of a year or two shall be continued in the service after qualifying examinations and those serving less than a year are to be put into the Civil Service only after competitive examinations.

I should think that there might be a distinction made, perhaps, between the positions that have heretofore been excepted in the regular departments of the Government, and that have existed for a long time, with regard to the covering-in process and the new agencies that have been recently created. Whether there was or was not justification for the exception of these new agencies created as a result of the recovery program and the emergency, I am not here to discuss or argue.

I do believe, however, that the ideal thing would be to provide competitive examinations to fill these places. It is true that it may be costly-that it may cost, say, $2,000,000 to do it and take about 2 years to do it--but I think if it is done that way it will last, because it will be fair to all concerned. If they are covered in without any kind of examination, I prophesy that within less than a year there will be bill after bill introduced in the Congress, coming from both sides of the House, to take out this, that, or the other group of positions on one pretext and another from the Service. The real reason will not always be given-that is for political considerations. Many of them will not stand for a mere covering-in of all employees. That is the realistic viewpoint I have about the matter after my experience here and elsewhere.

I have found that when one political organization has tried to cover all positions the succeeding administration undoes it, using the argument that the preceding administration covered in their own people when they put it across.

If you decide upon the noncompetitive features for taking in the new agencies, which procedure may be the only practical one, I say that the thing will not last, because it will be a subject of attack every time. It is my understanding that under section 3 of the bill, if the President should extend by Executive order the competitive classification to any agency of Government, the incumbents of the positions will be permitted to remain in their positions but have no competitive classified status, which means they will not have a protection as regards tenure and no privilege regarding retirement and other benefits unless they shall have passed a competitive examination for the places they are now holding.

There is, however, no provision in the bill as to how long that situation may continue. I think it would be, perhaps, worth considering whether the bill might not well provide that within a period of, say, 2 years all persons in those agencies to which the civil-service rules are extended shall at least qualify in an examination. That, it seems to me, would be the minimum requirement that the bill ought to carry.

The second thought is that the bill ought to require immediate qualifying examinations for all places, and the ideal examination is a competitive one.

The reason I make a distinction between the older agencies, the positions in them, which have been exempted a long time, and the new agencies is because the practice in the past of extending the competitive principle to the excepted positions has always been by

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Executive order without the requirements of competitive or quali fying examinations. Those who are holding those positions have pointed to that record as a sound and reasonable difference between the regular department and agencies and the new agencies. It is an argument only by analogy, but there is something to be said for that point of view as regards practicalities.

The CHAIRMAN. To which group or groups in the old or the new agencies would you apply the competitive principle?

Mr. KAPLAN. I would not make a distinction between agencies. My distinction would be only in regard to the regular departments of government existing prior to the emergency period and the agencies established since then.

The CHAIRMAN. What sort of distinction would you make?

Mr. KAPLAN. For example, let us take the position of deputy collector of internal revenue. That position was in the classified service for a long time before 1913, but at that time Congress, by a provision in an urgent deficiency appropriation bill, provided for the exemption of that position from the civil-service rules and regulations. That position has been in the exempted class since that time. Ordinarily, if this bill were not before you, and if the President had the power either to extend those positions and put them into the classified service without examination, they would be covered into the service without examination, as has been the practice in the past. That is an illustration of what I mean by agencies in the older departments and independent establishments.

The CHAIRMAN. You would be willing to see excepted positions in the regular civil-service agencies, the older agencies of government, come into the classified service by a blanket order; is that right?

Mr. KAPLAN. I do not advocate that. I am simply giving the argument that is given to us by those in the older agencies, and they have asked us to voice that sentiment of theirs. We are not advocating it. We prefer that all take a qualifying examination, and the ideal plan would be to have those in the older agencies also take a qualifying examination.

The CHAIRMAN. Has your organization considered the effect on the regular civil-service agencies of bringing into the classified service about 300,000 persons if a great reduction is made when the emergency agencies are lessened, because of the fact that these employees from the emergency agencies would be qualified for reinstatement after the reduction in emergency agencies and they would go on the reemployment register and receive preference in appointment over the regular civil-service register?

Mr. KAPLAN. Yes; that is a very real problem.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not true that there would be so many people on the reemployment register that there would not be any chance for an outsider to get a job for many years?

Mr. KAPLAN. I am afraid that would be true if that would be the practice followed by the Civil Service Commission.

None of us in the Civil Service Reform League has any ax to grind or any personal interest in a public position. None of us in the league would be affected personally by the adoption of or the failure to adopt this bill.

Mr. RANDOLPH. From what source do the funds with which you operate come?

Mr. KAPLAN. They come from voluntary contributions by citizens. Our memberships range from $1 to any amount in subscriptions.

The CHAIRMAN. How long have you been interested in this work? Mr. KAPLAN. Since 1912. I came to the National Civil Service Reform League as an office boy at $2.50 a week and have been with the organization ever since. I act as their executive director and have handled all their litigation in the courts for the enforcement and administration of the civil service.

I would like to say that to continue the present set-up of the civil service of the Government, half civil service under the competitive system and the other half on exception, is just killing the morale of the whole public service. You cannot run a democracy on a plan of half spoils and half merit. I do not mean that all persons who have been appointed in the new agencies are incompetent or political appointees; but, unfortunately, that is the viewpoint the public gets when it sees one-half of the employees selected competitively and one-half chosen for political reasons. It cannot go along that way; the system will simply kill the morale of the workers. Again, if you keep these new agencies outside the salary schedules of the regular and older establishments, you will hurt the morale of the public service. People doing the same work in the regular establishments, finding themselves on different pay levels than those of the emergency agencies, will not like that.

Mr. RANDOLPH. That happens within the civil service itself, does it not?

Mr. KAPLAN. Not in the departmental service, because of the Classification Act, which has corrected that. Of course, you cannot take care of every single case. I suppose there are some cases where it has been overlooked or there might have been some misunderstanding of the work or duties performed by the various positions, but, on the whole, the Civil Service Commission has been unquestionably and scrupulously fair to treat all employees fairly and squarely with regard to the salary schedules as defined by the Congress.

Mr. RANDOLPH. Did you hear Colonel Stengle speak of the character examination that he would have?

Mr. KAPLAN. Yes; I did.

Mr. RANDOLPH. What is your opinion of that?

Mr. KAPLAN. Of course, in New York City the civil service commission has a bureau of investigation which checks on the records of every candidate for an examination, both competitive and noncompetitive. Therefore we have been able to weed out many persons who have no business being on the public pay rolls, because of their bad records. I should like to see such a plan evolved for the Federal service. True, that will be an expensive proposition, but I think the results will warrant the expenditure.

I believe, however, that the Civil Service Commission does even at the present time check in many if not all cases the records of candidates even for noncompetitive examinations. For every position where there is any trust involved, any confidential relationship involved, any handling of funds involved, the Civil Service Commis

sion is very careful to check on the character records of every person selected for such noncompetitive or competitive examination. Mr. RANDOLPH. That is a splendid procedure.

Mr. KAPLAN. We think so. The Federal Civil Service Commission has done a very good job.

Mr. MAHON. You expressed a fear that if these employees are blanketed in with only a noncompetitive examination that the work will soon be undone. Has that been the custom in the past when groups of employees have been blanketed into the classified civil service, that the work was later undone by a subsequent Congress or Executive?

Mr. KAPLAN. In the past we have not had such a large number of employees as you have to place into the classified service at one time. In the last 25 years not more than 3,000 positions at any one time have been transferred to the competitive class by Executive order. Each different administration has covered into the service about the same number, more or less. You will find if you take the history of the covering-in process since the adoption of the civil-service law down to 1932 that there has been an equal division between what the Republican Presidents have put into competitive classified service and the Democratic Presidents have put there.

While so many people give the late Theodore Roosevelt credit for greatly extending the civil service, yet Grover Cleveland did equally as well, and he is entitled to special credit because he did that when it was more courageous to do it.

Mr. MAHON. Has the blanketing-in process been undone in the past?

Mr. KAPLAN. No. The only attempt like that that was ever made, as I recall, was in connection with the prohibition unit.

The CHAIRMAN. You just gave another illustration by citing the position of deputy collector of internal revenue, which position was once under civil service and is not there now.

Mr. KAPLAN. That is true. That position was taken out of the classified civil service. What happened was when the new administration under Mr. Wilson came in there was great agitation for putting them outside the civil service. The law went through with little opposition. That has not happened often in the Federal service, but has happened very often in the State civil service.

Mr. CURLEY. It so happens that I was chairman of salaries and offices of the Board of Aldermen of the city of New York and in that work I came in frequent and pleasant contact with Mr. Kaplan. Mr. KAPLAN. Yes; it was an agreeable contact.

Mr. CURLEY. I am more interested in the young men and women who enter the local State, county, or national civil service with an idea of making a career of it. They have entered through the merit system. What I want to know is whether this proposed law would blanket into the Federal classified service all these employees of the emergency agencies and create a condition that came in 1933 in New York when the idea of a career service was knocked into a cocked hat and those who had spent from 10 to 20 years in the service, who had given the best part of their life to the public service efficiently, were thrown out without rhyme or reason and others given their positions. Would a similar situation happen in the Federal service if we should enact this proposed legislation? I know nobody who is

better qualified to speak concerning the operation of the civil-service laws and regulations than is Mr. Kaplan because of his years of successful connection with such work. I know the high opinion of Mr. Kaplan in the State of New York and the city of New York. He has done and is doing very useful and constructive work.

Mr. KAPLAN. It is kind of you to say that.

Mr. CURLEY. The legislature of the State of New York passed an enabling act giving the city of New York the right to set up a housing authority, which is now in existence. At that time there was no compensation fixed for the position. The chairman of the commission and the members of the commission were functioning without salary. They had come to the board of estimates and apportionments with a requisition to have the various grades of positions. established in accordance with section 57 of the New York charter. The board of estimates and apportionments under the charter recommended to the board of aldermen the establishment of these aforesaid positions. As the chairman of salaries and offices I gave a hearing on that resolution and in the discussion of it the question arose about the positions of inspectors of the tenement-housing department being placed upon a preferred eligible list of the Civil Service Commission, this list being a new one and from which certifications were to be made to fill the needs of the tenement-housing department. This was agreed to by the municipal civil-service commission after the statement by Commissioner John Kelly. Those men who had spent many years in the service as inspectors trained these relief workers in the duties of an inspector and when the relief workers had been trained they supplanted the inspectors themselves. Those inspectors have not been put back upon their jobs. I have not seen your organization, Mr. Kaplan, stand up and champion their cause in the interest of the merit system.

Mr. KAPLAN. For your information I will say that we actually took the matter into court to prevent the relief workers from supplanting the civil-service employees about which you are talking. We did our very best.

Mr. CURLEY. These civil-service inspectors, highly qualified men who had spent many years in the service, taught the relief workers how to do the work of the inspectors and when they had taught them the inspectors themselves were discharged and the relief workers put in their places.

Mr. KAPLAN. Yes; that is true.

Mr. CURLEY. I want to know whether that same situation would occur in the case before us now.

Mr. KAPLAN. I do not think the situation is analogous.
Mr. O'NEILL. I think the Congressman's position is good.

Mr. CURLEY. The question is whether or not a similar condition might happen if this proposed bill should become law. If we do not strengthen the position of career men, what will happen?

Mr. KAPLAN. What would happen if all these employees are to be put under civil service and then there are many discharged, Mr. Chairman? That is a serious matter. To retain all those who might be put within the classified service without examination at the expense of those who have passed examinations and been in the service a long time would be really tragic and very, very unfair.