be reached in each of these jurisdictions and largely through the same general methods. We should expect in the case of the national and Massachusetts Civil Service Commis

sions, that an ever increasing share of the service committed to their case would be brought within their immediate supervision; and that of this an ever increasing proportion would consist of positions classified by the commission in a competitive schedule, i. e., positions to which appointment must be made from those graded highest on an eligible list secured as a result of open competitive examinations, while positions otherwise classified would steadily diminish in number until the entire classified service, i. e., the service within the immediate supervision of the commission, should consist in the main of but one schedule, the competitive. Under the New York law it was considered practicable to attempt at once to classify the entire public service, and the classical service was made practically coterminous with the public service not expressly excluded by the terms of the law itself or as interpreted by the Court of Appeals. We should expect, therefore, in the new classified service at the beginning a greater proportion of places classified in noncompetitive schedules or excepted from any examination whatever than in the classified service of Massachusetts or the national government; but this would be charged with increased experience, and the competitive schedule constantly growing by the transfer to it from the other schedule and the assignment to it of new positions as they were created would also in the New York service, within a reasonable time, come to be by far the largest in point of numbers.

In brief, since the very center of the merit system is the open competitive principle, the supreme test of the practical application of that system to the public service is necessarily the steady growth in the number of appointive officers which must be filled by selection from those graded highest on eligible lists secured through open competitive examinations. The committee applied this test to the administration of and the results accomplished under the national, the Massachusetts, and the New York Civil Service laws from the time of their enactment until July, 1894, when the committee was conducting its investigation.

The national Civil Service Act was passed January 16, 1883, and went into effect July 16, 1883. The rules adopted by the

Civil Service Commission provided for three schedules for purposes of classification of the public service under the law: 1. An excepted schedule, i. e., places excepted from any examination; 2. A competitive schedule, i. e., places to which appointments must be made from an eligible list; 3. A noncompetitive schedule, i. e., places to which the appointees must first pass a noncompetitive examination as to their ability to fill the position. On July 1, 1894, the number of persons in the federal service, subject to the civil service law and rules was 43,535. Of the 43,535 there were 39,646 (or 0.91) in the competitive schedule; 180 (or 0.004) in the noncompetitive schedule, and 3,709 (or 0.085) in the schedule excepted by the commission from examination. Thus it will be seen that in July, 1894, precisely the results claimed from an honest and efficient administration of the law were in process of rapid accomplishment.

The better to understand how the federal commission had accomplished such results in the eleven years of its existence, the committee caused Mr. William H. Webster, who had been connected with the Federal Civil Service Commission since its organization (first as chairman of the original board of examiners, and since August, 1888, as chief examiner, in which position he had supervised all examinations held by the federal commission in all branches of the service), to be examined with great fullness and detail as to the practical working of the federal law.

The federal commission labored at the outset under the double difficulty of lack of experience and lack of machinery adequate to the work before it. It proceeded cautiously. The classified service was subdivided into, first, positions which were excepted from examination and, second, those in which examinations were required. The second class was further subdivided into those which could be filled by noncompetitive examinations and those which required an open competitive examination. The excepted places were those of a confidential character or those of pecuniary trust. The noncompetitive places were those of a technical expert or professional character for which, it was thought, competitive examinations could not well