There were twenty places to fill in the Congressional Library, where it is claimed influence counts least. Eighteen hundred people applied for the twenty places, and of course those with Senatorial influence were appointed. No doubt their qualifications also entered into the account.
Seven hours, frequently spent in close, confined rooms, doing work which brings no mental improvement, often with a fretful, over-critical chief, anxious to get an incumbent out in order to put in his own friend, does not look to me like a desirable position.
It is evidently intended to give places more and more to men who can go home and help manage elections. It will not be until woman suffrage prevails in the States that women will have an equal opportunity with men, even in the work world. Then department people are ever anxious about their places. At each change of Congress new people _must_ be taken care of, and much more is this true when the Executive is changed. The Washington _Post_ of July 15, 1902, has this editorial:
The latest civil-service order of President Roosevelt is addressed to this evil. One can not avoid wishing that it had been issued early in December, 1901, instead of in July, 1902—before, instead of after, a long session of Congress, during which the "pull" was industriously plied with the usual results. But "better late than never." It is a good order, and its influence should be seen and felt in the improvement of the service. Altho it was printed in the _Post_ as soon as it was made public, it will bear reproduction. Here it is:
No recommendation for the promotion of any employee in the classified service shall be considered by any officer concerned in making promotions except it be made by the officer or officers under whose supervision or control such employee is serving; and such recommendation by any other person with the knowledge and consent of the employee shall be sufficient cause for debarring him from the promotion proposed, and a repetition of the offense shall be sufficient cause for removing him from the service.
When we speak of that order or rule as good, we mean to say that it will prove so if faithfully and impartially enforced; otherwise, it may only aggravate existing wrongs. For example, suppose three clerks, A, B, and C, in the same division are aspirants for promotion to fill a vacancy in a higher grade. Suppose each of them to have very influential friends, whose recommendation, were it proper to use it, might be the controlling factor in the disposal of the prize. But A and B obey that rule, relying on their respective records, while C quietly hints to his friend or friends that a little boosting would do him a great service. A personal call on the official "under whose supervision or control such employee is serving"—a personal call by Senator X or some other statesman of weight—ensues, and C is promoted as a result of that call. That is what has happened in almost numberless cases. Will it stop now? If "yes," the President's order will prove a great promoter of reform in the civil service; if "no," it will work in the opposite direction.