18
selves rather than by excessive public
taxation. Provision for such retirement
will be approved increasingly as the
citizenry understands their true objec
tives, i.e., increased efficiency in gov
ernment and not retirement of bureau
crats upon sinecures.
N o honest protagonist of the merit
system of public personnel administra
tion claims that it solves all problems
of staffing governmental agencies.
However, four outstanding advantages
are claimed for the merit system. First,
it eliminates the “ gang” concept of
government, i. e., the situation in
which, when one political group wins
an election, it takes over the govern
mental jobs and the members of the
unsuccessful group lose theifs. Ad
herents of the merit system argue that
this trafficking in public employment
is not conducive to the maintenance of
the d-gnity or stability of government
in a democracy. Second, the merit
system conserves governmental skills
which may have cost the state consid
erable expense in their development. To
spend sums of public funds in the
training of a public employee for a
given function. and then to permit him
to be discharged because of a change in
political forces is wasteful from an
economic standpoint. Third, the merit
system makes it possible for a young
man or woman to choose a career of
governmental service with some reason
able hopes of achievement. As govern
ment is required .to assume more and
greater responsibilities, it will be wise
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to enlist superior young men and wo
men for its service. These people should
be protected in the vocation for which
they have prepared and should not be
subject to the hazards of the election
returns. Finally, if governmental of
ficers were freed from the responsibili
ties of dividing the "spoils” of elec
tions, they could be able to give more
attention to the problem of govern
mental policy a n d administration.
State officers have increasingly de
plored the time-consuming and nerve-
racking necessities of finding govern
mental jobs for their political sup
porters.
Honest and intelligent critics of the
merit system have called attention to
its flaws. First, the argue that the
merit system is undemocratic in that it
creates an officeholding class. This
argument is a carry-over from Jack
sonian days when it was felt that the
creation of an officeholding class would
be dangerous to our liberties. It was
urged that every citizen should have
a chance at a governmental position
sometime in his life. But it may be
argued more cogently perhaps that the
merit system is more democratic in that
it eives every citizen, regardless of
oolitical allegiance or fortuitous po
litical developments, an equal chance
with all others to aspire to a position in
the governmental service. Second, it is
charged that the merit system freezes
incompetents in office making it prac
tically impossible to get rid of them. If
this is a valid argument, it is applied,
of course, to the negation of the merit
system which seeks to keep only effici
ent and productive employees in the
governmental service.
However, if the merit system law is
properly framed, it should be possible
to separate incompetents and malinger-