propriation bill, authorizing
the President "to prescribe such regulations for the admission of
persons into the civil service of the United States as may best promote
efficiency therein and ascertain the fitness of each candidate in
respect to age, health, character, knowledge, and ability for the
branch of service in which he seeks to enter; and for this purpose he
may employ suitable persons to conduct such inquiries, prescribe their
duties, and establish regulations for the conduct of persons who may
receive appointments in the civil service."

Under this authority President Grant organized a Commission composed
of Messrs. George William Curtis, Joseph H. Blackfan, and David C. Cox.
But the Commissioners soon found that Congress was indisposed to clothe
them with the requisite power, and that public opinion did not yet
demand the reform. Their good intentions were therefore frustrated and
the Commission was unable to move forward to practical results. When
President Hayes came into power he sought to make reform in the Civil
Service by directing competitive examinations for certain positions,
and by forbidding the active participation of office-holders in
political campaigns. The defect of this course was that it rested upon
an Executive order, and did not have the permanency of law. The next
President might or might not continue the reform, and all that was
gained in the four years could at once be abandoned.

The settled judgment of discreet men in both political parties is
adverse to the custom of changing non-political officers on merely
political grounds. They believe that it impairs the efficiency of the
public service, lowers the standard of political contests, and brings
reproach upon the Government and the people. So decided is this
opinion among the great majority of Republicans and among a very
considerable number of Democrats, that the former method of appointment
will always meet with protest and cannot be permanently re-established.
The inauguration of a new system is hindered somewhat by an honest
difference of opinion touching the best methods of selecting
subordinate officers. Competitive examination is the methods most
warmly advocated, and on its face appears the fairest; yet every
observing man knows that it does not always secure the results most
to be desired. Nothing is vouched for more frequently by chiefs of
Government bureaus, than that certain clerks who upon competitive
examinat