Classified service

“ And for the purpose of establishing in the classified service the principle of compulsory competitive examination for promotion there shall be, so far as practicable and useful, such examinations of a suitable character to test the fitness of persons for promotion in the service, and the Commission may make regulations applying them to any classified Department, customs office, or post-office, under which regulations examinations for promotion shall be conducted and all promotions made ”

“ Among other things, the scope of the examinations prescribed for those who seek to enter the classified service has been better defined and made more practical, the number of names to be certified from the eligible lists to the appointing officers from which a selection is made has been reduced from four to three, the maximum limitation of the age of persons seeking entrance to the classified service to 45 years has been changed, and reasonable provision has been made for the transfer of employees from one Department to another in proper cases. ”

“ President McKinley, in his order of April 26, 1899, extended this provision to all officers in the classified service, with the restriction that those separated from the government for more than twelve months should take a pass-examination. The Civil Service Commission, in its seventeenth report, earnestly recommends that the former rule be reëstablished. [15]
Transfers form another vexing problem. Constant attempts are made to obtain permission for men to be transferred from the unclassified service to positions included under the rules. ”

“ This system is competitive, and is open to all citizens of the United States qualified in respect to age, physical ability, moral character, industry, and adaptability for manual labor: except that in case of veterans of the civil war the element of age is omitted. This system of appointment is distinct from the classified service and does not classify positions of mere laborer under the civil-service act and rules. Regulations in aid thereof have been put in operation in several of the Departments and are being gradually extended in other parts of the service. ”

“ It is one of the most fundamental principles of the merit system that appointments to places in the classified service, under the competition rule, shall not be made at the arbitrary will of the appointing power, but solely on the ground of merit, as shown by open competitive examination supplemented by practical probation during a certain period. ”

“ Any person appointed to or employed in any part of the classified service, after due certification for the same under these rules, who shall be dismissed or separated therefrom without fault or delinquency on his part, may be reappointed or reemployed in the same part or grade of such service in the same Department or office within one year next following such dismissal or separation, without further examination, on such certification as the Commission may provide. ”

“ In a case of exceptional merit where an employee has rendered long and faithful service beyond seas in a civil capacity, under conditions such that his appointment and services were not in contravention of the civil service rules or executive orders, he may be given a classified status by the head of the department or office in which such service was rendered on certification by such officer that the case is one of exceptional merit and with the approval of the Commission. ”

“ Unlike the Military and Naval, the Medical, and the Commissariat Services, and unlike even the Indian Civil Service, the public establishments of this country, though comprising a body of not less than 16,000 persons, are regulated upon the principle of merely departmental promotion. Each man’s experience, interests, hopes, and fears are limited to the special branch of service in which he is himself engaged. ”

“ It appears from those records that in several cases the rules were suspended for the purpose of securing the services of men peculiarly qualified for the discharge of certain special duties—their special qualification being attested either by the authority of learned bodies or by persons considered trustworthy, or by evidences of expert knowledge. ”

“ Congress entrusted the administration of the Selective Service System to civilian agencies, not to the military. It authorized the President to create and establish a Selective Service System and to establish civilian local boards and appeal boards to administer it. § 10 (a) (2) . The Selective Service System was designed to 'provide for the classification of registrants and of persons who volunteer for induction under this Act on the basis of availability for training and service.' Id. ”

“ How can we develop our civil service commissions into genuine recruiting agencies capable of supplying the Government with exactly the type of service needed for any given movement and of maintaining a loyal and efficient personnel? ”

“ The term `requirements owner' means a member of the armed forces (other than the Coast Guard) or a civilian employee of the Department of Defense responsible for a requirement for a service to be performed through a services contract. " (3) The term `Services Requirements Review Board' has the meaning given in Department of Defense Instruction 5000.74, titled `Defense Acquisition of Services' and dated January 5, 2016, or a successor instruction." ”

“ You will, however, in general avail yourself of the services of any Persons, whether Fugitives from Labor or not, who may offer them to the National Government; you will employ such Persons in such services as they may be fitted for, either as ordinary employees, or, if special circumstances seem to require it, in any other capacity with such organization, in squads, companies, or otherwise, as you deem most beneficial to the service. ”

“ Lastly, even supposing every other circumstance to be favourable, it is impossible that each department, acting for itself, can come to such just conclusions in regard to the nature of the preliminary examination, or can conduct it in such a fair, and effective, and consistent manner, as would persons having the advantage of a general view of the subject as it affects every public department, and who should have been selected for the duty on account of their experience in matters of this description. ”

“ The upshot of all this is, that as soon as we assume the performance of a certain service to be necessary for the public convenience, and that those who undertake that service are in duty to the public bound not to cause or to permit that service to be interrupted, we must admit at the same time that the public becomes in duty bound to afford them a corresponding measure of protection in the performance of that service. ”

“ The Civil Service Commission shall supervise and provide leadership and guidance in the conduct of equal employment opportunity programs for the civilian employees of and applications for employment within the executive departments and agencies and shall review agency program accomplishments periodically. ”

“ The Essential Services Corps, although legally an entity, is split for administrative and practical purposes into four autonomous Services: the Units of the Essential Services Corps proper, the Civil Aid Services, the Auxiliary Fire Service and the Auxiliary Medical Service. ”

“ But we give 'inducted' the meaning it has in the Act and in the regulations. As we have pointed out, an inducted man is defined by the Selective Service Regulations as one 'who has become a member of the land or naval forces through the operation of the Selective Service System.' § 601.7. ”

“ Each agency shall designate an official who shall be responsible for facilitating a Federal employee's or member's availability for service of process, regardless of the location of the employee's workplace or member's duty station. ”

“ They are employed in distinct and independent departments of service, and there is no difficulty in distinguishing them, even when the same person renders service by turns in each, as the convenience of the employer may require. ”

“ Whenever the Commission and any Federal agency having an established merit system determine it to be in the interest of good administration and consistent with the intent of the civil-service laws and any other applicable laws, they may enter into an agreement prescribing conditions under which persons may be moved from one system to the other and defining the status and tenure that the persons affected shall acquire upon such movement. ”

“ The pivotal language of § 10 (b) (3) , for present purposes, is the statute's proscription of pre-induction judicial review 'of the classification or processing of any registrant * * *.' I take the phrase 'classification or processing' to encompass the numerous discretionary, factual, and mixed law-fact determinations which a Selective Service Board must make prior to issuing an order to report for induction. ”

“ The departments are invariably consulted as to the requirements desired and as to the character of questions that shall be asked. General invitations are frequently sent out to all heads of departments asking whether any changes in the scope or character of examinations are required. In other words, the departments prescribe the requirements and qualifications desired, and the Civil Service Commission co-operates with them in securing persons with these qualifications and insuring open and impartial competition. ”

“ The commission encourages efficiency by promotion from lower to higher grades of public service. Some of the places that come under the civil service system are clerks in Washington connected with the national government, officials in the postal service, the letter carriers and clerks in post offices and railway mail service, employees in custom houses, government printing office, Indian service and revenue service. ”

“ The character of the service, in its relation to the public, determines whether the calling is a public one, and a common carrier does not cease to be such merely because in rendering service to the public it acts as the agent of another. ”

“ We may prove from etymology that every person who confers a favor on another is his servant. We may present a lawyer’s brief showing to the satisfaction of every local and national court that every employee in the eye of the law is a servant. We may argue from the biblical standpoint and show without a flaw in our chain of reasoning that we are all servants of one another. We may point to the classification of occupations made by the national census bureau and show that clergymen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and domestic servants are placed together. ”

“ The Department must always be a public function and under Government control and be conducted, more or less, according to public usage. While red-tape rules and customs will to some extent remain, great progress has been made in many directions and public methods, by skilful management, brought nearer to the successes of business life, and the time is near at hand when the answer to the interrogatory first propounded, may be made in the affirmative. ”

“ But even in Germany, where obedience is man’s first law, as order is heaven’s first law in other parts of the world, it is impossible to obtain service books that do not need to be supplemented by personal inquiries. The service book is of value in weeding out the most inefficient employees, but it can do little more. As in any other form of recommendation, the employer wishes to say the best possible thing for a servant that he may not injure his prospects of obtaining another place. ”

“ There is a very large number of positions now under the civil service rules, the duties of which are more or less quasi-judicial, such as the examiners in the Patent Office, and many division chiefs and high grade clerks in various departments who have to prepare the decision of cases. ”

“ How can we educate the public up to an appreciation of the necessity for trained and expert service in every branch of the Government? How can we order our public service so that it will attract the ablest men and women and guarantee progressive careers to those who prove loyal and efficient? ”

“ To prevent, also, the hazard to good servants of resorting to common Register Offices, a Registry is instituted, to which—cooks, house-maids, and nurses, wanting situations, who have lived two years in one service—servants of all work who have lived one year in their last place—and young women above sixteen, who [31] have never been in service—may apply, without any expense whatever. ”

“ Although each may be highly paid in comparison with the service rendered, the portions of service do not suffice for the maintenance of an officer without the aid of private practice; they only suffice, therefore, to sustain needy competitors for practice in narrow fields. ”