Original Document

I recommend the passage of a civil service law regulating appointments in the various departments of the State Government. The doctrine which, for want of a better name, is called 'Civil Service Reform,' is the sound principle upon which affairs of the people should be conducted. No amount of sneering at the advocates of such a policy can lessen the force and justice of the argument that the servants of the people should be elected for the same reasons of competency, honesty, and fitness that apply in private business. Heads of departments have no legal or moral right to treat the offices under them as a personal appendage to be used in rewarding political friends and adherents to the detriment of the public service. Every unfit appointment so made is a robbery of the public. The people are entitled to the highest ability and best service commandable by open competition for the compensation given. A public officer in the distribution of the posts under him is quite as much a trustee for the public as he is in making any other expenditure of public money, or performing any other public duty. If, in the purchase of supplies, he should award a contract to a personal friend who supplied a poorer quality of article than could be obtained from another at the same price, no one would hesitate to call such a proceeding by its proper name of corruption. What distinction is there between such a transition and the appointment of an unfit person or political friend? In each case, the public is deprived of the just return to which it is entitled for the money expended. The time has arrived when such practices should be stopped by the passage of a civil service law, providing for the examination of applicants for the position of given grades, and their selection upon principles of fitness and character alone. The time and circumstances are auspicious for the inauguration of such a reform in the State service, and I trust this Legislature will promptly adopt the measures necessary for carrying it out. The civil service law adopted in New York during the last year, and that in force in Massachusetts, will serve as excellent models upon which to frame an enactment for our own Commonwealth. This reform is urgent, and demanded by the public, and while it may be delayed for a time, its accomplishment in the near future is a certainty.



Credit: Governor Robert E. Pattison, “A Plea for Civil Service Reform,” Message to the Pennsylvania Legislature, 1885. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania