SAVINGS AND ANNUITY PLAN PROPOSED FOR RETIREMENT OF SUPERANNUATED CIVIL-SERVICE EMPLOYEES.
The civil-service law has now been in operation over a quarter of a century. Passed by a Republican Congress, it was sternly upheld by a Democratic President. The best men of both parties have been its disinterested supporters. Its beneficent effects have been felt throughout the public service and few will be found to dispute them.
NEED OF PLAN FOR RETIRING SUPERANNUATED CIVIL EMPLOYEES.
There is one problem of the service, however, that the law has not solved, and that is the problem of superannuation. Without provision for retirement of the aged officeholder a law which in practical operation insures him a permanent tenure of office works an injustice to the Government, since it permits the retention in the service of many who have outlived their usefulness. It is true that the law does specifically provide for the removal of the incompetent on the proper record of the existence of incompetency, but such a provision has proved to be inadequate where incompetency is the result of old age. That part of the law is practically a dead letter, as is acknowledged in the following paragraph found in the Nineteenth Report of the Civil Service Commission:
It has been urged by opponents of the competitive system that that system, by securing comparative permanence of tenure, tends to promote superannuation in the public service. The commission calls attention to the fact that the civilservice law itself provides for no permanency of tenure. Under it any employee can be dismissed at any time. The successor of such employee, however, is no longer appointed through personal or political favor, and thus the civil-service act has taken away the motive for making arbitrary removals. To this extent the act has promoted permanency, and a very much smaller proportion of persons are removed from the competitive classified service than from other parts of the service. In order to secure justice in making such removals it was further provided by Executive order that the appointing officer must give his reasons, with proper notice and an opportunity for answer, to the person proposed to be removed, and that removals should only be made for such reasons as would promote the efficiency of the service. It is evident that under this rule, rigidly enforced, no person ought to be retained in the public service whose