4. Promoters of dances and proprietors of halls and restaurants are illegally charged $25,000 a year in inspectional fees in addition to the licenses which they pay.

5. These fees are paid directly to the so-called "deputies" by proprietors and are not turned into the city treasury by the "deputies," in direct violation of Section 59 of the charter.

6. These "deputies" wear badges reading "Deputy Cleveland Dance Hall Inspector," and uniforms, without any authority in law, being ostensibly clothed with power which they do not possess.

Mr. Fesler has sought to induce the City Council to conduct an official investigation of the Cleveland Commission, but that body has so far refused to investigate. Under the Cleveland charter the City Council is given the power to appoint and remove members of the Civil Service Commission.

The Citizens' League is seeking also to secure from the Council the passage of a resolution which will place before the voters of the city the question of modifying the Cleveland charter so as to provide for the abolishment of the present three-membered Civil Service Commission and the substitution of a single-membered Commission, to be selected through a competitive examination.

Colorado

The supreme court of the state of Colorado on September 30 handed down a decision that the initiative petition filed for the purpose of securing a repeal of the civil service clause of the Colorado constitution had been improperly tampered with by a committee of

the petitioners and that the question or the repeal must not be put upon the election ballots. The decision of the highest court of the state reverses the decision of Justice James C. Starkweather of the Denver district court. The supreme court considered the matter in connection with two appeals that were before it. Both the actions had been brought by one Thomas R. Elkins, a state civil service employe occupying the position of purchasing agent in the State Highway Department. Mr. Elkins also holds the office of secretary of the Colorado State Civil Service Employes' Association. This decision was accompanied by an opinion written by Justice John Denison and was concurred in by all of the participating justices sitting in the court. It brings to an end the attempt which is generally known as "the Ku Klux Klan petition" to repeal the civil service clause of the Colorado constitution. The leaders in getting up the petition are all known as prominent members of the Klan.

The opinion of Justice Denison cites a requirement of the state law governing the filing of initiative petitions that each section of a petition shall bear an affidavit verifying all signatures contained in it. The appellants alleged that after signatures had been affixed certain sections of the petition were taken to Canon City, whose mayor, Lee T. Witcher, had been the leader in drawing up the petition, and there these sections were

separated into single sheets. It was alleged that new signatures were pasted onto the sheets and strips of paper pasted to individual sheets so as to increase their length to the dimensions required by the statute. The court held that the affidavits accompanying the sections thus rearranged became invalid and therefore made all the signatures contained in such sections worthless. The loss of these sections brought the total number of signatures below the required 26,241.

The Civil Service Commission and the Employees' Association have declared their intention of instituting proceedings in the courts against approximately 70 persons in Canon City and Pueblo, who are involved in the alleged fraudulent signing of the petition.

The history of the attempts to repeal the civil service clause of the Colorado constitution is involved with a number of extraneous issues. It is said that since it has been adopted the persons appointed to the State Civil Service Commission have for the most part been unfit for the office and not in thorough sympathy with the merit system. The Commission is given jurisdiction over removals in the civil service and has antagonized a number of administrative officials by refusing to remove certain employes against whom charges have been preferred. The first effort to secure repeal of the clause is said to have been sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan in

cooperation with an organization known as "the Minute Men." It is said that a breach developed between these two organizations and that the first attempt to secure signatures to a petition failed. This second petition, upon which the supreme court of the state has just rendered its decision, is said to have been started by James A. Dungan of Greeley, Frank F. Miller of Littleton, and Mayor Witcher of Canon City, all of them prominent members of the Klan.

Cincinnati Completes House Cleaning

As a result of the investigation of the work of the Cincinnati Civil Service Commission, made by H. W. Marsh, Secretary of the League, through Charles B. Wilby, a member of the League's Council, Col. Sherrill, City Manager, has been enabled to complete the reorganization of the Civil Service Commission. Col. J. W. Viner, President of the Cincinnati Association and an active civic worker, has been appointed to succeed John J. Weitzel, who resigned on August 15. Dr. E. H. Keefer resigned his place on the Commission in July and was replaced by Cecil Gamble, and Richard Crane holds the third commissionership.

Mr. Marsh's investigation re-. vealed the fact that Weitzel and Keefer were active adherents of the old Republican machine and that they had taken no action in the face of citizen complaints of violations of the civil service law.

[Sir Stanley Leathes, Civil Service Commissioner of Great Britain, addressed the meeting of the International Assembly of Civil Service Commissions at Philadelphia on September 14, 1926. In his address he pointed out the difference between the functions and powers of the British and United States Commissions and called attention to the fact that most of the American Commissions exercise general control over the civil service which the British Commission has never had. Extracts from his address are given herewith. The address will be published in full in the Proceedings of the Assembly.]

a

Our Civil Service Commission deals only with entry, with recruitment. It takes in persons under certain tests which tend to prove certain qualifications. It allots its own nominees to its departments and says in effect, "we believe these selected candidates to be good material; we leave the rest to you, make the best of them." Training, organizing, and removal if necessary, are in the hands of the department and not in the hands of the Civil Service Commission.

I do not believe that the success of competitive examination in the administration of Great Britain could have been achieved had not the Civil Service Commissioners enjoyed complete freedom from political influence. And that Commission could not at that time, or perhaps at any time, have attained that immunity from political influence if its functions had been wider, if its aims had been more ambitious. It was created simply to select raw material by examination, that is, by merit, and to that it was confined. However, the principle is there and plainly registered. The Commissioners are appointed to select for the public service on grounds of merit and of merit alone. They are examiners. As examiners they are liable to error, but the result of their

work so long as it is faithful and careful cannot be improved by any intrusion of influence. I do not suggest that examination is an instrument of scientific accuracy. The Xaminer's valuation is partly a matter of fact, but in part also is a matter of opinion. But the great point is, that examination is a test impersonally and impartially directed to the estimation of merit. Other tests of whatever kind that may be devised to secure a fairer and juster estimation of merit only improve the instrument, they do not change the end. Examinations such as the Civil Service Commission uses are not the last word in tests. In the last few years we have introduced tests by interview in which we attempt to use for the purpose of valuation of merit those instincts, that gift of sympathetic intuition, which have been given to man for intercourse with his fellows.

I do think we have got a moderately good civil service in Great Britain, and I know we had a pretty bad civil service, say eighty years ago. If our civil service had not been reformed I venture to say that we never could have carried through our enormous tasks during the past sixty or seventy years. And as a historian, I have often puzzled my head in the effort to discover why the change came about. What were the chief motive forces and where, in what place, did the beneficial growth start, and why did it thrive? I cannot give you a complete answer (or indeed, any answer of the short answer type); but I can, I believe, throw a little light on this problem here and there.

In or about the period 1850 to 1870 the cynical indifference to the purity of administration and efficiency, the frank injustice and corruption and dishonesty of public patronage which characterized the eighteenth century (though that century was in many ways admirable) gave place to an austere demand for impartial selec

tion of the best for civil service, and this led to the Orders in Council of 1855 and 1870, and the Act for the better government of India in 1858. Under those orders the Civil Service Commission of Great Britain operates. The change which is marked by these administrative methods amounts to a change of heart, a new spirit for which no single obvious cause can be found.

It is

The historical philosopher of Carlyle's school will look about for the great man or men that did this great thing and he will easily find Gladstone, Charles Trevelyan, Macaulay, and Stafford Northcote. Gladstone and Macaulay are familiar to my hearers. Sir Charles Trevelyan was, I believe, an official of the British Treasury. He certainly was a prominent civil servant. He is said to have been a martinet of martinets. quite plain that he was determined to obtain efficiency. He no doubt was the expert mind in this movement. Stafford Northcote, at the time of the memorable report of 1853, which led to the establishment of the Civil Service Commission, was one of the private secretaries of Mr. Gladstone. All honor is due to these excellent reformers, but why did no such reformers arise in the eighteenth century when they were sorely needed, and what made their task so easy when the time came?

[The printing of extracts from the address of Sir Stanley Leathes will be continued in the next issue of "Good Government."]

The National Civil Service Reform League has a limited number of copies of Mr. William Dudley Foulke's book "Fighting the Spoilsmen" which it is willing to dispose of at $1.00 per copy. This is a book of 350 pages published by G. P. Putnam's Sons and is an authoritative and interesting account of the developments of the civil service system in the federal government from the days of its inception down to and including the administration of Woodrow Wilson. Copies may be obtained by application to the office of the Secretary of the League, 8 West 40th Street, New York City.

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, CIRCULATION, ETC., REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF CONGRESS OF AUGUST 24, 1912, OF GOOD GOVERNMENT, published monthly, except July and August, at New York, N. Y., for October 1, 1926.

State of New York, County of New York, ss.:

Before me, a Notary Public in and for the State and County aforesaid, personally appeared Harry W. Marsh, who, having been duly sworn according to law, deposes and says that he is the editor of Good Government, and that the following is, to the best of his knowledge and belief, a true statement of the ownership, management, etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above caption, required by the Act of August 24, 1912, embodied in section 411. Postal Laws and Regulations, printed on the reverse of this form, to wit:

1. That the names and addresses of the publisher, editor, managing editor and business managers are:

Publisher-National Civil Service Reform League, 8 West 40th Street, New York City. Editor Harry W. Marsh, 8 West 40th Street, New York City.

Managing Editor-None.

Business Managers-None.

2. That the owner is: National Civil Service Reform League, composed of seventeen Civil Service Reform Associations in various parts of the United States. Thomas W. Swan, President; A. S. Frissell, Treasurer: Harry W. Marsh, Secretary. Offices, 8 West 40th Street, New York City.

3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 per cent. or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities are. None.

4. That the two paragraphs next above, giving the names of the owners, stockholders, and security holders, if any, contain not only the list of stockholders and security holders as they appear upon the books of the company but also, in cases where the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the person or corporation for whom such trustee is acting, is given; also that the said two paragraphs contain statements embracing affiant's full knowledge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books of the company as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner; and this affiant has no reason to believe that any other person, association, or corporation has any interest direct or indirect in the said stock, bonds, or other securities than as so stated by him.

5. That the average number of copies of each issue of this publication sold or distributed, through the mails or otherwise, to paid subscribers during the six months' preceding the date shown above is

(Signed) HARRY W. MARSH.

Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 29th day of September, 1926.

JESSIE SEIDENBERG. (My commission expires March 30, 1928.)