POLITICS IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 211
taries of the thirty-seven civil-service boards of the cities of the state, the only information received was the following reply from an inland city :
" Our local city and state institutions are well under the control of the civil- service system, but in our county institutions it is ignored entirely."
The only replies from the superintendents themselves which are to the point are the following :
From a superintendent of the poor :
Appointments in the poor office, and the almshouse, are made by the superintendent of the poor, solely, and are invariably on the ground of fitness for the work required, and politics has nothing whatever to do with it.
As a matter of curiosity, the undersigned made an investigation, and found that there were about as many employes in the almshouse of the opposite political party as of the party to which he belonged. I do not inquire as to an applicant's politics, only as to his experience.
In the city poor office all the employes are of the dominant political party. The Civil-Service Commission here never included the city poor office in its examinations, until two years ago. At that time all the incumbents were obliged to take the examination, and, being thoroughly familiar with all the duties of the place, of course they stood highest. Since that time there have been no changes in the department.
The appointments are made by a committee of the common council. At the last general election there was a complete reversal of parties in power, here, and it is a matter of considerable speculation what the Democratic party will be able to do, in the matter of rating their friends high enough on "fitness" to land them, to the exclusion of Republicans.
I think party leaders would think that employes should be of the dominant political party ; however, they do not try to influence the subscriber to make an appointment solely on political grounds. From a city commissioner :
In the hospital the superintendent appoints all nurses, attendants, and orderlies, fixes their salaries and prescribes their duties, subject to my approval; likewise all promotions and removals are made by him. All appointments are determined by fitness. Inasmuch as civil-service rules apply, appointments are made accordingly, everything else being equal, and where civil-service rules do not conflict, party service and personal favor have their influence here as elsewhere.
Many facts are cited from a report of the New York County Visit- ing Committee, October, 1897, from which it is evident that the "spoils system," during the years 1896 and 1897 at least, was respon- sible in the Department of Charities of New York city for cruelty of various kinds to helpless babies and to the aged sick, causing much suffering and in many cases death.
