In the exercise of authority vested in the President by the seventeen hundred and fifty-third section of the Revised Statutes to prescribe such regulations for the admission of persons into the civil service of the United States as may best promote the efficiency thereof and ascertain the fitness of each applicant in respect to age, health, character, knowledge, and ability for the branch of the service into which he seeks to enter, I hereby direct that the officers, clerks, and other employees of the United States Civil Service Commission, now authorized or that may hereafter be authorized by law, shall be arranged in the following classes, viz: 

Class A, including all persons receiving compensation at the rate of less than $1,000 per annum.

Class B, including all persons receiving compensation at the rate of $1,000 or more, but less than $1,200 per annum.

Class 1, including all persons receiving compensation at the rate of $1,200 or more, but less than $1,400 per annum.

Class 2, including all persons receiving compensation at the rate of $1,400 or more, but less than $1,600 per annum.

Class 3, including all persons receiving compensation at the rate of $1,600 or more, but less than $1,800 per annum.

Class 4, including all persons receiving compensation at the rate of $1,800 or more, but less than $2,000 per annum.

Class 5, including all persons receiving compensation at the rate of $2,000 or more per annum.

No person who is appointed to an office by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by the President alone, and no person who is to be employed merely as a laborer or workman or as a watchman, shall be considered as within this classification.

And it is ordered, That the United States Civil Service Commission thus classified, as provided by clause 2 of Departmental Rule I of the civil-service rules approved February 2, 1888, and in force on and after the date hereof, shall be considered a part of the classified departmental service, and the rules applicable thereto shall be in force therein.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, March 21, 1888.

To the United States Civil Service Commission.

Gentlemen:  I desire to make a suggestion regarding subdivision (c), General Rule III, of the amended civil-service rules promulgated February 2, 1888.  It provides for the promotion of an employee in a Department who is below or outside of the classified service to a place within said classified service in the same Department upon the request of the appointing officer, upon the recommendation of the Commission and the approval of the President, after a noncompetitive examination, in case such person has served continuously for two years in the place from which it is proposed to promote him, and “because of his faithfulness and efficiency in the position occupied by him,” and “because of his qualifications for the place to which the appointing officer desires his promotion.”