colleges and technical schools which inaugurated intensive courses in naval architecture, resulting in making available a large number of ship draftsmen for the Navy Department. At the request of the commission various institutions established intensive courses in stenography and typewriting, statistics, office operations, and allied subjects to train for employment in high-grade clerical or secretarial positions. It is estimated that more than 950,000 persons were examined by the commission during the 19 months of America's participation in the war, and that about 400,000 of those who met the tests were appointed during that time.

While no material changes in the commission's organization were necessary in the war period, the altered conditions required new methods for rapidly recruiting the service. An interesting example of this was afforded in the military departments. The War and Navy Departments delegated to the commission authority to employ labor directly. The system adopted for recruiting the navy-yard service is an example of the emergency methods employed.

The usual procedure in filling vacancies in the mechanical forces at navy yards and naval stations is to receive applications at the several yards and stations for the classes of work in which there is likely to be need for additional men. Under this method the applications are received and the ratings made by the local boards of civilservice examiners at the yards and stations. These local boards, with reference to the administration of civil-service law, are under the direct and sole control of the Civil Service Commission at Washington.

When it became evident that a greatly augmented force of civil employees at naval establishments would be necessary, it also became evident, owing to the demand for labor throughout the country, that the customary means of recruiting the navy-yard service would fail to meet the needs in certain trades, especially those connected with shipbuilding, and that agencies in addition to the local labor boards would have to be created.

The commission arranged with the Navy Department to instruct officers at navy yards and naval stations to make daily report to the department by telegraph of their respective urgent needs for mechanics; that is, the needs which could not be met through the local supply of applicants. These telegraphic reports were transmitted daily to the commission.

The commission, in turn, each week, mailed a compilation of these specified needs to each of its 3,000 district and local boards, which were instructed to use every effort to locate mechanics with the qualifications desired. The district and local boards disseminated the information by sending notices to the press, by enlisting the aid of

local trade-unions, by keeping in touch with offices of the employment service of the Department of Labor, and by directly approaching mechanics when there was opportunity for personal interview. Care was exercised to avoid interference with employees of private plants. The American Federation of Labor also rendered assistance of the greatest value in this work of recruiting skilled labor. During the 19 months of the war, as a result of these special efforts, the mechanical force at navy yards and naval stations was increased by more than 80,000 men.

In all cases of urgent need when men could be found who were said to possess the desired qualifications and who were in a position to accept Government employment, the commission arranged for one of its recruiting agents in the field to call upon each such man, receive his application showing his training and experience, look up his references, and give him a rating. If he was found eligible, the recruiting agent bought his railroad ticket and shipped him to the nearest establishment needing his services, the Government paying the expenses of transportation if the man was willing to sign a contract to work for six months. When practicable, available men were assembled in groups at convenient places for testing and shipment.

THE DISTRICT SERVICES.

About nine-tenths of the positions in the classified service are outside of Washington in what is called the field service, including the Canal Zone, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines. There are not far from half a million such positions. Nearly all of these field positions are dealt with by the commission through the offices of its 12 district secretaries. The duties devolving upon these district secretaries were greatly increased during the war period, not merely in volume, but in gravity and complexity by the conditions affecting the Federal service. The district offices were called upon to discharge a vastly increased volume of business during the war in addition to their normal duties, and they developed the function of rating examination papers for general clerical and other educational examinations in addition to those for trade and labor positions which they formerly rated. The war period was the most momentous and important in the history of these districts. Emergencies of a very difficult character arose, demanding unusual initiative and energetic action. These situations, however, were met by the district secretaries in a satisfactory manner.

During the year ended June 30, 1918, there were 177,609 appointments made through the offices of the district secretaries—an increase of more than 126 per cent over the preceding year. The local boards, having 8,400 members, act under the direction of the district secre

taries. Some of these local boards at navy yards and arsenals themselves receive applications and maintain registers for minor positions. Much of the work of the field force of the commission during the war was of wholly novel character, such as loyalty investigations, recruiting of labor for war and navy establishments, campaigns to secure stenographers, typists, ship draftsmen, mechanics, and other classes of employees, and the organization for intensive training of applicants.

OBSERVANCE OF THE MERIT SYSTEM.

It seems clear that if the civil-service system had been suspended during the war there would not only have been many thousands of incompetent persons appointed in the service, but with each department endeavoring to secure its own employees, there would have been great duplication of effort and needlessly heavy expense incident to training each employment force for a duty for which there was already a trained organization, and the confusion due to the departments working at cross purposes and bidding against each other for employees can be readily imagined.

MILITARY PREFERENCE.

The preference class, which formerly included only those discharged because of wounds or sickness incurred in the line of duty, has been greatly enlarged by acts of Congress.

In its last report the commission made reference to the importance of restricting preference to persons entitled to benefit under Article III of the war-risk insurance act, disabled in the line of duty. Laws have been enacted, however (census act, Mar. 3, 1919, and deficiency act, July 11, 1919), giving a sweeping preference to all honorably discharged soldiers, sailors, and marines and widows of such, and to the wives of injured soldiers, sailors, and marines who themselves are not qualified, but whose wives are qualified to hold such positions. Accordingly the civil-service rules were amended, waiving age requirements in the interest of these preferred persons, and placing on the eligible register the names of those rated at 65 or more above all others. Their appointments are not subject to the requirements of apportionment. Rule V now permits the examination, without regard to the physical requirements, of a disabled veteran who has been trained by the Federal Board for Vocational Education and has passed a practical test demonstrating physical fitness for the proposed position. Likewise, veterans applying for postal examinations are exempt from height and weight requirements. Under the act of March 1, 1919, soldiers, sailors, and marines, whose names were on registers immediately preceding their entrance into military service, have had their eligibility restored and extended. A representative of the com

mission was appointed at each demobilization camp and at ports of debarkation to inform soldiers respecting the opportunities of appointment in the civil service. All examinations which were pending on April 6, 1917, and which were subsequently announced, were reopened to veterans.

The benefits of preference apply to a very large number of persons. The commission believes that serious consideration should be given to a matter which so vitally touches the efficiency of administration. Some of the provisions now in effect were inserted in statutes to which they are not related, and do not appear to have been given mature consideration. It is hoped that there will be further legislation which will confine preference to disabled soldiers, sailors, and marines, give them an additional percentage in their rating on examination, instead of placing them at the head of the register, and permit the commission to exclude from preference, examinations of a highly technical, scientific, or professional character.

The effects of so sweeping a preference, while profoundly demoralizing to the efficiency of the public service, will not immediately reach its maximum evil. The number entitled to preference will be at first so large that there will be a measure of competition among them, but a few years hence, when the present labor surplus has been absorbed, and when the more efficient workers among the soldiers have definitely determined their vocations, there will remain chiefly the less competent to be cared for, and these would naturally take advantage of any preference that may exist. Ultimately there would be a small number of candidates at a more advanced age for each office and they would receive the appointments without competition to the exclusion of the most highly qualified civilian applicants.

Public office should not be regarded as a gratuity, but as an opportunity for service to the community by those most fitted to perform that service. To the extent that public office is an honor and a means of livelihood, all should enjoy equal opportunity to compete to gain such honor and livelihood.

Opposition to a perference which takes in all soldiers and their widows should not be considered in any sense as a disparagement of the services of our soldiers. This country has excelled all other nations in acknowledging the value of such services by honors and distinctions and by a pension system of unexampled liberality.

The merit system of competitive examination rests upon the theory that service to the country in a civil capacity should be an opportunity of public usefulness offered fairly and equally to all competent citizens according to their individual capacity and fitness, under a system where every applicant has a "fair field and no favor, each standing on his merits as he is able to show them by a practical test."

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The civil service increasingly demands trained, educated, experienced employees, and to use the civil service as a reward for military service is an expensive method of pensioning. We want in office men who are not merely just over the line of availability, but the best men who can be obtained; sorted out by the best means; held to the highest standard of efficiency; made to feel it is the highest honor to serve the State. The future development of the United States will be dependent largely on the efficiency of its civilian employees. Under the merit system, examinations designed to test relative fitness are open and competitive for all American citizens who meet certain preliminary requirements, and appointing officers are required to fill vacancies from among the highest of these with sole regard to merit and fitness. The development of the scientific, technical, and professional work of the Government has been contemporaneous with the development of examinations under the civilservice act. It has been in large measure because of the merit system that the departments have obtained the high technical attainments requisite. The exemption of veterans from competition will cripple the work of the departments by forcing the appointment of veterans who barely meet the minimum requirements. A department needing a technical expert will be forced to accept a soldier whose training enables him to meet only the minimum requirements, thus rejecting the most highly qualified.

The service, no longer animated by the enthusiasm of the student fresh from the contact with the technical world, can not fail to lose much of its progressive tendency.

The training of an efficient civil administrative officer is a long and expensive process, and unless the best possible material is available from which to make selections the result will be disastrous. The supply of efficient administrators is extremely limited at best. Too much emphasis can not be laid upon the imperative necessity of highly trained administrators and the most highly trained clerical force from which to develop such administrators.

Those familiar with the Federal service at Washington know that the service is now hampered by the retention of incompetents whose removal is rendered difficult by influences which are incompatible with the efficiency of the service. Preferences and exemptions increasingly clog the departments with persons who, no matter how inefficient, are difficult to remove and whose retention tends to destroy the discipline of the service.

Legislation creating class distinctions and preference, especially based upon military service, is not consonant with the ideals of this Nation, whose founders declared against the military being superior to the civil power and for the equality of opportunity for all men.