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THEODORE ROOSEVELT
1919

CHAPTER 6

 CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

AFTER these strenuous and profitable years of ranch life, Mr. Roosevelt's eye turned back to the great city again and to the whirl of politics for which he seems to have been made. He led the Republican ticket in a three-cornered fight for the mayoralty of New York City, in which Abram S. Hewitt ran on the Democratic ticket and Henry George on the United Labor platform. Mr. Hewitt was elected Mayor. Mr. Roosevelt came out third in the race. His friends thought he could have been elected, if a large number of Republicans had not been afraid that Henry George, with his new theory of which they had suspicions, at least, would win. Hence, they voted the Democratic ticket. Though defeated in this mayoralty fight, he again became a national figure by the things he said and did in the campaign, and by the fact that so young a man as he should be put at the head of the Republican ticket for such a responsible office.

He had supported Benjamin Harrison in his campaign for the Presidency, and Mr. Harrison appointed him as a Civil Service Commissioner, a job which nobody wanted, as it was so very unpopular, but which Mr. Roosevelt accepted, with gratitude, because he saw in it an opportunity for usefulness; a call to* carry out notions of reform which he had had in his own mind for a number of years, and the chance to fight what he thought was one of the greatest evils of American politics and one of the greatest dangers to the American commonwealth. It would be hard to find words to express the difficulty of the task to which he was called. For seventy years it had been understood, by all political parties, that the offices of the government were to go, with the election, to those who were victorious. It was almost universally understood that the spoils of office belonged to the successful candidates, and the bosses saw to it that their henchmen received them. And the ward politician, the Assemblyman, the Congressman, the United States, Senator paid their election debts with the offices they distributed.

During those seventy years the average man said, "What are we in politics for, if it is not for the offices?" This rule that "to the victor belong the spoils" led to much corruption and bribe-taking. The spoils-giver and the spoils-receiver naturally became the bribe-givers and bribe-takers and a deep-seated, moral corruption polluted and threatened to destroy our free form of government. Some wise statesman had secured the passage of a National Civil Service Law. This law had been on the statute books only six years when this vigorous ranchman-reformer took his place on that commission. The law was a dead letter, and the leaders of both parties did all they could to keep it so.

Immediately upon taking office he did as he always had done, felt the sanctity of his oath and set himself to work, whole-heartedly, to keep it. At the very start in his office he commenced to make the fur fly in every direction. He did not hesitate to tackle the most influential member of the House of Representatives, or Senate of the United States, or even a member of the Cabinet and rebuke his wrong-doing in upholding the spoils system and fighting the Civil Service Commission. Failing to repeal the law, they cast reflection constantly on his administration of it, and were continually asking for some kind of investigation to hamper or destroy the working of the law.

In one of those investigations one of the insolent advocates of the spoils of office in criticising the law said, "You yourself, Commissioner Roosevelt, cannot take an examination which you require all candidates for office to take, on the question of handwriting, for instance, with those little pinched letters which look like a lady's hand?" The Commissioner replied promptly, "That is true. I perhaps cannot take a position as a clerk in a department, but I am not applying for that place, and I am qualified to be a Commissioner of Civil Service, I think, and maintain its principle in the face of you men who are doing so much to break it down and injure our governmental system.''

Afterward President Roosevelt thus recommends the civil service idea to the administration in the Philippine Islands: '' This should no more be a party question than the war for the Union should have been a party question. At this moment the man in highest office in the Philippine Islands is the Vice-Governor, General Luke Wright, of Tennessee, who gallantly wore the gray in the Civil War and who is now working hand in hand with the head of our army in the Philippines, Adna Chaffee, who in the Civil War gallantly wore the blue. Those two, and the men under them, from the North and from the South, in civil life and in military life, as teachers, as administrators, as soldiers, are laboring mightily for us who live at home. Here and there black sheep are to be found among them; but, taken as a whole, they represent as high a standard of public service as this country has ever seen. They are doing a great work for civilization, a great work for the honor and the interest of this nation, and, above all, for the welfare of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands."

On another occasion, as President, he thus speaks in words of commendation of the successful working of the civil service department of the government: "The civil service law has been on the statute books for twenty-two years. Every President, and a vast majority of heads of departments who have been in office during that period, have favored a gradual extension of the merit system. The more thoroughly its principles have been understood, the greater has been the favor with which the law has been regarded by administrative officers. Any attempt to carry on the great executive departments of the government without this law would inevitably result in chaos. The Civil Service Commissioners are doing excellent work; and their compensation is inadequate, considering the service they perform.

'' The statement that the examinations are not practical in character is based on a misapprehension of the practice of the Commission. The departments are invariably consulted as to the requirements desired and as to the character of questions that shall be asked. General invitations are frequently sent out to all heads of departments asking whether any changes in the scope or character of examinations are required. In other words, the departments prescribe the requirements and the qualifications desired, and the Civil Service Commission cooperates with them in securing persons with these qualifications and insuring open and impartial competition. In a large number of examinations (as, for example, those for trades positions) there are no educational requirements whatever, and a person who can neither read nor write may pass with a high average. Vacancies in the service are filled with reasonable expedition and the machinery of the Commission, which reaches every part of the country, is the best agency that has yet been devised for finding people, with the most suitable qualifications, for the various offices to be filled. Written competitive examinations do not make an ideal method for filling positions, but. they do represent an immeasurable advance upon the "spoils" method, under which outside politicians really made the appointments nominally made by the executive officers, the appointees being chosen by the politicians in question, in the great majority of cases, for reasons totally unconnected with the needs of the service or of the public."

Col. E. W. Halford, for twenty-five years the able editor of the Indianapolis Journal, who had more to do than any other one man in making Benjamin Harrison President, and who was the private secretary to Benjamin Harrison, was largely responsible for the appointment of Theodore Roosevelt to the head of the Civil Service Commission, and thus gave him Ms first office under the Federal administration. Knowing this fact and having been a personal friend of Colonel Halford for over fifty years, I went over to his office on Fifth Avenue, New York, and asked him to tell me something about Mr. Roosevelt's relation to the Civil Service Commission to put in this chapter. He cheerfully consented and gave me the following facts, saying that he had given some of them to the Christian Advocate and Leslie's Weekly for publication.

He said, "Mr. Roosevelt was in the forefront of civil service advocates, and knowing me wrote, urging that Harrison should take strong grounds for that reform, which the general did, both in his letter of acceptance and inaugural address. My diary shows that on the 19th of April, 1889, Mr. Lodge, then a member of the House, called at my room in the White House and suggested the appointment of Mr. Roosevelt, in the reorganization of the Civil Service Board. That afternoon, during one of the daily walks together after the office routine, I discussed with the President the suggestion Mr. Lodge had made. This was repeated as occasion arose, and on May 3rd the President directed me to wire Mr. Roosevelt to come to Washington. On the 6th of May he had an interview with the President, and on the 7th of May he was commissioned as Civil Service Commissioner. On the 13th of May Mr. Roosevelt wrote me a note which I have just re-read as follows:

" 'Please tender to the President my appreciation of the honor conferred upon me, which I shall do my best to deserve. I also wish to thank you, particularly, for what you have done. I think the President nominating Halford a brave as well as a wise act.'

"I had not kept in mind this last somewhat cryptic remark, and am now puzzled by it. Of the President's wisdom, of course, there can be no doubt; but just what Roosevelt had in mind as to the President's 'bravery' I cannot imagine, unless it was because of my birthplace, which, as I now recall, was objected to by a few professional British lion tail-twisters. "On coming to Washington Mr. Roosevelt honored me with his friendship and confidence.

"On taking up his duties in Washington, before either he or I had definitely settled upon homes there, we sat together at the same hotel table, and a somewhat close relationship developed between us. He did not have calm seas and quiet sailing always; and many times we met together to talk things over in order that they might be smoothed out somewhat. Mr. Roosevelt had some of the qualities of a knight-errant; at least he did not run away from an opponent. Among my papers I find this card:

july 15—Can you dine with me at Welcker's at 7 P. M. to meet Batcheldor and Wharton (Assistant Secretaries, respectively, of the Treasury and State Departments). We'll drink to the health of the Tom Hendricks School of Civil Service Reform.
Yours sincerely,
Theodore Roosevelt.

"He objected earnestly to a man who was incompetent, but his whole nature revolted against one who had a bad character. Here is an extract from a letter which he wrote me from Sagamore Hill under date of October 18, 1889, entering a positive objection to the appointment of one he knew to be a very bad man to an important office. This is the letter:

I have another small son, which accounts for my presence here. I heard there was some talk of nominating a
man named	as U. S. Marshal (in a Western
State or Territory). If so, I beg that he will not be nominated until I can be heard. He is a thorough scamp, connected with cattle-thieves, ballot-box stutters, and the like. He used always to claim to be a Democrat. I know him well, for I had him knocked out of his place as cattle inspector on account of his rascality. Yours sincerely,
Theodore Roosevelt.
"There is no uncertain sound in that note. The trumpet so often heard in later years was even then in good tune.

"There is a deep strain of humor in this letter which I got from him dated January 3rd, 1890:
I enclose a piece by Governor Thompson (his colleague on the Commission) in one of the recent Centuries. . . . We always mean to stand up for the men who stand up for the reform. As for those who make public war on it, why, they must expect to have the public attacks publicly repelled. Your friend, the Quaker,
T. E.
"He suggests in the letter that, like the Quakers, he is such a pacifist that nobody would expect him to fight.

"We had many conferences over the troubles he encountered as Commissioner, and I helped to keep things straight between him and the President, who was besieged with complaints from the antis in Republican ranks, who were neither few nor feeble folk Mr. Roosevelt was an alert and aggressive knight, with lance always ready for a thrust against any opponent. The President was usually at poise, especially in the face of opposition. When Harrison was chairman of the Carnegie Hall Missionary Confer-ence he introduced Governor Roosevelt as one who seemed at times 'somewhat impatient for righteousness'; and referred, jocularly, to the days when he (Harrison) had been, in a degree, responsible for him.

"A very prominent Republican Congressman was in my room one day after he had made a bitter attach in the House upon Civil Service reform, repeating many of the cheap current charges and criticisms upon the work of the Commission, and particularly singling out Mr. Roosevelt for sarcastic comment While he was talking with me the Commissioner came in. They did not speak to each other, and I was tactless enough to introduce them; when almost immediately the fireworks began, and in a minute or two the lie passed. I got between the two, and the Congressman at once left the room. Mr. Roosevelt apologized to me, and said he realized that any man who struck another in the President's house could not remain his appointee, and he had determined if blows were exchanged at once to write out his resignation.

"The sequel to this story, as related, is that some years afterward, in the same room, President McKinley and the Congressman were having a friendly chat. Mr. Roosevelt entered and, seeing who was present, sat down in a corner chair, awaiting his departure. The Congressman, without apparent change in manner, but in a voice distinctly heard, said: 'McKinley, you remember a fellow named Roosevelt, who was Harrison's Civil Service Commissioner. He was the most impracticable man ever. I notice you have, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a person with the same name, but it can't be the same man, for your man is about the most efficient officer I have ever known.' Mr. Roosevelt sprang to his feet, walked across the room, extending his hand to his old-time enemy, saying, 'Put it there; it's all right, hereafter.' They shook hands heartily, and from that day remained the best of friends. It was Roosevelt's way."

Mr. Roosevelt remained at the head of that Civil Service Commission from 1889 to 1895. During that time he increased the offices subject to Civil Service examination from 14,000 to 40,000, and served his country so magnificently in those brave, strenuous years that, had he never done anything else, he would have earned the lasting gratitude of his countrymen.