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Laborers:

The classification of laborers.

Regulations governing employment in Washington... Regulations governing employment outside of Washington. Government employees in the District of Columbia..

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Index

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CIVIL-SERVICE ACT.a

[22 Stat. L., 403.]

AN ACT To regulate and improve the civil service of the United

States.

of Commis

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- Appointment tives of the United States of America in Congress assem- sioners. bled, That the President is authorized to appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, three persons, not more than two of whom shall be adherents of the same party, as Civil Service Commissioners, and said three Commissioners shall constitute the United States Civil Service Commission. Said Commissioners shall hold no other official place under the United States.

Commissioners.

The President may remove any Commissioner; and any Removal of vacancy in the position of Commissioner shall be so filled by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, as to conform to said conditions for the first selection of Commissioners.

traveling

The Commissioners shall each receive a salary of three Salaries and thousand five hundred dollars a year. And each of said expenses. Commissioners shall be paid his necessary traveling expenses incurred in the discharge of his duty as a Commissioner.

The Commission not an executive department. The term "executive departments" in the federal statutes refers only to those departments specified in section 158, Revised Statutes, to which has since been added the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce and Labor. No board, commission, bureau, or office which is not expressly or by implication under the control of the head of one of the executive departments can be considered as belonging properly to an executive department. The Civil Service Commission is not attached in any wise to any of the executive depart

ments, nor is it subject in any wise to the control of any of the heads of such departments. (22 Op. A. G., 62.)

Constitutionality of civil-service laws.The civil-service laws are constitutional and valid. An appointment or employment in violation of the civil-service laws is illegal, and the authorities have no right to appropriate the public moneys to the payment for services rendered in pursuance of such illegal appointment or employment.-American and English Encyclopedia of Law, title "Public officers."

a Definition.-Civil service is defined as the executive branch of the public service as distinguished from military, naval, legislative, and judicial.—(Century Dictionary.)

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Duties of
Commissioners.

Rules.

SEC. 2. That it shall be the duty of said Commissioners: First. To aid the President, as he may request, in preparing suitable rules for carrying this act into effect, and when said rules shall have been promulgated it shall be the duty of all officers of the United States in the departments and offices to which any such rules may relate to aid, in all proper ways, in carrying said rules, and any modifications thereof, into effect.

Authority of acts of the President.Where an act of Congress, establishing a general system, confers on the President the authority to do a specific act for the purpose of perfecting the means by which the system shall be carried into effect, the act of the President, when performed according to the terms of the statute, has all the validity and authority of the statute itself. (10 Op. A. G., 469.)

Power to prescribe rules.-There can be no doubt as to the power of Congress or any other legislative body to delegate to subordinate authorities the power to make rules and regulations within certain limits, which, when made, will have the force of law. Thus, corporations, municipal or private, may be authorized to make by-laws, and police commissioners, boards of health, and fire commissioners may be authorized to make regulations which have the effect of laws.

But if any rule prepared by this Commission, whether published by the President or not, should have the effect of repealing or modifying an act of Congress, it would be an act of legislation, and not a regulation of a mere executive character, which it was clearly the object of this law to authorize. It is a grave question whether Congress could delegate to the President, or to any board of commis

Competitive examinations.

sioners jointly with the President, the authority to do any act which is equivalent to legislation. (Woods v. Gary, Postmaster-General, Sup. Ct. D. C., Sept. 14, 1897. See also, Opinion of Justices, 138 Mass., 601.)

In a letter to the Commission of July 16, 1895, the President requested it to further a plan by which the Board of Commissioners for the District of Columbia may provide examinations for those seeking places under the District government so far as this may be done without thereby adding to the expenses of the Commission. The authority to hold such examinations was sustained by the court of appeals of the District of Columbia in an application for an injunction by J. Stewart Harrison et al. v. John C. Black et al.

In an executive order of December 17, 1907, the President directed that "upon the request of any Member of Congress the United States Civil Service Commission shall aid in testing the qualifications of applicants for designation for appointment in the United States Military or Naval academies, so far as this may be done without thereby adding to the expenses of the Commission."

Second. And, among other things, said rules shall provide and declare, as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant, as follows:

First, for open, competitive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants for the public service now classified or to be classified hereunder. Such examinations shall be practical in their character, and so far as may be shall relate to those matters which will fairly test the relative capacity and fitness of the persons examined to

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