CIVIL-SERVICE ACT.1 AN ACT To regulate and improve the civil service of the United of commissioners. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President is authorized to appoint, by and with Appointment the advice and consent of the Senate, three persons, not more than two of whom shall be adherents of the same party, as Civil Service Commissioners, and said three commissioners shall constitute the United States Civil Service Commission. Said commissioners shall hold no other official place under the United States. The President may remove any commissioner; and any vacancy in the position of commissioner shall be so filled by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, as to conform to said conditions for the first selection of commissioners. Removal of commissioners. traveling ex The commissioners shall each receive a salary of three, Salaries and thousand five hundred dollars a year. And each of said penses. commissioners shall be paid his necessary traveling expenses incurred in the discharge of his duty as a commissioner. missioners. SEC. 2. That it shall be the duty of said commissioners: Duties of comFirst. To aid the President, as he may request, in preparing suitable rules for carrying this act into effect, and when said rules shall have been promulgated it shall be the duty of all officers of the United States in the departments and offices to which any such rules may relate to aid, in all proper ways, in carrying said rules, and any modifications thereof, into effect. 1 Definition. Civil service is defined as the executive branch of the public service as distinguished from military, naval, legislative, and judicial. (Century Dictionary.) "Where an act of Congress, establishing a general system, confers on the President the authority to do a specific act for the purpose of perfecting the means by which the system shall be carried into effect, the act of the President, when performed according to the terms of the statute, has all the validity and authority of the statute itself." (Opinion, Atty. Gen., Mar. 19, 1862, 10 Op., 469.) "There can be no doubt as to the power of Congress or any other legislative body to delegate to subordinate authorities the power to make rules and regulations within certain limits, which, when made, will have the force of law. * * * But if any rule prepared by this commission, whether published by the President or not, should have the effect of repealing or modifying an act of Congress, it would be an act of legislation and not a regulation of a mere executive character, which it was clearly the object of this law to authorize. It is a grave question whether Congress could delegate to the President, or to any board of commissioners jointly with the President, the authority to do any act which is equivalent to legislation." (Woods v. Gary, Postmaster General, Sup. Ct. D. C., Sept. 14, 1897, 25 W. L. R., 591. See also, Opinion of Justices, Feb. 24, 1885, 138 Mass., 601.) In a letter to the commission, of July 16, 1895, the President requested it to further a plan by which the Board of Commissioners for the District of Columbia may provide examinations for those seeking places under the District government so far as this may be done without thereby adding to the expenses of the commission. In an Executive order of December 17, 1907, the President directed that "upon the request of any Member of Congress the United States Civil Service Čommission shall aid in testing the qualifications of applicants for designation for appointment in the United States Military or Naval Academies, so far as this may be done without thereby adding to the expenses of the commission.” The United States Civil Service Commission is directed to render such assistance as may be practicable to the Porto Rican civil-service commission, created under the insular legislative act of March 14, 1907, and officers and employees in the Federal service in Porto Rico shall facilitate the holding of examinations and other work of the Porto Rican civil-service commission and render such other assistance as may be practicable. (Executive order, Sept. 27, 1907.) This order is similar to that signed by President McKinley on November 20, 1900, in regard to the Philippine service. Second. And among other things, said rules shall provide and declare, as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant, as follows: Section 2 of the civil-service law merely directs what the rules to be promulgated by the President shall contain. They are not mandatory or absolute, for the statutory directions are only to be followed " as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant." A large discretion is, therefore, left to the President to modify the statutory directions if in his judgment such action should be required for the purposes of good administration. Nor are the statutory rules exclusive, for it is provided that among other things' the rules shall provide as set forth in the statute. (See Johnson v. United States (1905), 26 App. D. C., 128.) Competitiveexaminations. Thus the President is given wide power to supplement the statutory rules by others not specifically covered by the statute. As was said by Attorney General Knox (23 Op. Atty. Gen., 595, 597, Dec. 2, 1901): "Short of a purpose to break down this law or impose some arbitrary and unfair requirement which is inconsistent with the spirit of law in general (a supposition too absurd to be indulged), it is not too much to say that the determination of the contents of these rules rests almost wholly with the President himself." (Opinion Atty. Gen., of Mar. 24, 1916.) First, for open, competitive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants for the public service now classified or to be classified hereunder. Such examinations shall be practical in their character, and so far as may be shall relate to those matters which will fairly test the relative capacity and fitness of the persons examined to discharge the duties of the service into which they seek to be appointed. |