[Footnote 34:  Sumner’s Jackson, p. 147.]

In the canvass of 1840 the Whigs promised to reform the civil service, and the promise brought them many Democratic votes; but after they had won the election, they followed Jackson’s example.  The Democrats followed in the same way in 1845, and from that time down to 1885 it was customary at each change of party to make a “clean sweep” of the offices.  Soon after the Civil War the evils of the system began to attract serious attention on the part of thoughtful people.  The “spoils system” has helped to sustain all manner of abominations, from grasping monopolies and civic jobbery down to political rum-shops.  The virus runs through everything, and the natural tendency of the evil is to grow with the growth of the country.

[Sidenote:  The Civil Service Act of 1883.] In 1883 Congress passed the Civil Service Act, allowing the president to select a board of examiners on whose recommendation appointments are made.  Candidates for office are subjected to an easy competitive examination.  The system has worked well in other countries, and under Presidents Arthur and Cleveland it was applied to a considerable part of the civil service.  It has also been adopted in some states and cities.  The opponents of reform object to the examination that it is not always intimately connected with the work of the office,[35] but, even if this were so, the merit of the system lies in its removal of the offices from the category of things known as “patronage.”  It relieves the president of much needless work and wearisome importunity.  The president and the heads of departments appoint (in many cases, through subordinates) about 115,000 officials.  It is therefore impossible to know much about their character or competency.  It becomes necessary to act by advice, and the advice of an examining board is sure to be much better than the advice of political schemers intent upon getting a salaried office for their needy friends.  The examination system has made a fair beginning and will doubtless be gradually improved and made more stringent.  Something too has been done toward stopping two old abuses attendant upon political canvasses,—­(1) forcing government clerks, under penalty of losing their places, to contribute part of their salaries for election purposes; (2) allowing government clerks to neglect their work in order to take an active part in the canvass.  Before the reform of the civil service can be completed, however, it will be necessary to repeal Crawford’s act of 1820 and make the tenure of postmasters and revenue collectors as secure as that of the chief justice of the United States.

[Footnote 35:  The objection that the examination questions are irrelevant to the work of the office is often made the occasion of gross exaggeration.  I have given, in Appendix I, an average sample of the examination papers used in the customs service.  It is taken from Comstock’s Civil Service in the United States, New York, Holt & Co., 1885, an excellent manual with very full particulars.]