Mr. JENCRES. Mr. Speaker, the bill just reported, and to which I am instructed by the committee to invite the favorable attention of the House, is intended to work an entire reformation in the method of making appointments to the subordinate offices in the civil service of the U.S. It has been framed, and is now proposed, for no political or partisan purpose. It has no regard to the existing condition and relations of parties in the Republic, and no bearing upon the controversies between the different depts of the Government. The 1st draft of the bill was prepared when there was another head to the Administration, and before the Present comlications existed, and was Presented to the house before these had become serious. The measure was the result of some study and thought in its origin. It has been subjected to the scrutiny and has been improved by the revision of 2 select committees. It is now Presented and its passage urged in the hope that it will be found the suitable basis of a system which will improve the character and promote the efficiency of the civil service of the Government, and as a measure which has due regard to the magnitudeof the subject with which it undertakes to deal. The SCOPE OF THE eii, L. This bill has relation to all that class of persons in the civil service which are described in the Constitution as “inferior officers.” “The Congressmay by law vest the appointment of such inferior officersas they think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of Depts.” THESAMEPRINCIPLE HASBEENAPPLIED TO THE militAitY ANDN.A.W.ASe.Lie, wice. This clause in the Constitution covers all branches of the service. Congress has exercised the power therein granted by making provision for the selection of competent persons for officers in the military and naval service. With regard to these branches of the public service it has done more than this bill [.]". Military and naval schools have been established for the proper education of those who aspire to positions in those services. No one is admitted to even a probationary position except after a thorough examination into his qualifications and probable fitness for the service he seeks to enter. If he fails at any period of his preliminary career he becomes ineligible to promotion and is dismissed. Experience has taught us that in these branches of the public service the public interest demands the selection of the best applicants, who should be thoroughly trained to the performance of their duties before entering upon them, and who by thorough education and by gradual promotion and the teachings of actual service may become fitted to lead our armies and guide our navies. It has been conceded that the laws which require satisfactory evidence of the probable fitness 6f each candidate for the career he enters upon are wise and just. The evils resulting from incompetency in its servants are among the greatest that can befalf any Government in an emergency which requires it to put forth all its powers. Recent examples are too numerous to make any invidious mention or distinction. But every one knows that unto every young man who enters the military and naval service of the U.S. the portals of a glorious career are thrown open, and they cannot complain that the people require them to show that they possess talent which may ripen into the genius fit to conduct campaigns, organize and maneuver fleets, command armies, wage war, and win battles. Not APPLIED TO THE CIVIL SERVICE, AND REASONs. No such regulations have been made applicable to the civil service. While careful in the highest degree in the selecting and training of those who adopt the profession of arms, we have been negligent and even reckless in the mode of choosine our civil servants. Perhaps we have unconsciously deferred to the old idea that war was the nobler pursuit. Perhaps, also, it may have been thought hardly worth while to attempt to organize and systematize the civil service and put it under discipline while its members were few and its force widely scattered. The fact is that it has been left almost entirely to personal and partisan control, and its members recruited and selected from local and political influences. While the annual expenditures of the Government were less than $50,000,0the revenue was derived almost entirely from customs, there was substantially but one Dept of the civil service that of the Treasury. The number of its officers was then not large, and their selection and appointment was comparatively a light duty. But the “Blue Book”. swelled from a small duodecimo “Official Register” to a large octavo volume. The expenses of the Government must for a long time exceed $300,000,000 a year. The growth of the nation, notwithstanding the check of civilWar, is more rapid and sure than ever. Its civil servants will soon, if indeed they do not now, outnumber the military and naval forces combined. This increase shows the necessity for laws and regulations to govern them. In the early days of the Republic, even with the rigid application of Jefferson's maxim, there was not entire success in the appointments to the civil service. Yet the plan was tolerable in its results until the change of policy in the administration of President Jack son. From the date of that change the evil results have increased in even a greater degree than the growth of the service. For a while they were not so glaring as to call for correction by positive legislation. The frauds and defalcations which then occurred, and were from time to time exposed, were considered as mere ulcers on a comparatively healthy organization, and not as the evidence of disease which required a thorough renovation of the system for its cure. NECESSITY OF A THOROUGH REFORMATION IN THE MODEor APPointmentsto OFrice. But the committee have become convinced, and they believe that the evidence taken before them and before other committees will convince the House and the country, that the true interests of the Government can be best served, its expenses lessened, the character of its officers improved, and its business more effectually done, by an entire reformation in the mode of making appointments in the civil service. It may be questioned whether a more vicious system, or rather want of system, than that now existing can be devised or imagined. The public sale of offices could hardly be worse, for in such case the tenure of the office would be required to be defined and its emoluments made certain before the office could have any marketable price. Something definite must be offered for sale before a sale can be effected. But at Present nearly every one of these subordinate offices is filled by some person who gained his appointment by the recommendation of personal and political friends, and not by the application of any test to discover his fitness for the place he occupies. His compensation is subject to assessments or forced contri butions to pay the expenses of conducting elections in which he is not a candidate for office. If he should show any decided ability or special for the service he has no assurance of promotion, or even of retention. His term of office is limited by the pleasure, caprice, or interest of his superior. n the corruption of our polities all these places have become the rewards of partisan ship. At every change of administration which brings a different political party into power, the time within which a clean sweep can be made depends upon the industry and zeal with which the incoming authorities can hear and decide upon the claims of the new horde of office seekers clamorous for the reward of their partisan services. The good of the service is seldom consulted in making appointments, and more rarely in making removals, and the appli cants care far less for the public interest than for their own. There is little or no scrutiny into the character and antecedents of the appli cant other than as to his political services; no examination to test his qualifications; no probation even during which his fitness or unfitness for the office might be discovered. Not but that occasionally some good or faithful men possessing both character and intellect, do fin admission into these offices; I know, and each of us can name, many of them who do not only their own proper work, but that of many of the indolent and incapable who have been uartered upon the service through influential friends. These men also act as a check to the vicious and dishonest, and give to the service all the character it possesses, and more than on the whole it justly deserves. Many of these men have sought the public service as a tem porary calling, moved thereto, by accident or misfortune; for it must be admitted that the Government service holds out few attractions as a career to young men who are skillful, energetic, ambitious, and well trained to busi.ness. Though a young man may possess, all these qualities and be diligent and faithful, in the performance of his duty, yet he holds his place, if such a person should be unfortunate enough to accept one, by no definite tenure; he has no certainty of promotion either from seniority or from merit; and surrounded, as he must necessarily be as things now are, by men of lesser qualifications, his very virtues may impede his progress, and his ability to succeed may prevent his success. Very few who feel themselves competent to attain eminence or even reputable positions in the learned professions or in business, ever enter the subordinate grades of the civil service. It has no rewards or honors to stimulate ambition; it gives the individual no position either in society or in the State. It must be confessed that this service has sunk into a sort of disrepute. Those active, energetic, and capable men who are scattered among its places feel called upon to give some reason for their being found there, whenever the character of their employment is the subject of conversation in their Presence. The employees in the public service have not an equal standing in the community with those in corresponding positions employed by private persons or ". ". The merchant's bookkeepers and clerks, the bank cashiers, clerks, and tellers, the agents of exPress and insurance companies, and others who, although in subordinate capacities; urge forward the business of the world, stand higher in public esteem than those who have dropped into this treadmill of the public service. Even the great but more poorly paid class of teachers, with lives as monotonous, and with as slight rewards for successful toil, are much more respected. The reason is plain. In the pursuits of active life there is no place for the idle, the corrupt, the ignorant, the dissolute, or the dishonet. If a man be an inferior lawyer or noisy pri mary meeting politician, or both, no Presumption is raised thereby in his favor that he will make a good bank teller or accountant; although these qualities seem to avail him if he aspires to similar employment in a postoffice or customhouse. As a general rule, those who from some defect or incorrect habit in mind or character have been unable to succeed in the open competition of business, are quartered by their relations and political friends, as occasion may offer, upon the public service; and although, taken as a wo. the pay is greater and the labor lighter under Government than in other employment, yet the work is done with less promptitude and thoroughness. The government runs every customhouse and considerable postoffices with more men and greater pay and with greater loss from inefficiency and dishonesty than every successful individual or corporation manages an equal amount of business. In truth no merchant, manufacturer, or business corporation could succeed who selected their clerks and agents upon the recommendation of politicians and without examination into their qualifications or scrutiny into their private character. The wonder still is, not so much that the Government is served as well as it is, but that with such a mode of selecting its servants it is served at all. Duties of HEADS of DEPTs AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS WITH REGARDTO APPOINTMENTSTO OF FICE. Beside, the people have a right to demand that the time and talents of their chief public servants should be employed in performing the duties of the offices to which they are elected or appointed. Of their members of Congress they require results in legislation; the enactment of wise laws, and the establishing of the best means for enforcing their execu.tion. Of their heads of Depts they demand an unremitting attention to the man agement of the vast public interests they have in charge. Of their revenue officers they demand the utmost vigilance, fidelity, and zeal, in order that fraud and perjury shall not diminish the means by which we are to redeem the burdens of taxation. And above all, of the POTUS they demand that his mind and heart, his whole time, ener gies, and talents shall be given to the high duties of that more than imperial office, to the general oversight and direction of its vast business, and the conduct and guidance of the great affairs of the Republic. Yet what member of Congress does not find a large portion of his time taken from his legislative duties by the solicitations of office holders and office seekers? Who has not felt that his dignity has been lowered, as well as his time of and that the independence of the legislator from executive influence, which the Constitution provided for, and which the fathers of the Republic so greatly esteemed, had been compromised by waiting in the ante chambers of Secretaries and heads of bureaus for his turn to see the high official about the appointment to or retention in office of perhaps some deputy collector, asst assessor, customs inspector, or temporary clerk, whom his political friends recommend as having claims upon his attention? When Congress shall have regulated the mode of making these appointments by law, in exercise of its constitutional power, members of Congress would not be called upon and would have no right to interfere with the appointing power, but would be left free for the performance of their proper duties. What SecyTreasury has not been compelled to give to a contest for a collector ship of customs or of internalrevenue or for the 1000s of inferior officers within his control, the time and thought which might have been better bestowed upon the questions which constantly beset him in the performance of his duties, on the workings of the tariff with regard to revenue and protection, on the internalrevenue law, so as to relieve the people from unjust and unequal taxation, on our finances and currency so as to propose measures which might tend to equalize the values of gold and currency and to prevent the great fluctuations which perplex, astonish, and frequently create ruin in the commercial world? We have seen also that at the change of the collectorship in one of our great ports upwards of 4,000 new applications for office were laid before the new collector, all urged.the incumbents and in favor of the applicants upon personal and political considerations. For hearing and decision upon this vast amount of cases his official term would hardly belong enough. In another port a most estimable man and worthy officer was driven out of his mind and into the sea unto death by the hordes of hungry office seekers who beset his path by day jleft him no rest at night. The time of all these principal officers is wasted and their energies diverted from their duties in listening to the contests of those who are competing to become their assts and whose claims, resting almost entirely upon political grounds, the officer being a politician himself, and looking beyond the uncertain tenure of his H. office at the chances for the future, oes not find it politic to ignore. And even the President himself is not secure from the importunities of rival local politicians for these subordinate places, and by entertaining and sometimes acting upon them himself, encour the scramble for office on political grounds, which disgraces the administration of our government. Thus the people are deprived of a great por.tion of the time and services of their highest and most responsible officers. Assts have to be provided by law in order that the duties of the great offices may be performed; and with the increased number of officers comes additional salaries and expenditures. TENDENCY TOWARD CENTRALIZATION. Another evil, and one which may become of greater magnitude and threaten greater danger to the Republic than any other, is that already suggested, of the direct interference of the Chief Executive in the appointment of officers which by law is vested in the heads of Depts, claiming to exercise over these chiefs the power of removal without the assent of the Senate, as well as exercising the power of appointment with the Senate's advice and consent. His will controls the heads of deo in whose discretion the Congress has y law under the Constitution vasted the selection of these inferior officers. Thus the whole" public civil service, in the language of the resolution appointing this committee, is “being used as an instrument of political or party pat: ronage;” and with the leader of the political party in power, or of one that seeks to be in power, in the Executive Mansion, one of the greatest evils which can endanger the existence of a republic springs into existence in the very heart of ours that of the centralization of all appointing as well as executive power in one person. The framers of the Constitution wisely guarded against this centralizing tendency by the clause already quoted; but under the Present system that o is a nullity. CONCLUSION OF THE COMMITTEEUPONTHIS SUBJECT. When, therefore, the committee were instructed “to consider the expediency of so amending the laws under which appointments to the public service are now made as to provide” “for withdrawing the public service. being used as an instrument of political and party patronage, ” they, after deliberation, concluded to meet the evil at its 2 extremes, and to propose legislation against interference by the Chief Executive as the head of a party while the head of the nation, as well as against the management of that unofficial party ina chinery which selects and recompends for the subordinate offices none but political partisans. The appointing power is thus vested wo Congress, acting under the Constitution, has seen fit to place it. When, also, the committee were “ instructed to inquire into the expenditures in all the service of the U.S., and to report whether any and what offices ought to be abolished, ” they took into consideration the whole civil service of the Government, and came to the conclusion, after taking evidence and giving deliberation to the subject, that its Present great expense and inadequacy of result to the expense which is everywhere found, is due rather to the quality and character of the personnel of that service and their mode of appointment, than to large salaries or to too great a number of employees. And when the committee came to the instruction respecting the amendment of the laws under which appointments to the public service are now made.” so “as to provide for the selection of subordinate officers after due examination by proper boards, their continuance in office during specified terms, unless dismissed upon charges preferred and sustained before tribunals designated for that purpose, ” it seemed to then that they had reached the root of the evil. The further the investigation proceeded the better satisfied did the committee become that the best and surest mode of “curtailing the expenses of the services of the country” was by using proper care and judgment in selecting the persons whom it pays for such service. Thus, when in a division in a customhouse, or in a class of deptal clerks, they found 12 clerks, 3 of whom were competent and 9 of various grades of inefficiency, and all were barely getting through the work which 7 well trained persons could perform with ease, they could not recommend the abolishment of 5 of the places, because under the ". system there could be no assurance that the 3 competent men would be retained and that 4 of equal efficiency would supplant the 9 inefficient ones. unless the future 7 should be competent to discharge the duties of the Present 12, the loss to the public from the obstruction and delay of business would be greater than the gain from the 5 discontinued salaries. The great point to be gained is in competency, efficiency; and the supPression of a 500 dollar office here and 1,00 dollare office there, although many such might be dispensed with, is but a small saving compared. the great gain which might be obtained from an improvement in the oqualities of all our public servants. Let us seek to obtain skill, ably, fideliod integrity in the so, public and we shall not be called upon to increaseeithersalaries or the number of offices. his safe to assert that the number of offices may be diminished1/3rd, and the efficiency of the wholeforce of the civil service increased one half, with a corresponding reduction of sal. arlesfordiscontinued offices, if a healthy system of appointment and discipline be established for its government. s the pROPosed REMEDY. The several Depts of the civil service are established by law they are necessary for the proper administration of the Government: the salaries of the subordinate officers are fixed by statute, and are the subject of annual appropriations, and as compared with the amounts paid in other countries for similar services are ampleand even liberal. The proposition uponwhich the bill is founded is, that the peoWe are entitled to the best ability that can be obtained for the money they pay for the service required. This result is sought to be attained by tests and scrutiny applied to each person who seeks to enter this service. It is much easier and far better to exclude the ignorant, the incapable, the careless, the lazy, e idle, and the dissolute at the threshold, than to eject them if under partisan favor the are once admitted. Our Present mode, as already described, is to appoint the man 1st and try to teach and discipline him afterward. The result is, that when once admitted into office, the incumbent does as little as, and no more than, will suffice to keep his place. Some times, also, persons of positive vices gain admission into the service. This committee have initiated inquiries into the conduct of speculators in some Depts, and 2 committees of the House are now engaged in developing fraudulent practices, and seeking evidence against those who perpetrate them. It is certain that there are swindlers and thieves in the pay of the Government who cause a greater loss to it than the amount of their salaries. If only men of honesty and good repute were admitted into the service we should have less need of these investigating committees and their barren results. It is easier, cheaper, and better to keep the rascals out than to keep them under discipline and to rem edy the consequences of their thieving propen sities after they have once got in. In fact, the reports of our investigating committees, being rarely followed by legislation to prevent the frauds exposed, have served to educate the plunderers of the Treasury to sharper practice and more extended operations. If one set of full fed thieves are removed in consequence of such reports, a new set of politicians, sharp ened by hunger and guided by the experience of their predecessors whose acts go unpunished, are appointed to enter upon the same career of peculation. I doubt if there has been a single report of the evidence taken by an in vestigating committee which has been made Fo that has not proved injurious to the pubic interests. These publications, like the lives of notorious criminals, have disseminated the knowledge of successful vice, and as no one has suffered from them in any more severe manner than removal from office, the officer who has made up his mind to become peculator is stim ulated to make the most out of his brief career, and these disclosures teach him how to do it. The measure now before the House is an approximation to a remedy for these evils. The systems regulating the civil service of other nations have been examined, and the results of their experience have been embodied in this bill. The principle is not new, nor is the mode in which it is to. wrought out. The attempt has been to adapt it to the wants of this country, and therein is its merit, if it has any. This principle is to place practically in the hands of the Government the power of employing the services of the capable and of dispensing with the services of the incapable in every subor. dinate place and every executive dept. another words, “let the best attainable talent, Whegreatest attainable fitness, in every case be placed in office, ” and thus approximate as near as possible to having the right man in the right place. Let merit be the sole title to office, and we work a thorough reformation in our mode of appointments, and infuse new life and vigor into every branch of the executive service. Tfir, MoDEof APPLYING THE REMEDY. I. Admission open to all. All will agree abstractly upon this principle. The civil service, like the military and naval, should be conducted by the highest talent that can be procured. How it is practicable to obtain that highest talent is the 1st question that meets us. The best solution of this question seems to us to be to throw open all places in the initial grades of the service to the competition of all. It is the right of the people to have the best administrative officers which their allotted pay can procure; and as it is the duty of every one of the people to serve the country when required, so also it should be the privilege of every one to have an opportunity to enter the service if he wishes it and can show that he can serve better than any other in the position which he seeks. Let every one have a fair chance. Nor is there any danger that the people will become demor alized and all turn office seekers when place is accessible to all. The preliminary tests, rigidly enforced, will exclude all those who cannot prove themselves to possess the requisite fitness. anyone can now obtain a place in the medical dept of the Navy who can bring evidence of good character and pass the prescribed examination, and yet the roll is not full. So at WestPointand Annapolis; the 1st nominations have rarely filled the class. So in the civil service, where the vecessity of ascertaining the candidate's fitness is equally great, the requirement of a proper examination into qualifications and scrutiny into character will greatly diminish the number of appli cants. The great class who are conscious of infirmity, i.now creep into office through political influence, will not make their appearance. Another great class, and one which now infests every branch of the service, will fear a scrutiny into their antecedents and habits, and will stay away. While we may not allure the most promising in talents and character of our young men by the meager rewards of the subordinate service, yet by throwing the doors of admission wide open to all, one point will be gained absolutely, and another approximately. The problem is to find the best attainable talent for the place and pay offered. While the leading grad uates of our colleges and academies, and the enterprising, energetic, self trained youth will, notwithstanding the great obstacles, still continue to strive for the great rewards of the learned professions or of business, there will still be a large class of well educated. men wishing for immediate compensation, an willing to be satisfied with slow and sure increase of recompense, who will come forward and compete for and gradually fill these offices. By leaving application free to all, the Government will ascertain to a certainty all who are attainable; and by open competitive examination they will discover approximately the best of those attainable. Inquiry into character will deter the knavish and the dissolute who will not risk the brand of rejection for cause, and the dull, the ignorant, the lazy, the imbecile, and the unambitious will not over come their terror of open competitive examinations. Through these preliminary trials will pass only those who are worthy to enter upon the career which is offered to them. And by allowing promotions also from merit, the emulation and competition will continue after the career has been entered upon, and every man will be spurred to do his best, or else, while lagging in the race, become liable to be dropped from inefficiency. H. The most worthy to receive appointment. The theory of our appointment system, as best stated in, and, so far as it could be, justified by, the Inaxim of Jefferson, is that offices should be given to those worthy of them, detur digno. But this maxim implies that many equall worthy or worthier even may be exclude Then how is this worthiness to be ascertained? A SecyTreasury who, though sitting in his room in the Treasury building, should know everybody in the country, the education and antecedents of each person and any special talent he may have shown, and who could and would act without partiality, might select without difficulty or delay the best attainable person for each of his many 100 subordinate offices. He would simply have to telegraph for his man. But unfortu nately our Secretaries are not omniscient, nor altogether wise, nor wholly just and free from prejudice. Yet when the population of the country was but a few millions, inhabiting the fringe of the Atlantic coast, it may not have been a laborious or difficult task for the chief executive officers to select worthy assts and subordinates. But now, with our vast territory and increasing millions, it is simply impossible for them, with their accumulation of duties, to give the time to the subject necessary to secure a good result. Hence the mode of appointment from local political influence and recommendation has crept into our system. It is intermediate betweenappointments from pure patronage, the favor and condescension of the superior, and a primary meeting selection of a party candidate. It has the vices of each system and the redeeming qualities of neither. The patron was not always guided by favor, and the peole sometimes select from worthiness. In 2ngland the evils resulting from this hybrid mode of selection were sought to be obviated in the manner we adopted at the last session for regulating the appointments to the Military Academy. Several persons were noninated to any vacant office, and that one of the nominees who proves himself the better qualified on a test examination receives the appointment. Detur digniori exPresses the result of this compromise. But the American people have reached that pointin their experience where they have found that the best thing for them to do in their public business is to do away with all compromises with error in all its forms, and to stand upon the firm ground of oS principle and justice. With to this class of offices the public sent iment undoubtedly is, as the public interest demands, that while competition for them should be open to all, yet only those who show the best" fitness for them should have them. Detur dig missimo, let the most worthy have it, should in respect to office be the motto of the people of this great Republic. Their Government is of the people and for the people, and its rewards and honors should be given to those most fit and worthy for its service. HI. How the best attainable talent can be secured. But how can this result be accomplished? Are not the extent of the country, the great and increasing number of its population, the multiplication of officers and their new duties, reasons urged for the adoption of this measure, the very reasons which will prevent it from being, successfully carried into effect? Let us consider. If a measure is good and wise in itself the obstacles in the way of car rying it into effect should not deter a states man from urging its adoption. All good things are difficult; even the vis inertia of evil are not to be overcome except by strenuous efforts; but things which are difficult are not impossi sible. It would have been easier to have put this measure into operation 30 years ago than now. It is easier to do it now than it will be ten years hence. But that such a measure is necessary now, and will become more and more essential with the increasing years of the Republic, is as plain as that the Republic must live. A well trained and thoroughly disciplined body of civil servants is as necessary to the Preservation of the State as are an Army and Navy thoroughly trained and disciplined in arms. This bill provides for a central board of examiners, who may call to their assistance emi nent civilians and officers in all branches of the service of the Government in any part of the country, for the purpose of hearing and deciding upon the claims of all applicants for their subordinate civil offices. Upon the results of their examinations certificates of fitness are to be given or refused. The fact that such a system has worked with great success in other countries may not satisfy every one of its practicability in this. In Prus sia it has been more effectual than the needle gun in perfecting, establishing, and enlarging the nationality. In the mine r States of Ger many it has been of vital importance. such a system has enabled the French nation to carry on its Government, without great shock to its credit, although the heads of it have often been victims of the guillotine and the bayonet. In England the system, though but partially adopted, has given new life to the home service, and its full application to the colonial service is the vital.in its administration. It has been found necessary for the proper government of the vast colonial possessions of GreatBritain that its officers should be selected out of the number of those who stood the closest scrutiny as to their fitness. This requirement has not been considered as a hardship, but the opportunity has been accepted as a favor by the aspirants for the service. In the colonial dept the door is swung open to all. Power, favor, patronage, political in fluence are naught before health, energy, and merit. The young men of every nation, caste, or color, under the protection of the Crown of GreatBritain, have the privilege of contending for admission to a career of certain independence and honorable though limited rewards. What is practicable in and for GreatBritain and its vast colonial possessions is practicable for the U.S. If a central board of examiners, sitting in London, can select a class of persons from which the offices in India, Australia, NewZealand, and British North America, as well as in the home service, can be filled, not only without complaint on the part of the applicants, but with gratitude for the privilege of making application, then our board of commissioners, with the assistance provided for in this bill, can do the same thing for this country. In GreatBritain it is necessary that the applicants should go to London; by the provisions of this bill it is not necessary that the applicants should all go to Washington, or that the commissioners should themselves go to Maine or to Oregon. The central board at Washington would determine the minimum degree of qualification for every subor dinate grade of the civil service. They settle upon the questions to be asked of the candidate and the scrutiny to be made into his character. If the place of examination is at Washington they conduct the examinations themselves. If at NewYork or any other place conveniently accessible, they may all attend or send one of their number to act with other competent persons called specially to their assistance. In no part of the country can there be any deficiency in competent assts. Well educated officers of the Army and Navy, including surgeons, are stationed within or adjacent to every State and Territory. In every State are experienced educators who would gladly perform the service of examiners from an honorable sense of patriotic duty. In most of the States the members of the boards of education and school committees serve without compensation. Those of us who have selected our nominees for the Military and Naval Acade. mies through competition have found no difficulty in securing the willing service of compe tent examiners. Suppose the heads of Depts report that they need 100 qualified persons to fill vacancies in the clerkships at Washington: thereupon the central board give notice that they will receive applications for such places within a given period from all parts of the country. In the mean time they will deter mine what questions shall be put to the appli cants, and what inquiries shall be made as to their health, character, and antecedents. They will appoint places where the candidates shall appear, and designate the persons who are to conduct the examinations. The result will at once be reported to the central board. There may be 10,000 applicants for the vacant 100 places, and out of those 10,000 the board may find that 2,000 are qualified for the appointments. the ". dred get the places, and the people are sure of that number of good servants. GENERAL EFFECT OF THIS SYStext. The unsuccessful 1900 get certificates of their fitness for such places, and may, under rules to be established by the board, become entitled to appointments within a limited time without further examination. such is their relation to the Government; but to the world the certificate of fitness is a letter of credit, worth more than the diploma of any commercial college, scientific school, or even of any university, as a recommendation for employment, because it is the evidence of merit in a contest for prizes in which the alumni of all such institutions are competitors. The civil service commission will prove to be here what it has become elsewhere, the grand assay office, where all young men desirous of entering the public service have their qualities tested; as the mint, where those who show that they have the required fineness of metal receive the stamp which will give them currency throughout the nation. such has been the result in Germany, in France, and in England. Young men strive to obtain the certificate of the civil service commissioners, although it does not bring them into office, because it is the best evidence of their qualifications for commercial or other business. Although not ten out of 100 who pass the examination and scrutiny enter the public service, yet the 90 find employment perhaps more profitable elsewhere. The fact once established and promulgated that the public service is a career that is open to all who possess certain well defined qualifications, and that all those who prove themselves thus qualified can have either a place in the public service and a certificate of fitness for such place, will raise the standard of excellence in all the schools and colleges in the country. The certificate of the commissioners will have the same advantage over the diploma of a college as the bill of a national bank has over that of a State institution; it will have currency throughout the country by virtue of the national indorsement. Education is thus stimulated and nationalized; the result will be felt in every family in the nation, and the benefit will inure to the whole people and not alone to the educated individ uals. When it was proposed to introduce this system into the British service John Stuart Mill wrote thus: “The proposal to select candidates for the civil service of Governmentby a competitive examination appears to me to provements be one of those great public im the adoption of which would form an era in history. The effectswhich it is calculated to produce in raising the character both of the public administration and of the peoplecan hardly be estimated.” over THE PROPOSed BILL DESTROYS WHAT is CALLED “PATRONAGE.” It must be admitted that there still exists in this Government, with all its popular tenden cies, some vestige of the thing once called “patronage.” The word is used in connection with almost every appointment. The appointing officer, President or Secretary, thinks that he has “patronage, ” and is using it, whenever he orders a commission to be made out. Those who sign “the papers” of the fortunate recipient of the commission also think that they are patrons, and that the appointee is an officer of their own creation. The poor recipient of the commission finds before him a divided duty. The 1st to the Administration, the next to his friends who recommended his appointment and who may, if he does not serve then, require his removal and the appointment of some other more subservient. In most cases the interests of the Government and of the politicians are adverse, and the appointee finds that he must choose between 2 masters or patrons; the high appointing officer rePresenting the Government on the one side, and his political friends and backers on the other. The collectorship of the port of NewYork is a notable example of this class of cases. This measure proposes to extirpate, eradicate, or, in plain Saxon, dig up, root out, and throw aside any, every, and all kinds of “patron age' in appointments to the public service. The word, the thing, the act, have no place in a republic. In other countries and in past ages Government was the patrimony of princes, the heritage of kings; here and now it is the inheritance of the people. Unto every man who casts a ballot in this country is remitted at every election day his portion of the sovereignty of this great nation. The political career is open to all; the public service should be a career equally accessible. There is no place for “patronage” in our system; it is a solecism in itself. In practice it is a great public injury: “It “curseth him that gives and him that takes.” The assumed right of control by one class of public servants over another on other than meritorious grounds ought not to be tolerated. The people do not elect a man President in order that he may have the privilege, the “patronage” of quar tering all his relations and personal and political friends upon the Treasury, but because they believe that their Government will be best administered by him. Inherent in the common sense of the people is the maxim concerning government, “That which is best administered is best, ” and the people demand that in their Government, which this is, all obstructions to the best administration shall be removed. " The best way of doing this has seemed to us to be the securing of the services of the best administrators. When merit is the key that opens the gate to a career in the public service, the “patronage” which has introduced dullness, mediocrity, laziness, and profligacy into it, becomes extinct. MINE R DETAILs of THE RIT, L–ttie ExiPloy MexT or wroaetN. Another feature of this bill is, that it authorizes the heads of Depts to designate certain offices for which women as well as men may compete. There are already 100s of women in the public service, all of whom come within this class of temporary appointments, who have no clearly defined duties and no certain tenure of office. It has been the fashion of late to decry them and to underrate the value of their services, and even to urge the dismis sal of all of them. But here, as in all other branches of the service, the evils complained of are incident to the mode of appointment. They are thrust without previous training into places sought for them, and are retained under ax discipline, and the result is what might be expected of persons who have no hope of the recognition of merit or of the reward of promotion, and who are continually admonished that they may be dismissed at any time without notice and without cause. But once open and secure this career to them and the result is not doubtful. In many branches of the service, as in many branches of teaching, they will succeed to the exclusion of males, and at far less expense to the Government. In other branches they must yield altogether, or succeed only in rare instances, as they now do in sculpture, poetry, and in the arts and sciences. The fact that some do succeed, even under the adverse circumstances now surrounding the attempt, may, under the stimulant of an assured career, and through education and emulation, bring forward 1000s of those who are now languishing for want of employment. The prejudice against the employment of women in the public service is only another mode of exPressing the feeling that labor is a degradation, which feeling and prejudice it is one of the duties of the free people of this ite public to extirpate thoroughly and forever. Parrabaton Y TRAINING. I may be askedhow are Young persons to becomterainedfor the performance of the ifies of thesepublic.offices? Let it be known that certainqualifications are required for admissiointo the service and there will be no lack of schools to furnish the training. We havealreadsychools and branches of collegiate educatiownhich furnish the teaching nonmost subjects where practical wants jscien tificknowledgmeeet each other. It is one of the healthiesstigns of these times that every educationwaal nt is supplied almost as soon as madeknown, and that our universities throw widetheirgates to all seekers of knowledge, and makethorough, search for and give due rewards to those who can give the desired instruction. In every, other country where this educationatrlaining has been regarded as preliminary to employment in the public service schoolshave sprung up and universities have proposed to furnish the required education, and we do not admit that we are behind any othernation in educationary skill. This sys. tem, if adopted, will call into existence new branches of study in those schools which endea vor to meetthe wants of the times I mean not alonethe study of the principles of our Constitution, but of political science, the science of government, which few have mastered, and fewer still have Presumed to teach, but which the exigencies of our times demand should be reduced to its elements and exPressed in the “hand book” for all who Present themselves for admission into the public service. The AdvantAGE or CoxTINUED disciplin E. Not inferior to the advantages expected to be derived from the proposed mode of admission into the service is that which will be due to the subsequent discipline. The rules and regulations under which each public servant labors will be constantly before him; the causes for which he may be suspended or removed will be imPressed upon his memory; the certainty that no amount of personal or political influence can prevent charges being preferred against him if he violates these rules, or retain him in his place if he is found guilty of their violation; and the assurance. reward and promotion if he excels in the performance of his duties, will tend to make him observ ant, exact, faithful, diligent, earnest, and labo rious. All these influences will create in the civil service that great stimulant to success so potent among companions in arms; that esprit du corps, that enthusiastic endeavor for success, which infuses a zeal into the career of arms and enwreaths it with the emblems of honor, although the pathways to its renown are more often the roads to death than to living success. Who can calculate the dynamic force of this power in the civil administration? We know what it is in war and under the flag. Let us utilize it and make it houorable in time of peace and in aid of peace. the character or the Proposed BOARD. I am aware that during all the time I have been explaining the provisions and scope of this bill the question has Pressed itself upon the mind of every listener,do you propose to secure the required degree of talent in these commissioners who are to form the central board and adjudicate upon the qualifications of all candidates; and how do you expect to prevent their acting upon political considerations in the selection of officers? Are you not constituting imperium in imperio, which may lead to abuses as great as those sought to be remedied? This commission should undoubtedly be in good hands; and if constituted we must rely upon the President and the Senate in placing it in such hands, in the 1st instance, okeeing it there hereafter. There is a wide field from which to select these commissioners. I could name at least 20 fit and competent Persons who would enter upon these duties with e nthu.siasm, and discharge them without reI trust that the President and the Senate know many more. The proposed compensation is large enough to command the services of the most accomplished educators, men skilled in the arts of war and peace, and none others ought to be admitted into these offices. And no one need fear that the power of appointment will be attempted to be taken from heads of Depts and vested in these commissioners, or that the board will become a political instrument under the provisions of this bill. It gires them no political power or authority whatever. They merely select a class of persons from whom appointments are to be made, and they have no power to determine whether any incumbent of office should be removed, except upon trial after charges regularly preferred. They are, as before intimated, merely the assay officers in this great mint of mind and character, and they can have no inducement to betray their high trust. I do not fear the result of the mode of appointment provided in the bill. We have no fault to find with the appointees for similar commissions, and I doubt not both President and Senate will be desirous of procuring the services of the best men. Nor am I disturbed by the cost of the proposed commission. The salaries may reach $20,000, and the expenses as much more in each year. A great portion, if not the whole, of this sum will be paid by the fees required of the applicants. But this sum is not equal to what i. been paid in each year for many years for the expenses of investigating committees, whose reports have indeed exposed great ras cality in the public service, but whose recommendations have led to very few enactments of positive law. If this commission can even approximately keep the rogues out of the public service, it will save tenfold more than all its expenses, and even more than all the proposed increase of salaries. In place of investigations which lead to nothing we shall have reports of the actual working of our reformed system in all its parts and details, with such recommendations as the officers who execute it may suggest for its improvement. The element of arbitrary power does not enter into the system. And by improving the quality and character of the public servants it is expected that the retrenchment and expense will be at least 1/3rd and probably 1/2 of what is o now with a gain of 50%. in efficiency. f our civil servants are appointed from their “official aptitude, ” as shown by their test examinations, and not from political or personal favor, it is safe to say that the Government will save all it now has to pay, or submit to be plundered for, by means of arrangements which hereafter could have no existence. Thus, while this proposed system will stimu late education." bring the best attainable talent into the public service, it will place that service above all considerations of locality, favoritism, patronage, or party, and will give it permanence and the character of nationality as distinct from its Present qualities of inse curity and of centralized power. A career will be opened to all who o to serve the Republic; and although its range is limited, yet success in it will be an admitted qualification for that higher and more laborious and uncertain competition before the people, if anyone should be tempted to enter upon it. The nation will be better served; the Government will be more stable and better administered; property will be more secure; personal rights more sacred; and the Republic more respected and powerful. The great experiment of self government, which our fathers initiated will have another of its alien elements of discord removed from it, and in its administration, in peace as well as in war, will have become a grand success. Mr. Speaker, I am also instructed by the committee to Present a report on this subject, which I ask may be laid on the table, and ordered to be printed.