There are nearly six thousand classified clerkships in the departments, and many thousands of ungraded positions. Clerks of the first class receive $1,200 per year; of the second, $1,400; of the third, $1,600; of the fourth class, $1,800. In ungraded positions, salaries range from $700 to $1,000.
Chief clerks receive from $1,800 to $2,700; stenographers and translators of languages from $1,200 to $2,000; copyists from $60 to $75 per month. Thirty days' vacation, without loss of salary, is allowed each year, and in case of violent illness no pay is deducted.
Hundreds of fine young men, well educated, who ought to be in the manufacturing businesses of our country where they could develop, tamely accept from $700 to $1,000 a year for mechanical work. In the last few years there has been wonderful improvement in the work done by department people. In 1885 I was impressed by the flirtations in corners, the half hours which were wasted in visiting by people receiving government money. But few are idle now—at least, where a visitor can see. They are all at their desks promptly at 9 A.M.; they work till 4 P.M., with half an hour at noon for luncheon. No bank records as to punctuality, regularity, and diligence can be more closely kept than those of the departments. There are so many who are eager to take an idler's place that no one dares to fritter away his or her time.
It is said that if a woman banks on her femininity with chiefs of divisions, or has unusual Senatorial backing, she may dare to take some liberties—she may be idle or incompetent, and not be reported; but these cases grow fewer in number.
Now, as to civil service examination. No one can get into the classified service without it; but in most places, when one has passed the highest examination, it takes Congressional influence to get a position. Whatever may be the conditions in the future, there never has been a time when influence was more used than in the session of Congress ending July 1, 1902. In making up the Bureau of Permanent Census, it was not merit but influence which secured a place. Merit, of course, helps everywhere, but in the session referred to three-fourths influence to one-fourth merit were necessary to secure any position.
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.