Executive Order 1383

Henry M. Camp was appointed on August 1, 1895, in the Norwalk, Conn., post office, in the classified civil service, and was transferred on February 8, 1901, to the office of the First Assistant Postmaster General upon the clerk examination. He resigned from the position of clerk at $1,400 per annum on September 1, 1908. His resignation was voluntary, and his record as a clerk was satisfactory.

The Civil Service Commission certifies that Mr. Camp's reinstatement may be justified on the ground of capability and efficiency, but that as he has been separated from the service for more than a year, and as he resigned in order that he might occupy his time in politics, it declines to recommend his reinstatement, following in this regard a precedent which had been set by a previous administration. I do not agree with the precedent. I do not mean to say that the circumstances under which one leaves a department, and the purpose for which it is done, might not affect the right to reinstatement, but I do not think that it ought to be adopted as an iron rule that leaving the service in order to engage in some political activity necessarily bars a return to the service. For this reason, Mr. Camp will be reinstated in the classified service without regard to the length of time he has been separated therefrom.

Wm. H. Taft.

The White House,

July 7, 1911.