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It is very doubtful whether the mere statement in the law that certain qualifications shall be required for a particular office will secure the desired qualifications. It is, of course, true that the further step may be taken of fixing a means by which such qualifications shall be evidenced. This has been done in the case of the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service. The law of June 4, 1889, provides that original appointments shall be to the grade of assistant surgeon and that no medical officer shall be appointed who has not passed certain examinations to be conducted in accordance with

rules prepared by the Supervising Surgeon General and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury and the President.

Here again, as in the case of the consular regulations, it may be remarked that the effective enforcement of qualifications for offices, appointment to which is by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, is dependent upon the cooperation of the Senate.

4. Assistant chiefs of bureaus.-In a number of instances provision is made for one or more assistants or deputies for the head of a bureau or service.

In the Departments of War and of the Navy the practice would seem to prevail of detailing military and naval officers to assist the heads of the different bureaus, but these assistants, as has been pointed out, do not have all the characteristics of civilian assistants of bureau heads.

Assistants or deputies of heads of bureaus are usually appointed without fixed term in the same manner as their chiefs.

The usual method of appointment is by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. In some cases this is specifically provided by statute, as, e. g., in the case of the assistant treasurer (R. S., sec. 303) and of the assistant register (ibid., sec. 314), . but it has been held by the Attorney General that this is the method of appointment where nothing is said in the law as to the matter (15 Op. Atty. Gen., 3). Very seldom are any qualifications of capacity required by law for the position of assistant to a bureau head.

What is hereafter said as to the method of appointing and the qualifications of heads of bureaus applies with equal force to their assistants, who should be regarded as understudies of their chiefs and as in the line of promotion.

5. Heads of bureaus now political officers. In the foregoing we have given a statement of present conditions in respect to the appointment of heads and assistant heads of bureaus. It now remains for us to consider the extent to which, in our opinion, changes should be made in such conditions.

It will be noticed that, with few exceptions, the heads or chiefs of bureaus and similar offices, whatever designation may have been given to them, such as director, superintendent, treasurer, register, auditor, and commissioner, are appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by the President alone. Because of the provisions of the civil-service act or of the civil-service rules which exclude from the competitive classified service all positions to

1 These regulations, so far as they affect the appointment of persons appointed by the President, by, and with the advice and consent of the Senate, are set forth in Exhibit 2.

which appointment is made by the President, either by and with the advice and consent of the Senate or alone, the heads of bureaus, with few exceptions, are outside of the competitive classified and even of the classified service. Furthermore, there are, except in a few services, no qualifications of capacity provided either by law or by Executive order for the position of head of bureau, nor, outside of exceptional cases, is it necessary that the position be filled by promotion. In other words, the position of head of bureau is clearly regarded as a political one.

The commission believes that this condition of affairs is unfortunate. In its opinion these offices should be looked upon as primarily administrative positions; political considerations should have little or no influence in the selection of the persons to fill them; the incumbency of office should be permanent; and these offices should constitute a part of the competitive classified service.

It accordingly believes:

1. That it should be provided by law that those heads of bureaus who are now appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall be appointed by the President alone;

2. That it should be provided by law that all appointments made to such offices should be without term;

3. That, if the foregoing recommendations are adopted, these positions be placed in the competitive classified service; and

4. That the President, through the Civil Service Commission or other officials, cause to be made, in respect to each service individually, an inquiry regarding the special qualifications, in the way of education, experience, training, or otherwise, that persons, whether in or outside the Government, shall have in order to be eligible for appointment to the position of head or assistant head of such service; and, when such qualifications are determined, that they be embodied in regulations.

If these recommendations are adopted, the President in filling a vacancy in any such position can proceed in any one of the following three ways:

In the first place, he can make a selection of some person already in the competitive classified service who has such qualifications as may be required by the regulations. In this case he will not be compelled to confine his choice to persons in the service to be presided over by the bureau chief to be selected, but may make his selection from persons in any branch of the Government. In this connection the recommendation of the commission that all field officers be made a part of the competitive classified service should be borne in mind. This is important, since in many cases the man most qualified to fill the position of bureau chief will be the official who has proved his competency in directing work in the field. There is a great advantage to be obtained in many cases from placing in charge of a service a person who has had practical experience in the work to be done in the field.

The commission believes that this method should be, and in actual practice probably will be, the one followed by the President in the great majority of cases. It is of the opinion, not only that the best man in the great majority of cases can be found in this way, but also that a great stimulus and incentive to good work will be provided

throughout the Government service if it is generally believed that the responsible positions will, as a rule, be filled by promotion from the ranks.

In the second place, if the President is unwilling to promote without examination some one in the competitive classified service he can call upon the Civil Service Commission to hold a special examination. In this case he can provide either for a pass or a competitive examination, or in case of a competitive examination that the competition shall be open to persons in the Government service alone or to all persons whether in or outside of the Government service. He can furthermore lay down requirements in respect to experience, education, and other qualifications that must be met by persons presenting themselves for examination.

In the third place, if the President has in mind some particular person not in the competitive classified service whom he believes to be specially qualified for the position, and whom he desires to appoint, he can order a special exception to be made in his case. This method should be followed only in rare instances and in respect to positions of a technical character where the President desires to secure for the Government the services of some particular person whose special qualifications for the position are well recognized.

The position here taken by the commission has, in substance, been repeatedly taken by officials intimately concerned with the management of Government affairs.

The evils of the appointment of heads of bureaus for political considerations, where the terms of office are short, are well stated in the preliminary report of the Congressional Joint Commission on the Business Methods of the Postal Service, in 1908: 1

We have already called attention to the bureau system in the Post Office Department and to the fact that the appointments to the offices of the Postmaster General and Assistant Postmasters General are purely political. They run for short periods of years, and their holders, with few exceptions, have had no previous experience in the postal service. At the end of a few years, at which time it may be supposed they have attained some familiarity with the details of the business which they are administering, they go out of office. The remuneration attached to the positions of Assistant Postmasters General is so small that of necessity the incumbents must have private means. It is hardly reasonable to suppose that any man of ability would be willing to retain his position for more than a few years, at the end of which time he must feel that the sacrifices he has made for the Government service are sufficient. Upon their acceptance of office the Postmaster General and his Assistants find themselves involved in a mass of administrative work of which they may have had no previous knowledge, and that little time is at their disposal to master the many intricate details of the business which they are called upon to administer. At the best they can only hope to master the work of the few divisions which form their particular bureau, and from this it follows that each bureau has developed into a separate organization, operated without regard to the interests of the service as a whole.

In a large private business an entirely different condition of affairs is found. The administrative heads have usually worked their way up through the whole organization in its various states and are carefully selected for their experience and their knowledge of the business for which they are to be held responsible, and the salaries attached to those positions will generally be found to be many times in excess of those paid in the Government service. These men are held directly responsible by the board of directors and the stockholders for the success of their administration; and, on the other hand, they are given an entirely free hand in the selection and control of their subordinates, of whose ability they carefully satisfy themselves. If it is necessary, as in the case of large railroad companies, to divide the operation of the business into sections, full responsibility for the operation of each section thereof is thrown upon the officers selected for the purpose, who are at the same time required to keep in close touch with

1 H. Rept. No. 698, 60th Cong., 1st sess., Feb. 10, 1908.

the executive head and with the heads of the allied divisions; and by means of committees of directors and officials and of the system of making the head of each division directly responsible to his superior for his work, a homogeneous and uniform system of administration of the highest character is assured throughout.

It may be argued that the Government service differs entirely from a private corporation in that it does not aim at profits; but it surely should aim at the efficiency which, in private enterprises, insures profits, and the Post Office Department, at least, is a large business institution, whose sole object is to collect, transport, and distribute mail satisfactorily, without any expense to the community, at the cheapest possible

rates.

Another feature of difference is that the responsible managers of a private institution frequently have a direct pecuniary interest in the results obtained, whereas in the Government departments the financial interest of the heads is limited to keeping their expenditures within the authorized appropriations, and expending as much as possible thereof so as to avoid reductions in succeeding years. This would naturally lead to extravagance, which is restricted by Congress by voting minimum appropriations.

Postmaster General Wilson, in 1896, in recommending that Assistant Postmasters General be given permanent terms, declared:

It is safe to say that the proper training of the bureau chief up to the point where he may have a vigorous grasp and accurate knowledge of his duties is a very costly thing for the Government.

The policy of recent administrations would seem to be more and more characterized by the attempt in filling these positions to lay weight upon the qualifications of capacity and fitness as evidenced by work in the Government service rather than upon political considerations.

The Civil Service Commission in its report for 1910 points out that in pursuance of this policy

The present First and Second Assistant Postmasters General were promoted from classified positions in the department. The present Commissioner of Patents and six other presidential appointees in the Department of the Interior were also appointed by promotion from classified positions, and reappointments to presidential positions in that department because of satisfactory service are becoming more frequent.

In another place the commission says:

There is a growing tendency to fill positions of unusual requirements and positions of trust, whether or not included in the competitive service, such as those of Assistant Attorney, special Treasury agent, Assistant Postmaster, and cashiers in customhouses and post offices, by promotion or transfer of competent persons in the service. In the Department of Justice 9 of the 26 attorneys and assistant attorneys were appointed by promotion, a very large proportion, considering the fact that the source of supply in the lower ranks is limited. In the same department 8 of the 13 men who have received appointment to the position of Assistant Attorney General since the beginning of President Roosevelt's administration were advanced by promotion. The Secretary of Commerce and Labor in his recent report makes the following statement with regard to presidential appointments:

"In six instances former incumbents of the positions were reappointed. In two instances persons outside of the service were selected on account of their well-known qualifications. In the remaining eight instances selections were made of persons who had been previously employed in the classified service. Thus it will be seen that with respect to the positions which are entirely divorced from the civil-service system political considerations have been eliminated and the merit system installed."

The extension of the merit principle is further evidenced by the growing practice of disregarding political considerations in the appointment and retention of presidential officers. A marked instance of this is found in the policy of the Post Office Department to retain postmasters who have been found proficient.

The Secretary of Commerce and Labor in his report for 1910 says that

Important appointments without the classified service have been made with a view to merit. Three chiefs of bureaus, as well as a number of other important presi

dential appointments during the administration, have been selected from the classified service on account of experience and attainments and because of apparent fitness for the positions to be filled.

Indeed the demand is being made in the recent reports of heads of departments that the present method of appointment of heads of bureaus, viz., by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, be changed in the interest of economical and efficient administration, since if they were appointed by the President alone or by the heads of departments they might be included in the classified service and thus secure the permanence of tenure and freedom from political influences which are characteristic of the classified service. Thus the Secretary of the Treasury in his report for 1910 (pp. 12-13)

says:

Anyone who comes close to the practical administration of the Federal Government— or of any other Government-soon becomes aware that everything ultimate or final in the excellence of administration must wait upon the complete inclusion of all nonpolitical offices within the classified service, and that progress in the administration meanwhile will materially depend upon the broadening of that service. The frequent presidential extensions of the classified service to include more and more of the positions within the control of the Executive—including the extensions by President Taft-have practically exhausted the exclusive opportunities of the President, and enlargement will hereafter be a matter for the cooperation of Congress with the President. But there is no reason why the purely administrative offices which require confirmation should be differentiated in respect to the classified service from like offices that do not require confirmation. The auditors of the Treasury Department, for example, as I said in my last report, ought on every account to be included in the classified service.

6. Qualifications required. In respect to the matter of educational and other qualifications, the commission has been compelled to frame its recommendations in general terms. It can not make any specific recommendations as to the qualifications which should be required of persons appointed as heads or assistant heads of bureaus, whether the appointment to such positions is made as the result of the promotion of some one already in the competitive classified service or as the result of an examination open both to persons already in such service and to persons outside such service. This is due to the fact that heads of bureaus do not form a general class the qualifications of which should be the same.

Each head of a bureau is ordinarily the head of a special service which is frequently somewhat technical in character. There are for most heads of bureaus, therefore, special technical qualifications which ought not to be required for the heads of all other bureaus.

In addition to these special technical qualifications there are certain general qualifications which it is desirable that all heads and assistant heads of bureaus should possess. All should, for example, possess at least a general knowledge of the structure of the Government and of the law so far as it affects the relations of the departments and bureaus of the Government one with another, and the various processes and methods of action necessary for the carrying on of the activities of the Government. Particularly desirable is a knowledge of the law relative to the appointment, discipline, and dismissal of subordinate officers and employees and of the law with regard to appropriations, expenditures, and accounting.

Where the special qualifications are those required for some recognized profession, or consist in acquaintance with subjects of knowledge for which regular courses of instructions are given in institutions

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