"In conformity with agreement of this afternoon, I will submit the following proposition for the surrender of the city of Vicksburg, public stores, etc. On your acceptance I will march one division as a guard, and take possession at 8 A.M. tomorrow. As soon as rolls can be made out, and paroles signed by officers and men, you will be allowed to march out of our lines; the officers taking with them their side-arms and clothing, and the field and staff and cavalry officers one horse each; the rank and file will be allowed all their clothing, but no other property. If these conditions are accepted, any amount of rations you may deem necessary can be taken from the stores you now have, and also the necessary cooking utensils for preparing them. Thirty wagons also, counting two horses or mule teams as one, will be allowed to transport such articles as cannot be carried along. The same conditions will be allowed to all sick and wounded officers and soldiers as fast as they become able to travel. The paroles of these latter must be signed, however, whilst officers are present authorized to sign the roll of prisoners."

These terms on the whole were as favorable as the Confederates had any right to expect, and were in the main promptly accepted; but Pemberton sought to amend them by a stipulation that "the rights and property of citizens be respected," and to add certain immaterial ceremonies to the formal act of surrender on the part of the troops. Regarding citizens, Grant declined to make stipulations, while disclaiming any purpose to subject them "to annoyances or loss." He acceded, however, to Pemberton's desire that the Confederate garrison should be formally marched at 10 A.M., on the 4th of July, to the front of the lines which they occupied, and there stack arms and deposit their colors, which done, they were then to be marched back into Vicksburg, and remain prisoners until properly paroled. Pemberton having duly accepted these final terms, hostilities came to an end. At the time and in the manner stipulated, the surrender was completed, embracing the paroling of twenty-eight thousand eight hundred and ninety-two officers and men, of whom fifteen were general officers. One hundred and seventy-two cannons were among the physical spoils, as well as fifty thousand stands of arms, mainly of good quality, together with considerable ammunition and ordnance stores. Thus ended in a great, far-reaching success, rarely exceeded, or, indeed, equaled in war, a long series of operations, every one of which, as I have shown, was but a "wild cast of the net for fortune" absolutely without a parallel in military history. The brilliant end, however, has invested this campaign with a splendor that justly belongs only to the most masterly military operations, and, therefore, cannot be lasting or survive that critical test to which prominent human affairs are sure to be subjected in the course of time.

23

23 Badeau claims that in addition seven hundred and ninety of the garrison refused to be paroled, and were sent North.

VOL. XIII.-No. 1.

3

THOMAS JORDAN.

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

IN a former paper, the unqualified assertion was made that the regulation of appointments by the Civil Service law had become an institution of government. Four months of a crucial period have elapsed since then, and a careful endeavor to comprehend the popular sentiment has served but to intensify that conviction. At the threshold of a new administration, the various policies proffered and discussed could not well escape the notice of a student of current criticism. Manifestly, the proprieties of official station must not be offended by obtruding into that field of discussion, and presuming to select the best partisan argument. For the purposes of this article it is fortunately also needless. If there has been some clamor for official removals, and some impatience because of what has been conceived to be undue delay, the dispassionate observer of these party manifestations may fairly admit, or deny, their justness, but he must certainly perceive their irrelevancy to Civil Service reform.

Hence it would be supererogation to combat or to defend these strictures. If either task were necessary, its imposition must be borne by participants in party debate. With the more perfect comprehension of the scope defined for the reform act, the citizen does not reasonably lodge complaint against it as preventing any removal, which, to his mind, may seem even indispensable to national perpetuity, or the omission of which appears to be rank treason. The stern fact confronts the most importunate, that neither the law nor the Commission has relation to this disturbing question of removal. No repetition can be more profitably made, than to reassert the plain limitation of the law to the competitive means of entrance into the service. In connection with the disclaimer as previously advanced, it may be stated that firm friends of the Pendleton law have, to some extent, joined in the natural expressions of impatience, and in so doing none have recanted their consistent advocacy of its reformative procedure. Therefore, it may be concluded that nothing in recent comment, during a time when the elements inducing keen inspection have been in rare combination, has in the slightest respect weakened the firm environment surrounding the institution of Civil Service reform. It is progressing toward a near future, when as a feature of administrative methods it is to become.

commonplace. It need not be overlooked that persistent opponents yet confront it, some urging their strongest arguments, others enjoying the morbid pleasure of systematically perverting its true character. No available census shows that the adherents of the rejected spoils system have increased their numbers. On the contrary, the desertions from their clan are constant.

Whether or not removals from the classified civil service, to which service the law is confined, have been rapid or slow, it cannot be successfully shown that the law can impede or hasten executive action. Hence its expunction could only result in the unfettered appointment of untested persons, and this inevitable sequence is one which few care to contemplate when the public recollection is fresh.

The antagonism to the reform, emanating from the irreconcilable few, seems to have retreated from vantage to vantage, and is now intrenched in the last ditch. The expiring slogan is: Everlasting opposition to a perpetual office-holding class. The sneer, beneath which the pedagogic examination was to wither, has dissolved, since the genuine character of the test was incontrovertibly proved. The fierce combat against a stable civil service is equally futile. The main reform proposition is that the classified service is a business agency. Therefore the subordinate office-holding class is a representative in governmental places of the mercantile employé class, which in years becomes a more valuable adjunct to business establishments. The ambitious find entrance into commercial employment hampered by the slow occurrence of vacancies. The death, or removal for cause, of experienced clerks, or the larger requirements of increased trade, are the chances offered, similar in all respects to the opportunities of the civil service applicant. Universal manhood despises intrigue against or petition for the discharge of the faithful employé in private business. The subordinate in governmental employment was for years the victim of the notion, almost eradicated, that to secure his removal was an ethical obligation.

The reading public has reached a general understanding of the main details in the reform procedure. The comprehension of some others is not so clear. The manner of the apportionment of appointments among the several States and Territories has been misapprehended. The intent of this clause in the act itself is obvious. The mandate is that a strict ratio shall be maintained between the populations of the States and Territories and the appointments respectively therefrom. This duty is made imperative. The rules promulgated by the President contain consistent provisions in regard to it. The register of grades is kept by the Commission, and the record of appointments. The latter is compiled from the information returned by each department head of an appointment from the certifications sent to him, and it is his legally imposed duty to furnish this information immediately.

Therefore it would violate the essential scheme of the reform were requisitions permitted to be made for eligibles from specified States: manifestly so, were the State apportionment to be thereby ignored, and for other reasons as clearly so in any case. The clauses securing equitable quotas among the States do not impose the more difficult task of preserving this just apportionment in each department. It is the entire departmental service in which the States and Territories shall have due proportions of the appointments. And in thus generalizing the provision, another check is provided against possible favoritism. No special department can secure a desired appointment from a specified State. Each requisition for eligibles is responded to by certification of the four highest-graded names upon the register of the State or Territory the quota of which is least filled. The applicant who passes the examination is registered, and his appointment in any department is possible. Hence it is evident that some State or Territory may have no employé in some one department, and its quota be filled by the number of employés in others. The endeavor to have a special State represented in a department would thus result in the inequitable postponement of the rights of an eligible from another State, the quota of which was not full.

The composition of local boards of examiners is a matter about which some confusion of ideas exists. The original act provides: "The Commission shall, at Washington, and in one or more places in each State and Territory where examinations are to take place, designate and select a suitable number of persons, not less than three, in the official service of the United States, residing in said State or Territory, after consulting the head of the department or office in which such persons serve, to be members of boards of examiners, and may at any time substitute any other person in said service living in such State or Territory in the place of any one so selected." And the rules require that "all officials connected with any office where, or for which, any examination is to take place, shall give the Civil Service Commission, and the chief examiner, such information as may be reasonably required to enable the Commission to select competent and trustworthy examiners." The ends of economy were subserved by selecting these subordinate boards from the official service. But the limitation also confines the Commission's choice to it. Discovered incompetency in a member of the board for the duties assigned, would argue incapacity for his regular duties, which, if true, would not only induce his removal from the board of examiners, but should also secure his ejection from the public service.

It may be further explained, that in the practical working of the law there are two kinds of examining boards. In those States where a post-office or customs district, having as many as fifty employés, is located, the selected board has more important functions, and in a

certain sense is permanent. Not only do they conduct the examinations for the postal and customs service in that State, but assist in the examination of applicants for the departmental service. But in those States or Territories where the requisite number of Federal employés occurs at no office, this convenience prescribed by the law is afforded by selecting a board to examine at some generally accessible city. These latter boards terminate when such an examination is ended, though they may be continued. The Chief Examiner, or a member of the Commission, attends the examination. The inspection and marking of papers is done by the departmental board of examiners at Washington. All papers of applicants for the departmental service are marked at Washington.

The co-operation extended by all officials in the strict execution of the reform law has not only sustained the Commission in its arduous initial labors, but has also made the test so complete and fair that the conceded success rests upon substantial foundations. There can be no evasion of the law while pretense is made of obeying it. Its provisions afford no opportunity for apparent observance and actual elusion. Any finesse, by which appointments controlled by it are made without regard to it, must in every case be palpable violations. There is no private entrance to the classified service to which an applicant can gain a clue. The law cannot be assailed as defective because a gateway for favoritism is left open. Evasion cannot therefore be predicated of any act connected with an appointment. Absolute violation such act must be, or strict conformity. The middle term of artifice does not exist.

If instances be cited, with the appended criticism that they show methods of eluding the reform procedure, examination will disclose error of fact, or that a direct transgression of the law has occurred. In considering this topic, it must be borne in mind that all persons who were in the classified service upon July 16, 1883, the date when the law became operative, were necessarily in that service for all purposes. The addition of any qualification to their tenure would have been manifestly retroactive in effect, and repugnant as all ex post facto legislation. The failure to require them to pass the new examination was compensated by leaving the potential reform, existent in the power of removal, untouched. Hence it is possible with perfect allegiance to the law, certainly to dismiss or to reduce in grade any such employé, and to substitute one who has passed the civil service examination, or if the vacant grade be one excepted by Rule XIX., one who has not. And thus a chief of division may be appointed without examination, for that rank is among the excepted ones. His predecessor may be reduced to the highest-classed clerkship, without examination, if he be among those who were in the service when the law took effect. But no chief of division can be thus appointed who was not then in the service, and next be reduced without original examination to make