Show SELECTING APPOINTEES The experience of the Administration in selecting fit persons to fill various positions is quite unique The method of determining their fitness has been to take the recommendations of tho different delegations aa to an applicants fitness and competency and these have generally been relied upon and these recommendations Their worth falacious are proving very is much the same as the old style endorsements endorse-ments of Senators and Representatives The public will recall a number of nominations nom-inations which were withdrawn by the Pmsident and these were withdrawn bo cause of the unfitness of the nominees which was not discovered until after the nominations were made Their subsequent subse-quent withdrawal clearly showed that the Administration cared far more for competency compe-tency than for consistency Kentucky and Colorado seem to have taken the lead in making endorsements of bad candidates candi-dates and they bid fair to be as famous for this as Utah once was for illegal divorces di-vorces As a rule the delegations arc little batter than the caucus managers and look far more to the interests of the party than to the interests in-terests of the Government All recommendations are first made with a view to a mans capacity as a worker and he is usually to be rewarded because of election work and the influence he has had with the voters It is the patronage system complete in all its details with with the same men to run it under a new name That system is as obnoxious in principle as well s in practice when adopted to further the interests of Democrats Demo-crats as to further the interests of Republicans Repub-licans and should find no favor with those who believe that the Government is best served by getting the best and most competent men into office and retaining re-taining them there A service which is constantly changing its personnel in the minor andl lesser offices where the work to be performed is chiefly of a clerical nature or such as is directed by a superior supe-rior can never attain to the same efficiency effi-ciency as a service which retains all its employes so long as they do not neglect their duties or prove themselves incompetent incom-petent To obtain such a personnel is the object of civil service reform It adopts a method which requires that applicants ap-plicants shall come up to a certain standard stand-ard which standard is made in accordance accord-ance with the needs of the service and those who fail to meet its requirements are dropped out It is a practical application of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest to the wants of government It is a doctrine which obtains ob-tains in every branch of business and it is the doctrine by which our colleges and universities determine upon the qualifications qualifi-cations of those who make application for admission to the courses of study there followed If they fail to pass the examinations exami-nations they are excluded from entering and yet no one complains of their exclusion exclu-sion The officers for the army and navy are selected upon this theory and while yet cadets their class standing is determined deter-mined bv examination in the various studies pursued and when they graduate they take rank in accordance with their class standing at the time of graduating 1 When army officers quit the Military Academy none are assigned to the j ordnance corps but are only admitted to I that corps after one or two years in some i I other branch of the service and then j only upon examination What is the I consequence The best men in the other branches of the service go into the j ordnance corps In speaking of the other branches it is not intended to include the I engineer corps Civil service reform is nothing more nor less than the method of selecting officers for I the army and navy applied to the elcction of officer for the civil j i branch of the Government If this system sys-tem prevailed in selecting appointees to J fill the various positions under the Government I I Gov-ernment the Administration would not i now be in the dilemma Si is in icurard to I unfit nominees and the country would I II not see the humiliating spectacle of a United States Senator recommending an I I habitual drunkard for appointment in the i internal revenue department t The applicant appli-cant would have been rejected j from the I very firstif the rules of civil service reform j had becnin foice in nil depaiimentsof the Government Those rules will eventually event-ually prevail and as they become universal univer-sal the standard should be raised far above what it now is If a Democratic Administration shall make those rules I prevalent and establish a higher standard I for admission to all appointments of the I civil service it will have conferred a great and needed blessing upon the whole I country I |