Page:Back to the Republic.djvu/83

 efficient governmental service, but the result of their work has been quite largely to fasten upon the payroll hundreds of employes who contribute little to the public service and many of whom are guilty of indifference and insubordination. Those who have rendered good service would have done so without the protection of a civil service commission. These commissions may well be defined as plagues on the body politic which disseminate the germ that produces the tired feeling.

During the first forty years of this republic, when there were no civil service commissions, public–service appointees (except those with specified limit of tenure) were retained during good behavior. So rarely were they removed that there was a total of less than one hundred changes during the forty years prior to the administration of Andrew Jackson. He was inoculated with the spirit of democracy and the characteristics of the demagogue. So slight was his conception of the plan and purpose of the republic that he arbitrarily dismissed hundreds of faithful, well equipped public–service appointees and replaced them with his personal followers without regard to fitness or the public welfare.

The executive and the members of the legislative body, who are held responsible for the quality of public service during their term of