The city for the people Author:Frank Parsons Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter IV. THE MERIT SYSTEM OF CIVIL SERVICE. 1 That the guide in filling public places by appointment or promotion should be merit, determined by impartial... more » tests of fitness for tho work to be done, and that tenure should be secure during good behavior and efiicient service are propositions too plain to need argument except for those who regard public office as a species of private property, to be wrestled for and used for the personal advantage of the winner. ( If public employees were only appointed for merit after examination and trial during a reasonable period of probation, under the supervision of an intelligent non-partisan commission; if heads of departments and superior officers in general were taken, not from outsiders, but as far as practicable out of the rank next below in the same department, and promotion depended on merit alone; if appointmentswere always for life or good behavior; if every appointment, promotion and discharge were subject to review in open court at the suit of an injured applicant or employee; in other words, if the public business were conducted on sound business principles, partisan politics would receive a deathblow, bosses would lose their power because their control of the offices would ba gone—the temptation to manufacture a lot of needless positions, with heavy salaries and little to do, with which to reward the faithful, would vanish; party assessments would not be paid, justice, economy and efficiency would have a chance, and the people's servants would attend to the people's business instead of working to carry elections to keep their places. The need of a change from the spoils system to the merit system is abundantly proved by the facts recited in preceding chapters and has been emphasized several times already in this book, ...« less