that city; (4) at the request of the Municipal Civil Service Commission of New York, into the letters of John F. Skelly, Assistant Secretary of the Municipal Civil Service Commission of the City of New York, to James J. Frawley, in which he alleged special and improper activities on the part of Frank A. Spencer, Secretary of the Municipal Commission, in behalf of constituents of Senator Frawley, and urged the Senator to favor the appointment of Mr. Spencer to the Civil Service Commission as a friend to be relied upon.

The first case was that of Earl H. Gallup who complained that he was removed by Comptroller Charles H. Gaus, on April 10, 1909, from the position of chief transfer tax clerk in the office of the State Comptroller, on account of his political affiliations. Mr. Gallup was appointed chief transfer tax clerk in 1907, under the administration of Comptroller Glynn, the position at that time being exempt. In August, 1908, the Civil Service Commission adopted a resolution placing it in the competitive class along with many other positions. This classification subsequently received the approval of the Governor. The Commission was unable to examine Comptroller Gaus because of his illness, but testimony was offered by the complainant that Mr. Gaus had given to the former as a reason for his dismissal the explanation,

"The trouble with this situation is that at the very last moment before I came into office, in some way the Governor and other parties" I think he mentioned the Civil Service Commission "reclassified three positions in this office which I was entitled to fill by appointing men of my own party, and your place is one of them."

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Testimony was also given to the effect that before taking office,

The Comptroller said that in view of the mistreatment he had received and falsification of his record as mayor by Mr. Glynn, he did not wish to have a man in his department who was so evidently favored by Mr. Glynn, his opponent, in a confidential position.

The Commission, after hearing much testimony, held, Commissioner Milliken dissenting, that the evidence showed that the Comptroller, before he took office, without any regard for the ques

tion of Mr. Gallup's faithfulness or honesty, determined on his removal; that he did this because Mr. Gallup had been appointed and advanced by Mr. Glynn; that the antagonism between Mr. Glynn and Mr. Gaus, whatever personal bitterness it might have developed, was essentially political antagonism; that the removal was admittedly due to the Comptroller's unwillingness to keep in office a person affiliated with his political rival, and that such removal must be considered as falling within the prohibition of the statute. It also held that a removal avowedly based by the Comptroller on his dissatisfaction that because of the reclassification he could not fill the place out of hand by a man of his own party, in violation of the law which forbids removals in the exempt as well as in the competitive class for political reasons, was clearly influenced and affected by the matter of political affiliation, and was forbidden by the Civil Service Law.

Commissioner Milliken dissented from the findings of the Com- . mission (1) because the Comptroller was ill and unable to testify in his own behalf, (2) because the Comptroller had sought to fill the place from which he had removed Mr. Gallup in strict compliance with the Civil Service Law, by promotion of a competent subordinate, (3) on the ground that the evidence did not warrant the conclusion that in the removal he was influenced by the political opinions or affiliations of Mr. Gallup, and (4) because the complainant originally secured appointment and later was advanced over more experienced men by political favor and it seemed proper that in equity he should be precluded from invoking for his own protection the law's prohibition against removal on account of political opinions or affiliations. The report of this investigation will be found in full in Appendix A.

Mr. Gallup obtained an alternative writ of mandamus in the effort to secure reinstatement, but the death of Comptroller Gaus occurred before the case had been tried, and the present Comptroller, before taking action, awaits the decision of the court before which the matter was pending when he took office. Meanwhile, the place held by Mr. Gallup has remained vacant, no promotion examination having been held for it.

In the New Rochelle case, no proof was found of intent to give advance information or unfair advantage to a candidate in

the examination, but on the recommendation of the State Commission, the list in question was cancelled before any appoint ment had been made from it, and reforms in the methods of the Municipal Commission were adopted.

In Amsterdam, it appeared that while the Municipal Commission had been careless and inaccurate in recording its ratings of papers in the examinations for positions of chief of police and policeman, errors and discrepancies disclosed by the investigation were not such as to reflect on the integrity of the examinations or affect the rights of candidates and it was recommended that the eligible list in each case stand as reported.

In the New York investigation, after examination of all witnesses from whom it appeared possible to secure any information concerning the transactions discussed in the letters of Mr. Skelly, and their cross-examination by a representative of the Civil Service Reform Association, the Commission reported that there was no evidence of improper conduct on the part of Secretary Spencer or of the Municipal Commission, and severely condemned the conduct of Mr. Skelly and advised the Municipal Commission to proceed, in accordance with the requirements of the city charter, to give him opportunity to explain why he should not be removed. This report will be found in full in Appendix A.

After the hearing, the Municipal Commission, on December 31st, suspended Mr. Skelly without pay for a term of eight days, beginning December 23rd, when he had originally been suspended pending an investigation.

State Classification.

The Commission, in its report for 1908, discussed at length its plans to deal with the conditions created by the establishment of the new Department of Highways, which went into effect January 1, 1909. In addition to the employees of the State department, this act provided for County Superintendents of Highways, to be appointed by the Boards of Supervisors. These were placed in the competitive class not only in the counties to which the classification had already been generally extended, but to all others. Competitive examinations were held on February 27th for the following forty-three counties: Albany, Allegany, Cattaraugus,

Chautauqua, Cayuga, Chemung, Clinton, Columbia, Cortland, Franklin, Fulton, Genesee, Jefferson, Lewis, Livingston, Madison, Montgomery, Nassau, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Oswego, Otsego, Putnam, Rensselaer, Rockland, Schoharie, Schuyler, Steuben, St. Lawrence, Saratoga, Schenectady, Seneca, Suffolk, Sullivan, Tioga, Tompkins, Ulster, Warren, Washington, Wayne, Wyoming, Yates. Examinations were not necessary in the following counties, as each had a superintendent or engineer appointed prior to January 1, 1909: Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Dutchess, Essex, Greene, Hamilton, Herkimer, Oneida and Orange. There were 412 candidates in the competitive examination, 295 of whom passed and 117 failed. The largest class was for Cattaraugus county, there being twenty-one candidates. Madison county had the smallest class, namely, two. Appointments have been made in forty counties, and the total compensation of the superintendents is more than $51,600, or an average of about $1,200 each. Of the forty appointees, nineteen passed No. 1, nine passed No. 2 and twelve were third among the names certified to the Board of Supervisors.

Plenty of candidates were found in all but a few of the counties, thus insuring good competition, and so far as the Commission has been able to observe, no criticism of the method pursued and no complaint of the character of the examinations has been made. After the bulk of the appointments had been reported, Chairman S. Percy Hooker, of the State Department of Highways, on July 6th sent the following letter to the Civil Service Commission concerning its policy:

I have just had the privilege of meeting the County Superintendents of the State and feel that it is due your Commission to congratulate you upon the class and character of the men who passed your examination for that place. I had at first some hesitation about endorsing the view. taken by your Commission that this was properly a Civil Service position.

As a member of the Legislative Committee which drafted the Highway Law, our purpose was to obtain "road builders" rather than theoretical men, and I confess to having had some apprehension as to whether the men we desire to have

in these positions would be the men who attained the highest place upon your lists.

After meeting these gentlemen, however, and seeing not alone how interested they are in the work, but also what hard common sense and good judgment is displayed by all of them, I feel that I must cordially endorse your position in regard to the examination.

I carefully studied the questions which you submitted and feel that you should be congratulated upon them also. None of them were technical, and they were all calculated to bring out the good sense of the applicant.

The examination in its result has done much to remove from my mind the fear of competitive examination when given by as intelligent a Commission as yours.

The results shown by these competitions, in the opinion of the Commission, amply justify its action in requiring that Superintendents of Highways be secured through competition, and the Commission believes that its action was an important advance in the application of the merit system, carrying as it does competition into places of an executive character, where personal qualifications and adaptability are quite as important as technical attain

ments.

Another noteworthy extension of competition into this field was the competitive classification of all deputy attorneys-general receiving salaries of less than $3,000 a year each, made by the Commission on September 30th and approved by the Governor on October 8th. Up to October 1st there were fifteen deputies, all in the exempt class, eleven of them receiving $3,000 or more per annum. The annual appropriation bill provided for five new deputies, three receiving $3,000 or more per annum and two less. The result of the reclassification was to transfer four deputies already in office to the competitive class and to have two vacancies filled by competition. Before the eligible lists were prepared, one deputy in the competitive class resigned, so there are three places to be filled from the list at the initiation of the new policy. Two eligible lists for the different grades have been made containing eight names.