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pears at the head of the list, and young Green, the rich manufacturer's nephew and protegé, far behind. The carpenter's son, without political claims, without influence, will get the clerkship, while the young man with all the power of wealth and political pull at his back will have to look to his rich uncle or to honest work outside of the government service for support. Young Smith will first receive a probationary appointment, for, say, six months, to prove his practical capacity and adaptation to the work he is to do. If that probation is successfully passed, his appointment is made definitive, and then his tenure of the office will not depend upon the influence or power of anybody ever so powerful, but entirely upon his own merit. He will hold his place with undisturbed self-respect so long as he performs his duties efficiently and faithfully and maintains a character befitting a public servant.
This is the merit system in its purity. It is true, the civil service rules provide that the appointing power shall not be bound to appoint the one highest on the list, but to have his choice among the highest three—thus being permitted some discretion where the difference of merit may be trifling. But, as a rule, the first of the three gets the place. It is also true that unscrupulous appointing officers sometimes try, by circumventing the spirit of the system, to give an advantage to political favorites, or that removals in the classified service have sometimes been made for political reasons. But such transgressions are strictly forbidden and punishable by dismissal. Thus it may truly be said, that while in the administration of the civil service law influence and favoritism may creep in, they can creep in only through fraud or violation of duty, and that the system opens as a rule to every citizen, rich or poor, without distinction of party or creed or social station, the road to public employment through the gates of simple merit.
Now I ask any unprejudiced and candid man, which of the two systems is most apt, not only to give the republic an honest and efficient service, but to put public employment most impartially within the reach of everybody? Which of the two is the most democratic? On the one hand we behold the group of political magnates, the bosses, the Senators and the Representatives, the party leaders—the dukes, the earls, and the barons of politics—doling out by way of favor their recommendations, which are usually equivalent to appointments,
