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thing to be bestowed by way of arbitrary personal or political favor and, therefore, that appointments to office be made exclusively upon the ground of impartially ascertained fitness for the discharge of official duty.
The exclusion of favoritism evidently requires that in
making selections for appointment personal or political
influence count for nothing; and this can be accomplished only
if such selections are made according to the degree of fitness
respectively shown by the different candidates. This again
requires two things—first, that whatever tests for the ascertainment
of that fitness be established, they be, as a rule, accessible
to all persons possessing certain qualifications as to good
repute, and, perhaps, as to age and physical condition; and,
secondly, that those tests be competitive; that is to say, that
the candidates showing themselves best qualified shall have
the best claim for appointment. The competitive feature of
these tests is, therefore, not to be looked upon as something
merely desirable for this or that practical reason; but it must
be regarded as the most essential prerequisite, as the absolute
sirne qua non of the merit system.
Without it there will
be no exclusion of favoritism from appointments; and without
this there will be no true and lasting civil service reform—at
least not in a country in which the spoils system has
prevailed and formed part of the political habits of the people.
There is here and there in the popular mind—even among those who on the whole favor the merit system—a lack of appreciation of just this point. We still hear reasoning like, this: “You wish the public service to be conducted on business principles. Now, would not any practical business man be better satisfied with some less restrictive method of ascertaining the qualifications of those he has to employ? Will he not be the best judge of those qualifications? Will he limit the freedom of his choice by any competitive system?” The answer is simple. Yes, we do wish the public service to be conducted on sound business principles. But we have to recognize the fact that in one respect the situation of a public officer wielding the appointing power is essentially different from that of a private business man. The public officer is exposed to a peculiar pressure of political influences and importunities of which the private business man knows
