Charles McCarthy

“ If an accountant computes the rate, basing it on an intricate system of valuation, cost of the service, etc., the powers that are interested will try to reach the accountant. We should fortify our service by employing men who have had the right instruction; whose teachers were such men as know fire when they see it and who maintain not only the highest ideals of public service but who supply their students with that insight into the methods by which legislation is actually checked or defeated so that they too will know fire when they see it. ”

“ A newly appointed commission is usually stronger than one more firmly established—when its fight has been won. It is well then to remember that in its creation, its powers should be closely defined and safe guarded, so that it has a continuing strength not wholly dependent on the personality of the commissioners and yet is so checked that the white light of public opinion may penetrate into its innermost recesses at any time. ”

“ It is true that we are not changing rapidly enough and that we are too prone to take the advice of the undiluted type of professor of the old school who has not been tried in the laboratory of public life and who often proves to be a dangerous man. He who is lost in his theories is often as bad an advisor as the most corrupt politician; his guidance often leads into realms in which there is no real knowledge and which bear no practical relations to real life. A reasonable hesitancy in choosing an expert at the present time will accomplish a great deal for good government. ”

“ Good laws are ineffective unless accompanied by good administration. Good administration is impossible unless combined with ordinary business methods and the latter are not compatible with the policy "to the victors belong the spoils." If any praise is due the Wisconsin laws it is probably because of the appointive commissions, the non-partisan spirit, the expert and the effective civil service law. The non-partisan spirit has become a tradition. ”

“ In the minor ranks of expert ability also, something will have to be done throughout our government to attract to the public service the same efficiency which enters into private business.
If private business can afford retirement funds for old men, surely it would be a good investment for the government to have something similar. If it is not good policy for the private industry to retain old men and women, worn out in office service and hindering quick, efficient results, neither is it good business for the government. ”

“ When one pauses to consider the long line of sufferers from accidents who have come into the courts of America and remained there for years, the long litigation over the trusts and almost every right which is possessed by the people to-day in theory and not in fact, can we say that the judges have been wise, or that the American legislature has been unwise? ”

“ The land is full of men with doctrinaire theories who have never studied the actual problems of government at first hand and who, if received with open arms, may do so much harm to the work of the real student of government that a serious retrogression will occur in the construction of any science of administration. A so-called expert who has not given time and attention to economic questions at first hand and who does not possess the very necessary elements of common sense, should be shunned by every true student of government. ”

“ Suppose that the politician says to a commission that he knows of a good accountant who is a good political worker it is true, but who has worked in an accounting office and hence had better be employed; it can readily be seen that the administration of these laws might be a farce and that the offices would be vacant after every political election. If the Wisconsin program is to be followed, it must be taken in its entirety or not at all. If power is granted at all, it must be given in liberal doses in order that there may be efficiency. ”

“ If a great commission is capable of fixing the rates for gas or electricity, surely it is equally capable of fixing the salaries of a clerk or a stenographer, especially when restricted by a civil service law.
Fundamental to the responsible commission and to all good administration of our laws is a study of the principles of administration. Our young men must be trained for public service as in the European countries. That there is a science of administration has been seemingly unknown to the American public until very recently. ”

“ Expert help in administration should be freely recognized and men trained for it in our colleges should be used in our government. The state of Wisconsin has frankly recognized the expert in all these matters and is trying to persuade bright young men from the graduate schools of the university to do voluntary work in the study of these different departments, so that they may be prepared to fill their places in this new service for government. ”

“ Our common law, in a broad sense, came from the customs of the people and it is significant that in the establishment of the modern machinery, which is really putting into practice the truest ideals of the common law, there has been more real virility and strength in legislative enactment than there has been in the wisdom of judges. ”

“ But if a legislative law or a rule of a commission is always modified so that it comes within the court decisions and precedents, no progress will ever be made for real justice—indeed, it will result in a gradual retrogression and in the end, confidence in the system will be lost. There are certain kinds of progression in legislation, the results of which in relation to constitutionality as construed by the courts we cannot foretell and occasionally there must be encroachment upon precedent so that the subject may come before the courts in as good an economic light as possible. ”

“ No civil service law however good, can cure inefficiency coming from this source. A state can never make something out of nothing. Not only the poor salaries paid but the poor adjustment of salaries is a contributing cause. In Wisconsin fortunately, the great commissions have to a great degree the power to fix the salaries of experts and this has been the means of securing much efficiency. If we give responsibility to commissioners, surely we ought to trust their judgment sufficiently to allow them to fix the salaries according to ability. ”

“ We must have an administrator for any special line of endeavor and give to him the responsibility; commission government seems to be the best method to extend the legislative power scientifically, and the only way also of using judicial determination in great economic questions confronting the people. Dislike it as we may, we will have to employ it nevertheless—and that more and more frequently as economic life becomes more complex. ”

“ One of the assemblymen from Milwaukee said, "We Germans believe in civil service; we believe in merit and fitness; we believe that men should be educated for administrative duties; we do not like 'pull' in state business." There is no doubt but that the German prefers attaining public office under civil service to any other method. It is strange but true, that in the German state of Wisconsin, a German governor has never been elected, as the old German stock in general dislikes political strife and wire pulling. ”

“ A record of the year's games was kept by means of which the best men stood forth, men recognized as the most efficient in baseball. The lesson for public service is obvious.
We cannot attempt to regulate railroads or great public utilities unless our public service is in itself so organized that it has a thorough understanding of the intricate systems of cost accounting and efficiency used by these great economic units. We must have efficiency of service in order to assure efficiency in administration. ”

“ In the choosing of men through civil service it will be well to remember that a civil service commission is subject to all of the frailties of a commission. The whole plan may go wrong if that source is not watched and subjected constantly to the light of public criticism. The kind of examination which must be passed determines in the end a large part of the efficiency of the individual. ”

“ This is as much of a science, as great a work and demands as high an education, as any work now known in human endeavor. It is surely a great undertaking for the university to teach administration of this kind, teach not only the accounting principles of it, but the formulation of the legal basis of it, the relations of the jurisprudence and the statute law, and the entire methodical and scientific standardization of efficiency methods. What will work in business will work in the state, if applied with true knowledge of political science. ”

“ But there is no more valuable safeguard against maladministration, no more effective method of bringing the searchlight of criticism to bear on the action or inaction of the executive government and its subordinates. A minister has to be constantly asking himself, not merely whether his proceedings and the proceedings of those for whom he is responsible are legally or technically defensible, but what kind of answer he can give if questioned about them in the house, and how that answer will be received. ”

“ The individual may have been right but the system as a system, covering a long period of time, was wrong. The same thing is true of this growth of commissions. They should be circumscribed by all the checks and balances of representative government. If great power is given to them they should be restricted and made so accountable to the people and their representatives that if they are weak or inefficient the machinery, like that of a republic itself, will be so well constructed that it will tide over such a condition until better men can be secured. ”

“ It is true that in thinking of the learning and ability of the judges we may be tempted to say "Here are men versed in the law; why not turn the matter over to them?" There are men in our legislative halls and our colleges who believe that the only legislation is that made by the judges. ”

“ Is it any wonder that the business man is afraid of a legislative session when every bolt or screw in his machinery may be regulated by impractical laws or matters of actuarial skill be determined in a few moments in a legislative committee, or the price of gas or some other thing equally scientific, regulated in an equally crude manner? ”

“ The only sensible way would be for the city to determine whether or not it would have a baseball team, to set the necessary limit upon expenditures for such a team and to direct the council executing the will of the people, to secure a manager who would be the responsible director. Any common experience in life illustrates the same principle. ”

“ To adopt the Wisconsin plan of controlling the vast interests which are included in these laws, while at the same time paying starvation salaries for experts, would be to invite failure from the moment that these laws were enacted. Nothing in political life to-day, in the opinion of the writer, has done more to bring inefficiency in public service everywhere than the poor salaries paid. We are wondering why the state cannot be as efficient as a private concern when the private corporation will pay three times the amount for like service in public life. ”

“ Upon looking over this whole situation it seems that we should have renewed confidence in the legislature and the people. After all, there may be some truth in what Talleyrand said to Napoleon: "There is somebody wiser than you, Napoleon and wiser than all your councillors; and that is everybody." And if we in America do not believe it, we do not believe in representative government. The same general principles apply to any small body however expert it may be. As John Morley says in his "Essay upon Guicciardini":—
"It is not merely the multitude on whose wisdom you cannot count... ”

“ The history of the past, the philosophy upon which this nation is founded should teach us the futility of placing in the hands of any group of men, power without responsibility and direct accountability. ”

“ Well paid commissions, composed of men of talent and honorary or ex-officio commissions with expert help, have proven successful but when the compensation is small, the service is hampered by inefficient men. The writer well remembers one case in the legislature when a small group of men attempted to fix the salaries of a commission just low enough so that very good men could not be secured and yet just high enough to provide jobs which they themselves could afford to accept. ”

“ The German university is the usual channel through which this training is acquired, whereas in America the university man is sometimes looked at askance if he utters an opinion upon a public question. In Germany, says a recent report from the German minister of education, it is the duty of the university "to give opinions of all kinds regarding scientific questions falling within their province, or for working out important problems concerning public life." ”

“ Fortunately commissions have realized that the ridiculous examinations of twenty years ago when book knowledge was made the standard cannot longer command the confidence of the people and they are gradually modifying examinations so as to bring the elements of personality and executive ability to a greater prominence than mere memory. ”