Civil Service Reform
The first advocate of the reform of the civil service was Charles Sumner, who as early as December, 1847, anticipated its methods in a series of articles contributed to a newspaper.43 He was the first to bring this reform before Congress, which he did April 30, 1864, when he introduced a bill to provide a system of competitive examinations for admission to and promotion in the civil service, which made merit and fitness the conditions of employment by the government, and provided against removal without cause. This bill was drawn by Sumner without consultation with any other person, but the time had not yet arrived when it could be successfully advocated.
The next person to advocate the reform of the civil service in Congress was Thomas A. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, who in 1867 brought the merit system forward in the form of a report from the joint committee on retrenchment, which reported on the condition of the civil service, and accompanied its report with a bill “to regulate the civil service and to promote its efficiency.” The next year Mr. Jenckes made a second report, but it was not until 1871 that action on the subject was secured.44 George W. Curtis says that at first he “pressed it upon an utterly listless Congress, and his proposition was regarded as the harmless hobby of an amiable man, from which a little knowledge of practical politics would soon dismount him.”45 Most members of Congress thought the reform a mere vagary, and that it was brought forward at a most inopportune time.46 Mr. Jenckes was the pioneer of the reform, according to Curtis, who says that he “powerfully and vigorously and alone opened the debate in Congress.”47 He drew the amendment to the appropriation bill in 1871 that became the law, and under which the first civil service commission was appointed. “By his experience, thorough knowledge, fertility of resource and suggestion and great legal ability, he continued to serve with as much efficiency as modesty the cause to which he was devoted.”48
One of the first persons to give attention to this subject was Dorman B. Eaton, an active member of All Souls’ Church in New York, who was for several years chairman of the committee on political reform of the Union League Club of New York. In 1866, and again in 1870 and 1875, he travelled in Europe to secure information in regard to methods of civil service. The results of these investigations were presented in his work on Civil Service in Great Britain, a report made at the request of President Hayes. In 1873 he was appointed a member of the Civil Service Commission by President Grant; in 1883 he was the chairman of the committee appointed by President Arthur; and in 1885 he was reappointed by President Cleveland. The bill of January, 1883, which firmly established civil service by act of Congress, was drawn by him. He was a devoted worker for good government in all its phases; and the results of his studies of the subject may be found in his books on The Independent Movement in New York and The Government of Municipalities. He was described by George William Curtis as “one of the most conspicuous, intelligent, and earnest friends of reform.”49
The most conspicuous advocate of the merit system was Mr. George William Curtis, another New York Unitarian, who was the chairman of the Civil Service Commission of 1871. In 1880 he became the president of the New York Civil Service Reform Association, a position he held until his death. The National Civil Service Reform League was organized at Newport in August, 1881; and he was the president from that time as long as he lived. His annual addresses before the league show his devoted interest in its aims, as well as his eloquence, intellectual power, and political integrity.50 In an address before the Unitarian National Conference, in 1878, Mr. Curtis gave a noble exposition and vindication of the reform which he labored zealously for twelve years to advance.51
It has been justly said of Mr. Curtis that “far above the pleasures of life he placed its duties; and no man could have set himself more sternly to the serious work of citizenship. The national struggle over slavery, and the re-establishment of the Union on permanent foundations enlisted his whole nature. In the same spirit, he devoted his later years to the overthrow of the spoils system. He did this under no delusion as to the magnitude of the undertaking. Probably no one else comprehended it so well. He had studied the problem profoundly, and had solved every difficulty, and could answer every cavil to his own satisfaction.” There can be no question that “his name imparted a strength to the movement no other would have given.” Nor can there be much question that “among public men there was none who so won the confidence of sincere and earnest men and women by his own personality. The powers of such a character, with all his gifts and accomplishments, was what Mr. Curtis brought to the civil service reform.”52
Notes
1 American Unitarian Biography, edited by William Ware; Memoir of Worcester, by Henry Ware, Jr., I. 45, 46.
2 Solemn Review, edition of 1836 by American Peace Society, 7.
3 It had been preceded by societies in Ohio and New York, results of the influence of the Solemn Review.
4 Unitarian Biography, I. 49.
5 Memoir, II. 284; one-volume edition, 111.
6 Ibid., III. 111; one-volume edition, 284.
7 Memoir, 139.
8 Christian Examiner, May, 1850, XLVIII. 378.
9 Ibid., November, 1861, LXXI. 313.
10 Life, 83.
11 Ibid., 115.
12 Cyclopedia of American Biography, V. 746.
13 Memoir, II. 348.
14 Memoir.
15 Ibid., 351.
16 Ibid., IV. 572.
17 Reminiscences, 328.
18 Memoir, III. 36; one-volume edition, 477.
19 Memoir, III. 31; one-volume edition, 474, 475.
20 Works, II. 301.
21 When will the Day come? and other tracts of the Massachusetts Temperance Society, 135.
22 Of the twenty-seven annual addresses given before this society from 1814 to 1840, at least sixteen were by Unitarians; and among these were John T. Kirkland, Abiel Abbot, William E. Channing, Edward Everett, the younger Henry Ware, Gamaliel Bradford, Charles Sprague, James Walker, Alexander H. Everett, William Sullivan, and Samuel K. Lothrop. The first four presidents of this society—Samuel Dexter, Nathan Dane, Isaac Parker, and Stephen Fairbanks—were Unitarians. Of the same faith were also a large proportion of the vice-presidents and other officers. Many of the tracts published by the society were written by Unitarians.
23 Unitarians of every calling have been the advocates of temperance. Among those who have been loyal to it in word and action may be named John Adams, Jeremy Belknap, Jonathan Phillips, Charles Lowell, Ezra S. Gannett, John Pierpont, Samuel J. May, Amos Lawrence, Horace Mann, William H. and George S. Burleigh, Governor Pitman, William G. Eliot, Rufus P. Stebbins, and William B. Spooner. “Many of the leading men and women who were eminent as lawyers, judges, legislators, scholars, also prominent in the business walks of life, and in social position, gave this cause the force of their example, and the inspiration of their minds. By their contributions of money, by their personal efforts, by their public speeches and writings, and by their practice of total abstinence, they rendered very valuable service.”
24 Twelfth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1897.
25 Theodore Clapp, of New Orleans, may be an exception, though he is claimed by the Universalists. See S.J. May’s Recollections of the Anti-slavery Conflict, 335.
26 Autobiography and Letters, 117, 127, 129. The criticism of Dr. Dewey may be found in S.J. May’s Recollections, 367.
27 Memoir, 139, 284, 296. See S.J. May, Recollections, 341, 367, for an anti-slavery indictment of Dr. Gannett.
28 Memoir, chapter on Slavery.
29 Recollections of the Anti-slavery Conflict, chapter on the Unitarians, 335.
30 See Lydia Maria Child’s account of conversations with Channing on this subject, in her Letters from New York.
31 Recollections and Impressions, 47, 183.
32 The Story of his Life as Told by his Children.
33 Recollections, 335.
34 S.J. May, Recollections, 19; Life of A.B. Alcott, 220; Life of Garrison, I. 212.
35 Life of Garrison, I. 223.
36 The more prominent names are herewith given as they were printed in The Christian Register: Joseph Allen, J.H. Allen, S.G. Bulfinch, C.F. Barnard, Charles Briggs, W.G. Babcock, C.T. Brooks, Warren Burton, C.H. Brigham, Edgar Buckingham, William H. Channing, James F. Clarke, S.B. Cruft, A.H. Conant, C.H.A. Dall, R. Ellis, Converse Francis, James Flint, William H. Furness, N.S. Folsom, Frederick A. Farley, Frederick T. Gray, Henry Giles, F.D. Huntington, E.B. Hall, N. Hall, F.H. Hedge, F. Hinckley, G.W. Hosmer, F.W. Holland, Thomas Hill, Sylvester Judd, James Kendall, William H. Knapp, A.A. Livermore, S.J. May, Samuel May, M.I. Mott, A.B. Muzzey, J.F. Moors, Henry A. Miles, William Newell, J. Osgood, S. Osgood, Andrew P. Peabody, John Parkman, John Pierpont, Theodore Parker, Cyrus Pierce, J.H. Perkins, Cazneau Palfey, O.W.B. Peabody, Samuel Ripley, Chandler Robbins, Caleb Stetson, Oliver Stearns, Rufus P. Stebbins, Edmund Q. Sewall, Charles Sewall, John T. Sargent, George F. Simmons, William Silsbee, William P. Tilden, J.W. Thompson, John Weiss, Robert T. Waterston, William Ware, J.F.W. Ware, E.B. Willson, Frederick A. Whitney, Jason Whitman.
37 Printed in The Christian Register, October 4, 1845.
38 Quarterly Journal, III. 567.
39 Ibid., 572.
40 Unity, Sept. 4, 1886, Mrs. S.C.Ll. Jones, Historic Unitarianism in the West.
41 Life of Joshua R. Giddings, 399.
42 Memoir of Charles Lowe, 486. In 1901 four of the eighteen directors of the American Unitarian Association were women.
43 Life, III. 149.
44 Life of Charles Sumner, IV. 191; Works, VII. 452.
45 G.W. Curtis, Orations and Addresses, II. 30.
46 Ibid., 173.
47 Ibid., 180.
48 Ibid., 223.
49 G.W. Curtis, Orations and Addresses, II. 458.
50 See Curtis’s Orations and Addresses, II.; also, his Reports as civil service commissioner, and various addresses before the Social Science Association.
51 Edward Cary, Life of Curtis, American Men of Letters, 294.
52 George William Curtis and Civil Service Reform, by Sherman S. Rogers, in Atlantic Monthly, January, 1893, LXXI. 15.