When was the pendleton act

Appointees had to prove their ability to hold positions by satisfactorily passing a civil service exam. The Pendleton Act also forbade appointees from utilizing their offices to campaign for candidates and also protected government workers from termination for their political beliefs.

In , the Ohio legislature refused to reappoint Pendleton as one of the state's senators. Interestingly, this was due to his practice of seeking government positions for unqualified supporters. Toggle navigation. Jump to: navigation , search. Besides requiring exams, it also instructed the Commission to apportion civil service appointments among the states and territories according to their population. Any examiner who unfairly aided or injured a candidate's chances, or altered the results of an exam, would be found guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to fines or imprisonment.

No Senator or Representative could make a recommendation to hire a candidate, they could only offer character references. Finally, the act held that only two members of the same could serve in the civil service at the same time. The act prohibited civil servants from using federal money or buildings for political purposes.

It also banned them from coercing a subordinate to make any sort of political donation or action. Section 14 of the act issued a blanket ban on payments by civil servants to other civil servants to obtain political favors.

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Humphrey's Executor v. The duties of all public officers are, or at least admit of being made, so plain and simple that men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their performance. The constant turnover provided no institutional memory; government workers panicked at every election and had little sense of loyalty to their jobs, because their tenure was often of such short duration.

As Henry Clay put it, government officials after an election are "like the inhabitants of Cairo when the plague breaks out; no one knows who is next to encounter the stroke of death.

Over the years, the flaws became more serious and obvious. Political leaders required their patronage appointees to devote time and money to party affairs. After each election winners were besieged by hungry office-seekers, and wrangling between the president and Congress over patronage became endemic. By the s, one could open a Washington newspaper after an election and find many advertisements like this one:. The situation was compounded by the growth of the federal bureaucracy.

In Jackson's time there had been 20, persons on the federal payroll. By end of the Civil War the number had increased to 53,; by , ,; and by , , Presidents were hounded by office- seekers. When James Garfield became president he discovered hungry office-seekers "lying in wait" for him "like vultures for a wounded bison.

Moreover, new government jobs required special skills. The use of typewriters, introduced in the early s, meant that mere literacy and decent penmanship were no longer enough for a clerk's job. With the creation of administrative agencies like the Interstate Commerce Commission and specialized agricultural bureaus, one needed scientific expertise. The spoils system was not the way to get them. A civil service movement started in New York in , and although it developed considerable public support, the politicians refused to go along.