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The “Merit System” Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Kenneth C. Cole
Kenneth C. Cole
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

Of the various proposals embodied in the recently published Report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management, that calling for extension of the merit system has received most publicity. This publicity has been generally favorable, and, in the opinion of the present writer, undiscriminating. Everyone agrees that appointments to the public service should be based upon merit of some kind. The pertinent questions are: First, should the sort of merit represented by party service be given any consideration in the public service? Second, assuming that it should not, how is the sort of merit connoted by efficiency in doing the particular job assigned to be secured? Any proposal to extend the merit system which fails to tackle these questions unequivocally is hardly entitled to unqualified support.

Type
American Government and Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , August 1937 , pp. 695 - 698
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1937

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References

1 Washington, Government Printing Office, 1937.

2 Professor Merriam, among others, has emphasized this aspect of American parties. American Party System, rev. ed., New York, 1929), pp. 101–105Google Scholar.

3 Professor Dimock raises the question, but does not answer it in terms of the American party system. Modern Politics and Administration (New York, 1937), p. 297Google Scholar.

4 22 Stat. 403; U.S.C. Compact Ed., Title 5, sec. 632.

5 The Committee is well aware of the different connotations of “merit system.” It even emphasizes that “the original theory of merely protecting appointments from political influence through a legalistic system of civil service administration is inadequate to serve democratic government under modern conditions.” Op. cit., p. 7. Apparently, however, “inadequacy” is not inconsistent with application.

6 Vide the solemn references to separation-of-powers doctrine calculated to induce Congress to abolish the pre-audit powers of its own agent, the Comptroller-General.

7 The annual reports of the Authority for 1934 and 1936 detail the collaboration of the research division of the Civil Service Commission. See also O'Rourke, L. J., “Personnel Aspects of the T. V. A.,” Personnel, Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 107Google Scholar; Brown, E. Francis, “Men of T. V. A.,” Commonwealth, Vol. 20, No. 18, p. 419Google Scholar.

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