CLASSIFICATION OF THE EXECUTIVE CIVIL SERVICE. The classification of the civil service, based upon section 163, Revised Statutes, was adopted by each head of a department and government establishment on direction of the President on June 9, 1896. It arranges officers and employees, other than mere laborers and persons whose appointments are confirmed by the Senate, in classes according to annual salary or compensation, as follows: A. Less than $720. B. $720 or more and less than $840. 2. $1,400 or more and less than $1,600. 3. $1,600 or more and less than $1,800. 4. $1,800 or more and less than $2,000. 5. $2,000 or more and less than $2,500. 6. $2,500 or more. The classification further provides that no person appointed as a laborer without examination under the rules shall be assigned to work of the same grade as that performed by classified employees, and no person shall be admitted to any place not excepted from examination by the rules until he shall have passed an appropriate examination before the Commission and his eligibility has been certified to the appointing officer by the Commission. The Railway Mail Service has a different classification prescribed by section 1402, Revised Statutes, as amended by an act approved March 3, 1903, and the classification of the Post-Office Service is prescribed by an act of March 2, 1907 (34 Stat., 1205). REGULATIONS GOVERNING CERTAIN BRANCHES OF THE CLASSIFIED SERVICE OUTSIDE OF WASHINGTON. Regulations prescribing methods of appointment and promotion have been adopted with the concurrence of the heads of the departments concerned, for the Ordnance Department at Large, the Engineer Department at Large, national military parks, the Quartermaster's Department at Large, except the Schuylkill Arsenal for which there are special regulations, Bureau of Fisheries, Subtreasury Service, Mint and Assay Service, Life-Saving Service, Light-House Service, Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, Reclamation Service, Government Hospital for the Insane, Indian Service, Irrigation and Allotment services, Geological Survey, and the Coast and Geodetic Survey in relation to persons employed on vessels. Regulations governing promotions have been applied to the Railway Mail Service, Navy Department, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Government Printing Office, promotion of taggers to stock examiners in the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Department of Agriculture, and to the custom-houses at New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco, Portland (Oreg.), and Port Townsend. Regulations relating to the appointment and promotion of foremen, mechanics, and laborers are in force at the navy-yards. These regulations may not be modified without the approval of the Commission. The regulations for the Engineer Department at Large provide for a central board in the department at Washington which has the control and direction of the local boards, and such details connected with the application of the civil-service rules as do not require the action of the Chief of Engineers or the Secretary of War. This board communicates directly with the Commission. The local engineer boards in the several districts prepare lists of eligibles for the various noneducational positions for which applicants may register. The regulations for several of the other branches of the classified service provide a system by which applicants may be registered by local boards of examiners made up of officers in the branch of the service affected, who rate applicants upon the elements of age, experience, and physical condition, and certify eligibles for appointment. The promotion regulations in general provide for the relative rating of employees on the basis of their services. In the marking, the character, quality, and quantity of work, and the office habits of the employee are considered. Federal positions in the Philippines, Porto Rico, and Hawaii, and other insular possessions are filled in the same manner as positions of the same classes in other localities outside of Washington. Positions in the insular service of the Philippines are regulated by an act and rules promulgated by the Philippine government, and those in Porto Rico by an act of the Porto Rican legislature in effect January 1, 1908. Insular positions in Hawaii are not classified. The regulations referred to, unless mentioned under the publications of the commission, below are issued by the departments concerned. PUBLICATIONS OF THE COMMISSION. In addition to this pamphlet and the annual reports, of which twenty-six have been issued and may be consulted at public libraries, the Commission issues the following publications: MANUAL OF EXAMINATIONS. A manual of examinations published semiannually, in January and July, containing information as to the dates and places of examinations, and the character and scope of each and also showing the numbers of persons examined, passed, failed, and appointed, respectively, as well as the prospects for appointment in the departmental service; INFORMATION FOR APPLICANTS. Information for applicants for the railway mail clerk examination (Form 1407); a for the stenographer and typewriter examination (Form 1424); b instructions to applicants for the Post-Office, Customs, Internal-Revenue, Custodian, Subtreasury, and Mint and Assay services; information for persons desiring to compete for appointment to the position of rural carrier (Form 1494);a for applicants for the position of mere unskilled laborer (Labor Forms 1 and la); instructions to applicants for mechanical trades and other noneducational examinations in the Departmental and Indian services (Form 1250); instructions to applicants for mechanical trades and other noneducational positions in the Quartermaster's Department at Large (Form 1697); information concerning conditions of employment in the competitive classified service under the Isthmian Canal Commission; concerning examinations held on other than scheduled dates (Form 376); the examination for female skilled laborer in the Government Printing Office and printer's assistant in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (Form 1419); examinations for entrance to the Steamboat-Inspection Service a This form can be supplied only when an examination for the position in question has been announced. b Requests for this pamphlet should be addressed to the secretary of the civil-service district in which the position sought is located. (Form 1405); instructions to applicants for the Post-Office, Customs, and Custodian services in Porto Rico; the Post-Office, Customs, Internal-Revenue, and Custodian services in Hawaii; the Customs Service in Alaska (Form 1537); information concerning admission to the grade of surfman in the Life-Saving Service (Form 396); admission of deaf-mutes to examination (Form 1786); regulations governing appointment of fourth-class postmasters (Form 1752); MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. Information for boards of examiners concerning applications, examinations, and appointments (Form 131); unauthorized appointments (Form 1774); concerning reinstatements (Form 126); concerning transfers (Form 305); information and extracts from statutes and executive and departmental orders concerning political activity and political assessments (Form 1236); information concerning veteran preference (Form 1481); concerning classification, assignment, and appointment of laborers (Form 1725); removals (Form 505); the holding of state or municipal offices by government employees (Form 1648); temporary appointments (Form 1729); instructions to district secretaries and other persons conducting investigations for the Civil Service Commission (Form 1698); brief of prosecutions in connection with civil-service examinations (Form 1775). REGULATIONS. General regulations governing the United States civil-service district (Form 1452); regulations governing promotions and transfers in the Customs Service at all ports except New York (Form 1556); regulations governing promotions, transfers, and restorations in the Customs Service at the port of New York (Form 1522); regulations governing the appointment of unskilled laborers in the federal offices outside of Washington, D. C. (Form 1782); regulations governing the appointment of unclassified laborers in the departments at Washington, D. C.; regulations for the Isthmian Canal Service on the Isthmus of Panama; general regulations governing promotion from positions below the grade of clerk or copyist-Departmental Service. For regulations governing other branches of the classified service see page 106, ante. Copies of the Philippine act and rules can be had by addressing the Commission. ARCHIVES OF THE COMMISSION. In aid of persons interested in promoting the civil-service reform movement, historical investigators, and others who may desire to know what material is to be found in the archives of the Commission bearing upon subjects concerning which they desire information, it may be said that the library of the Commission contains fairly complete collections of congressional documents, departmental and other publications relating to executive patronage and the civil service, as well as collections of bills, speeches, and newspaper clippings, and of the reports and other publications of state and city civil-service commissions. The records of the Commission are largely administrative in character, and their interest is chiefly personal, but they are of value in the study of executive patronage and the application of remedies for abuses in the exercise of the appointing power. They are complete since the establishment of the Commission in 1883, are provided with a subject index, and accessible for historical purposes. They embrace the minutes of the proceedings of the Commission in thirty-one volumes, a card record of everyone who is or has been in the classified service, with a history of his service, volumes containing specimens of all questions used in the examinations, reports of hearings before committees of Congress, and files of correspondence with the President, the executive departments, and the general public. The annual reports of the Commission, of which twenty-six have been issued, contain historical and statistical statements of the chief matters of public interest in the Commission's work. The Twenty-fifth Report contains an index of the preceding reports and a list of the notable articles in them. EXECUTIVE ORDERS. General executive orders issued from October 21, 1908, to March 12, 1910, and special exceptions to the civil-service rules from October 28, 1908, to January 13, 1910, are here presented under the following arrangement: (1) Orders amending the general rules and regulations. (2) Orders amending Schedule A (classified positions excepted from examination, p. 100). (3) Orders affecting classifications. (4) Orders affecting unclassified laborers. (5) Orders excepting persons named from the requirements of the rules. (6) Miscellaneous orders. The Eighteenth Report, pages 161-327, contains a compilation of the civil-service rules, special orders, and classifications from May 7, 1883, to August 16, 1902. The Nineteenth Report gives executive orders in full for the year ending June 30, 1902, at pages 74-92. Executive orders to June 30, 1903, appear in the Twentieth Report, pages 65-76; to June 30, 1904, in the Twenty-first Report, pages 76-91; from June 30, 1904, to December 30, 1905, in the Twenty-second Report, pages 69-95; general orders from January 5, 1906, to March 28, 1907, and special exceptions from December 23, 1905, to January 31, 1907, in the Twenty-third Report, pages 91-107; general orders from March 28, 1907, to April 21, 1908, and special exceptions to the civilservice rules from January 31, 1907, to May 1, 1908, in the Twenty-fourth Report, pages 103-138; and general orders from April 21, 1908, to October 21, 1908, and special exceptions to the civil-service rules from May 1, 1908, to October 28, 1908, in the Twenty-fifth Report, pages 122–139. ORDERS AMENDING GENERAL RULES AND REGULATIONS. TRANSFER AFTER TWO YEARS OF SERVICE IN THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. January 9, 1909. Rule X is hereby amended by the addition of a paragraph to be numbered 11, to read as follows: 11. Any person who has served for at least two years in the office of the President of the United States may be transferred to a competitive classified position upon such tests of fitness as the Commission may deem proper. This amendment merely restored a provision which was contained in the rules from May 27, 1889, to April 15, 1903. TRANSFERS MUST BE IN THE INTERESTS OF THE SERVICE. March 23, 1909. Civil Service Rule X, paragraph 8, clause (e), in relation to an employee proposed for transfer, is hereby amended to read as follows: He shall not be transferred unless, in the judgment of the Commission, he possesses experience, qualifications, or training, which are required for the proper performance of the duties of the position to which transfer is proposed, and which render necessary in the interests of the service the filling of the position by his transfer, rather than by an original appointment or promotion in the man.. provided by the civil-service act. The civil-service act provides that as nearly as the conditions of good administration warrant, all classified positions shall be filled by selection according to grade from among those graded highest as a result of competitive examination. Transfers are not specifically mentioned in the act and should be allowed only when shown to be in the interests of the service. The amendment effects no radical change in the treatment of transfers, but affords a more specific basis upon which the Commission may rest its refusal to approve a transfer which, in its opinion, is not warranted by the facts disclosed. April 7, 1909. ADMISSION OF DEAF-MUTES TO EXAMINATION. The executive order of December 1, 1908, in regard to the admission of deaf-mutes to civil service examinations is amended to read as follows: Deaf-mutes may be admitted to examinations for all places in the classified civil service of the United States whose duties in the opinion of the heads of the several executive departments they may be considered capable of performing, and each department will furnish to the Civil Service Commission a list of such positions, which list shall not be changed without previous notice to the Commission and in accordance with which the Commission shall certify or withhold from certification deaf-mutes as they are reached in their order. The Commission in the belief that the best interests of the service required that the order of December 1, 1908, should be amended, recommended the above order. The list furnished by the departments is given in the chief examiner's report, see page 40. RESTRICTIONS ON POLITICAL ACTIVITY MODIFIED IN NAVY YARDS. May 14, 1909. Whenever in the opinion of the Secretary of the Navy a strict enforcement of the provisions of section 1, Rule I of the civil-service rules would influence the result of a local election the issue of which materially affects the local welfare of the government employees in the vicinity of any navy-yard or station, the Civil Service Commission may, on recommendation of the Secretary of the Navy, and after such investigation as it may deem necessary, permit the active participation of the employees of the yard or station in such local election. In the exercise of the privilege which may be conferred hereunder, persons affected must not neglect their official duties nor cause public scandal by their activity. REEMPLOYMENT OF MECHANICS ON REPAIR OF BUILDINGS ROLL, INTERIOR DEPARTMENT. June 17, 1909. Former employees of the Department of the Interior on the repair of buildings, such as roof work, painting, blacksmithing, cementing, plastering, carpentering, wiring, etc., of proved efficiency, may be reemployed after complying with the examination or registration requirements of the Civil Service Commission, but without regard to apportionment or position on register of eligibles, but such reemployment shall not entitle them to transfer to permanent statutory positions. During many years men had been employed at intervals, usually six or eight at a time, as indicated in the order. They were paid a per diem compensation, did not take an oath of office, and were not regarded by the department as properly subject to the rules until the amendment of the temporary appointment rule on January 27, 1908. The Secretary of the Interior recommended the order to permit the appointment of workmen who had proved qualified in the past and had passed an appropriate examination, although they were not among the highest on the register. APPOINTMENT OF MESSENGER BOYS WITHOUT CHARGE TO THE APPORTIONMENT, September 18, 1909. By reason of the small compensation usually paid to messenger boys upon entrance to the service, and by reason of the early age at which they are appointed, it has not been deemed proper to hold this examination for the departmental service at Wash |