Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/245

Rh the men charged with the planning and the direction of the work are able, trained and experienced civil engineers. That there should be a staff of engineers answering this description nobody will dispute. The question is whether it would not be wise to make it an invariable rule that the responsible head of the department, the commissioner, or by whatever name he may go, should also be an engineer of good standing in the profession.

I know it is said that the head of such a department should possess certain qualifications other than mere professional skill; that he should have business experience and a high degree of what is commonly called executive ability. This is true. But among civil engineers executive ability is probably as abundantly found as among any other class of persons; and it will not be denied that the required executive ability combined with engineering skill and experience will in that office be especially valuable. There is, however, another point of importance to be considered. A commissioner of public works who is not an engineer, but only an able politician, or, let us assume for argument's sake, an able business man in the general sense, will be much more exposed to political temptation than an engineer of good standing would be. The engineer would have a professional reputation to take care of, and it would be, aside from his duty to the public, his natural ambition to use the opportunities of his office for making a great name for himself in his profession. He will, therefore, be likely to make every possible effort to get rid of the intrusion of political influence, which he will soon recognize as a great danger in his path, and to make his department in the best sense a business department.

I may be reminded of the fact that in the freest countries in the world, the United States and England, it has been found wise to confide the government departments of war and of the navy to non-professional men, to