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REGULATIONS.

Regulations prescribing methods of appointment and promotion have been adopted, with the concurrence of the heads of the departments concerned, for the Ordnance Department at Large, the Engineer Department at Large, the Quartermaster Corps (except the Philadelphia depot, for which there are special regulations), Panama Canal Service, Subtreasury Service, Mint and Assay Service, Navy Yard Service, Lighthouse Service, Reclamation Service, Saint Elizabeths Hospital, Indian Irrigation and Allotment Service, the Coast and Geodetic Survey (in relation to persons employed on vessels), Rural Carrier and Fourth-class Postmaster Services, and the Military Academy at West Point.

Regulations governing promotions have been applied to the Navy Department, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Government Printing Office, and to the Customs Service.

Regulations relating to the appointment and promotion of foremen, mechanics, and laborers are in force at the navy yards.

The regulations for several branches of the classified service provide a system by which applicants for noneducational positions may be registered by local boards of examiners, who rate applicants upon the elements of experience and physical condition and certify eligibles for appointment.

The promotion regulations in general provide for the relative rating of employees on the basis of their services. In the marking, the character, quality, and quantity of work, and the office habits of the employee are considered.

Federal positions in the Philippines, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and other insular possessions are filled in the same manner as positions of the same classes in other localities outside of Washington. Positions in the insular service of the Philippines are regulated by an act and rules promulgated by the Philippine Government and those in Porto Rico by an act of the Porto Rican Legislature in effect January 1, 1908. Insular positions in Hawaii are not classified.

The civil-service act provides that no person merely employed as a laborer or workman shall be required to be classified thereunder, and in accordance with this provision Civil Service Rule II, defining the classified service, excepts from that service mere unskilled laborers. The President, however, has promulgated regulations governing the employment of unskilled laborers, which provide for a rating of applicants based upon their relative ability to perform manual labor, as shown by their physical condition. These regulations are contained in Form 1725.

APPOINTMENT OF FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD CLASS POSTMASTERS.

The President on March 31, 1917, issued the following Executive order: Hereafter when a vacancy occurs in the position of postmaster of any office of the first, second, or third class as the result of death, resignation, removal, or, on the recommendation of the First Assistant Postmaster General, approved by the Postmaster General, to the effect that the efficiency or needs of the service requires that a change shall be made, the Postmaster General shall certify the fact to the Civil Service Commission, which shall forthwith hold an open competitive examination to test the fitness of applicants to fill such vacancy, and when such examination has

been held and the papers in connection therewith have been rated, the said commission shall certify the result thereof to the Postmaster General, who shall submit to the President the name of the highest qualified eligible for appointment to fill such vacancy, unless it is established that the character or residence of such applicant disqualifies him for appointment. No person who has passed his sixty-fifth birthday shall be given the examination herein provided for.

Under existing laws first, second, and third class postmasters are appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and no person who is thus appointed is required to be classified unless by the direction of the Senate. The order does not create any vacancies nor require that an examination be held upon the expiration of the four-year term of any postmaster. It does not give a competitive classified status to any postmaster nor classify any office of postmaster under the Civil Service Act. The order is entirely outside the civil service law, and does not give any right to transfer to the classified service.

The duties of the commission in connection with these appointments are to hold open competitive examinations when called upon to do so by the Postmaster General, and to transmit the list of eligibles obtained as a result thereof to the Postmaster General. The requirements necessary to compete for appointment are made known at the time of announcement of an examination to fill any vacancy.

PUBLICATIONS OF THE COMMISSION.

In addition to the annual reports, which may be consulted at the principal public libraries, the commission issued the following publications:

MANUAL OF EXAMINATIONS.

The semiannual manual examinations (Form 302), containing information as to the dates and places of examinations not held under the district system, and the character and scope of each, and showing the number of persons examined, passed, failed, and appointed, respectively, in certain examinations during the last preceding fiscal year has been temporarily discontinued owing to abnormal conditions caused by the war.

INFORMATION FOR APPLICANTS.

For the position of unskilled laborer in the District of Columbia (Labor Form 1); for the position of unskilled laborer outside of the District of Columbia (Labor Form la); in regard to examinations held on other than scheduled dates (Form 376); for examination for mechanical trades and other noneducational positions in the departmental and Indian services (Form 1250); for positions under the district system and positions in the Federal service in Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico (Form 1372); for examination for entrance to the Steamboat-Inspection Service (Form 1405); for the railway mail clerk examination (Form 1407); for stenographer and typewriter examinations (Form 1424); for promotion or transfer to the position of post-office inspector (Form 1502); for examination for the position of fourth-class postmaster (Form 1759); in regard to the admission of deaf-mutes to civil-service examinations (Form 1786); relative to employment in the Philippine civil service (Form 1894); for positions in the Post Office Service in the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Twelfth Civil-Service Districts (Form 1898); for the rural carrier examination (Form 1977); for mechanical trades and similar noneducational positions under the district system in the First, Fourth, Sixth, Ninth, and Twelfth Civil-Service Districts (Form 1989); instructions to applicants for the position of unskilled laborer (Form 2089); instructions to applicants for navy yards and naval stations (Form 2012).

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

Concerning reinstatements (Form 126); concerning transfers (Form 305); concerning removals (Form 505); concerning political assessments and partisan activity of officeholders (Form 1236); concerning veteran preference (Form 1481); concerning prosecutions in connection with civil-service examinations under provisions of the Criminal Code of the United States (Form 1775); instructions to labor boards (Form 2016); information concerning rural carrier appointments (Form 2028); information

concerning transfer of employees and ex-employees of the Panama Canal (Form 2124); method of conducting examinations for unskilled laborer (Form 2128); information concerning transfer for Porto Rican and Philippine Service employees (Form 2146); the civil-service act, rules, and Executive orders; information regarding postmaster positions filled through nomination by the President for confirmation by the Senate (Form 2223).

REGULATIONS.

1

Governing the employment of mates in the Coast and Geodetic Survey (Form 1470); governing the manner of appointment to the position of carrier in the Rural Delivery Service (Form 1494); governing promotions in the Customs Service in the district of New York (Form 1522); governing promotions and transfers in the Customs Service in districts other than that of New York (Form 1556); governing the appointment of fourth-class postmasters (Form 1752); governing appointments to the Navy Yard Service (Form 2009).

HISTORICAL REGISTER

OF THE

UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION.

'COMMISSIONERS:

MARTIN A. MORRISON, Indiana, President.

GEORGE R. WALES, Vermont.

VACANCY.

VACANCY. Chief Examiner.

JOHN T. DOYLE, Secretary.

List of commissioners, chief examiners, and secretaries since 1883.

Name.

Whence appointed.

Date of oath of office.

Date of retirement.

COMMISSIONERS.

Dormah B. Eaton.
John M. Gregory
Leroy D. Thoman.
Wm. L. Trenholm.
Alfred P. Edgerton.
John H. Oberly.
Charles Lyman.
Hugh S. Thompson.
Theodore Roosevelt
George D. Johnston.
John R. Procter.
William G. Rice.
John B. Harlow.
Mark S. Brewer.
William A. Rodenberg.
William Dudley Foulke.
James Rudolph Garfield.
Alford W. Cooley.
Henry F. Greene.
John C. Black.
John A. McIlhenny.
James T. Williams, jr..
William S. Washburn.
Charles M. Galloway.
Hermon W. Craven.
Martin A. Morrison..
George R. Wales 1.

CHIEF EXAMINERS.

Charles Lyman.

William H. Webster..

A. Ralph Serven.

Frank M. Kiggins.

George R. Wales.

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Resigned Apr. 17, 1886. Resigned Nov. 9, 1885. Do.

Resigned Apr. 17, 1886. Removed Feb. 9, 1889. Resigned Oct. 10, 1888. Resigned May 24, 1895. Resigned June 23, 1892. Resigned May 5, 1895. Removed Nov. 28, 1893. Died Dec. 12, 1903. Resigned Jan. 19, 1898. Resigned Nov. 14, 1901. Died Mar. 18, 1901. Resigned Mar. 31, 1902. Resigned Apr. 30, 1903. Resigned Feb. 25, 1903. Resigned Nov. 6, 1906. Resigned Apr. 30, 1909. Resigned June 10, 1913. Resigned Feb. 28, 1919. Resigned May 25, 1909. Resigned June 30, 1913. Resigned Sept. 7, 1919. Resigned Mar. 16, 1919.

SECRETARIES.

Wm. S. Roulhac.

Robert D. Graham.

John T. Doyle.

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Apr. 17, 1886.2
Died Mar. 23, 1896.
Resigned June 7, 1903.
Died Oct. 26, 1908.
Resigned Mar. 16, 1919.

Died Apr. 17, 1884. Resigned Sept. 15, 1886.

1 Mr. Wales, when appointed by the President as commissioner, had served on the force of the commission for 14 years as clerk, examiner, law clerk, chief of division, and assistant chief examiner and 10 years as chief examiner.

2 Appointed commissioner.

Mr. Dovle was appointed stenographer to the commission Mar. 9, 1883, and promoted upon appointment by the President from that position to secretary.

OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

PREFERENCE UNDER THE CENSUS ACT OF MARCH 3, 1919.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
March 29, 1919.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter of March 18, 1919, transmitting a request by the members of the Civil Service Commission for an opinion on certain questions arising under the following provisions of the census act, approved March 3, 1919:

"Provided, That hereafter in making appointments to clerical and other positions in the executive departments and in independent governmental establishments, preference shall be given to honorably discharged soldiers, sailors, and marines, and widows of such, if they are qualified to hold such positions.”

The first question submitted is whether this provision applies only to the executive departments and independent governmental establishments in Washington, D. C., and not to Government offices in the field service.

It has long been the recognized rule that the executive departments are by law established at the seat of government and not elsewhere. Accordingly, my predecessors have uniformly ruled that the terms "executive departments" and "departments," as ordinarily used in the acts of Congress, are terms of art, whose meaning is confined to offices and bureaus located at the seat of government, together with the so-called field forces, which, in theory, are only temporarily absent from Washington. (15 Op. A. G., 262, 267; 29 Op. A. G., 481, 485.)

I am in entire accord with these views and am of the opinion that so far as the proviso in question relates to the "executive departments" it affects only such appointments as shall be made for service at the seat of government, or in the so-called field forces of departments which operate away from Washington but under immediate and direct orders therefrom, and not out of some local office or branch of the Government service, such as a local post office, customhouse, or office of an internal revenue collector.

There are, however, offices, bureaus, commissions, and branches of the Government service at Washington which are entirely independent of any regular executive department. I refer to the Civil Service Commission (22 Op. A. G., 62), the Government Printing Office, and the Interstate Commerce Commission (26 Op. A. G., 209, 214), and similar governmental agencies. These are manifestly "independent governmental establishments" mentioned by the proviso. The provision quoted, in express terms, applies to them. The purpose evidently was to include along with the executive departments, whose status had been fixed as above stated, any other independent governmental establishments that may have been created by Congress. Manifestly, this means establishments which are independent of the regular executive departments. Congress has the power to create these establishments, and while they are usually located at Washington there is no reason why they may not be located elsewhere if Congress sees fit. I am of opinion, therefore, that the proviso is not necessarily confined to offices of these independent establishments located in Washington. It results that my opinion, in answer to the first question, is that as to the executive departments it affects only such appointments as shall be made for service at the seat of government or in the so-called field forces of executive departments which operate away from Washington but under immediate and direct orders therefrom, and not out of some local office or branch of the Government, such as a local post office, customhouse, or office of an internal revenue collector. As to independent governmental establishments, the provision applies to all positions in all offices under the control of such establishments wherever located.

The second question is:

"Does this provision supersede section 1754, Revised Statutes, which requires preference to be given to soldiers and sailors honorably discharged on account of disability incurred in the line of duty? If it does not supersede section 1754, must persons within the provisions of the latter be given rank ahead of the class covered by the census act?"

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