Vanishing Landmarks: The Trend Toward Bolshevism

by Leslie M. Shaw

It will be idle to approach this subject without recognizing a very marked distinction between business operations and government service. Business is conducted primarily for the profit that legitimately results. The wise man knows, however, that the better the service, the more certain his rewards. The merchant who best serves his customers will have the most customers to serve, and the lawyer who best protects his clients will have the largest and the most lucrative practice. Service and profit are seldom divorced. If it be true, as has been said, that a grateful people will make a beaten path to the door of him who improves a mousetrap, it is also equally true that the world’s financial rewards are liberal beyond calculation to him who renders any substantial service.

This principle does not apply to government matters. Here the ultimate end is not profit, but power. While a political party may hope to be continued if its service is acceptable, it has no right to expect its administration will be acceptable if it neglects the ordinary methods by which approval is secured—which is politics. In politics, everything reasonable and honest is made to serve the ends of politics, exactly as in business everything reasonable and honest is made to contribute to profit.

A most natural result of public service is loyalty to superiors. This is true in a very marked degree in all government departments. If government clerks were to vote, I suppose three-fourths of them would support the party in power, without regard to which party it happened to be. One-half of the balance would fear even to vote lest they might cause offense and prejudice their promotion—the sole consideration with many department clerks—while only a comparative few would openly support the opposite party and some of these would subsequently regret it.

A case is current where an official who is supposed not to be devoid of future political ambition, said to a friend who had witnessed the obsequious servility of subordinates: “There are two million of these and every one is a voter.”

You will recognize that no promotion, demotion or dismissal within a business organization invites newspaper comment or criticism from friend or foe. In government service the exact opposite is the rule. When constituents inform a congressman that someone from his district has had his salary reduced, the whole delegation from that state get busy. Let it be known that some clerk has been longer in a department than another who has received more promotion, and an explanation is certain to be demanded, and it is relatively useless to urge inefficiency as the cause. In such cases the public ascribes but two causes, politics and favoritism.

While “offensive partisanship” is publicly forbidden, it is generally recognized on the inside that no activity of a partisan character is “offensive” so long as it is quiet, and is exercised in favor of the party in power. Public officials, of the rank of postmasters, customs and internal revenue collectors, and district attorneys are not expected to be delegates to political conventions, but I have never known their superiors, when of the same political faith, to object to their being in the town while the convention is in session, maintaining suitable headquarters at the hotel, and even volunteering valuable advice to those who happen to call, as well as to those who are sent for.

But politics is not the only weakness of the system. The public has been taught to believe that Civil Service examinations result in securing the most efficient. This is a serious delusion.

Those who take civil service examinations usually find their names rejected or upon the eligible list within six months. It takes about that long to classify. Any time within two years thereafter the applicant is liable to be certified and called.

When a requisition is made the Commission certifies three names. It is not at all likely that they are the three whose examinations show them the best qualified. That question is not considered—applicants either pass or fail. They are simply the three names at the head of the list from the state whose quota is not exhausted. The officer calling for the clerk examines the records of the certified names and makes a selection. Thereupon the applicant is notified to present himself at a given place where the minimum salary—in normal times seven hundred dollars per annum—awaits him. Even though he took his examination only twelve months before, the chances are he declines, giving as his reason that he is now getting a thousand dollars with good prospects of promotion.

It is only a question of time, however, when some applicant will be found who, during the period between examination and certification, varying from six months to two years and six months, has been unable to get a job at seven hundred dollars and he jumps at the chance to “serve his country.”