I know you will pardon me if I insist that I know better the necessary qualifications of Special Agents than any person who knows nothing about it whatever. If there were experienced employees in the service who could be transferred I certainly should do so rather than to await an examination. You will remember a personal interview I had with you about this some months ago, and several requests, some of them personal and some of them in writing followed by the preparation of the questions in this Department, still followed by oral inquiry to which you courteously refer. I will explain again that I need some lawyers in the Special Agent Force. The government loses millions every year (and I speak within bounds) for want of suitable preparation of cases for presentation to the Board of General Appraisers. I want men who know evidence when they see it and who know how to present a case. I do not want a physician or a preacher, but I do want and must have lawyers. I care very little whether they know anything about Customs matters or not—they can learn that but they may know everything about Customs matters and cannot become lawyers. I have clerks in the Department who have graduated in law but that does not make a lawyer of a man. I know what the Department needs, and I want that need supplied. Please advise whether you will hold the required examinations or whether I will have to fill the vacancies with incompetent clerks, or by executive order. If you will join in a request that suitable men be put into this important work by executive order I will let the Civil Service Commission make the nominations from a list which I will furnish, or I will ask them to furnish the list and I will make the nominations. I am not trying to escape the Civil Service, for I heartily believe in it when so applied as to bring material that can be used to bring results. I appreciate your expressed desire to co-operate and I only ask that you make it good by co-operating.
Very truly yours,
Leslie M. Shaw.
LETTER FROM THE COMMISSION
December 9, 1905.
The Secretary of the Treasury:
The Commission has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th inst. in which are indicated your wishes with respect to the proposed examination for Special Agents.
In reply your attention is invited to the general questions on government, law and customs matters which have been submitted to the Commission by your Department. Of the fifty-three questions so submitted, fifteen are of a general character and could be readily answered by any law student. Only three relate to evidence in any form. These are of such an elementary character that they may be found in any text book on the subject and are not sufficient to bring out a satisfactory knowledge of evidence. There are thirty-seven questions bearing directly upon customs matters although your letters indicate that a knowledge of the subject is not to be required of applicants. After careful consideration of the matter and in view of your recent letter it is believed that the questions submitted by your Department are not suitable for an examination of Special Agents.
After discussing the responsibility which the Commission must bear the letter proceeds:
In this connection your attention is invited to an examination for law clerk, Class 4, held for your Department in April, 1903. This examination was prepared along the lines indicated by you and your statement that only graduates of reputable law colleges who had had at least three years practical experience subsequent to graduation would be acceptable to the Department, was incorporated in the announcement. The examination consisted principally of practical questions in law and the preparation of opinions upon stated cases. Of the 367 persons who competed only 20 attained eligibility. The results of this examination were very unsatisfactory to the Commission and to a large number of the competitors who felt that injustice had been done them. It is understood that several persons who were regarded by the officials of the Treasury Department as qualified for the position failed in the examination. A large number of appeals from the ratings were received, some of them being from men who were graduates of the best law schools in the country and who had many years experience in the practice of law in the general field.