INDUSTRIAL REPUBLICS
While democracy as a form of government spells ruin, democracy
in society spells America in her best estate. The possibility
of industrial republics is suggested.
While talking about democracy in government we seem to have lost our
conception of democracy in society. What better can we expect from
democracy in government than France’s experience, when the voice of the
people was declared to be the voice of God? But social democracy is a
very different thing from a democratic form of government, and has well
nigh become a lost blessing.
When the socialist talks about “Industrial Democracy” he means a
democratic form of government, with all industries under popular
management. That is one extreme. The capitalist demands industrial
autocracy. That is the other extreme.
In a previous chapter I have tried to show that when the Fathers formed
this government, their experiences, as well as their knowledge of
history led them to fear the monarch. The French Revolution was about
to burst into what its promoters promised should be the purest form of
democracy which the world had ever seen, and the Fathers were justly
apprehensive. Dreading the mass quite as much as they feared the
monarch, they chose the middle course. They chose representative
government.
I wonder if there be a middle course between industrial autocracy and
industrial democracy. Is it possible for business concerns and
manufacturing plants to create within their organizations industrial
republics where each employee shall have some actual voice, and through
their representatives sitting in deliberative bodies, analogous to our
legislative branch, originate and recommend or approve reforms and
improvements subject, of course, to a veto by a cabinet?
Many methods of profit sharing have been tried and they have usually
worked advantageously, but admittedly they fall far short of the
requirements. So-called cooperative industrial concerns have been
created with some measure of success, yet the real problem remains
untouched and as complex as ever. Labor has never established a
cooperative industry worthy of the name, except as Mallock shows in
“The Limits of Pure Democracy,”[3] when the actual operation of
the concern has been placed in the hands of an oligarch whose
administration is as arbitrary as that of any captain of industry. Only
in that way has it been possible to supply management, the most
essential element, as we have seen, in any enterprise. Labor has
sometimes found the capital, but capital and labor without management
are impotent. A goodly number of corporations have encouraged and even
assisted their workmen to buy stock, which is a very good and
meritorious policy. It may tend to alleviate but it fails to cure.
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Footnote 3:
Published by E. P. Dutton & Company, New York.
Mallock clearly shows that every successful government unites the
elements of autocracy and democracy. Even the Imperial German
Government granted certain powers to the people, while the Constitution
of the United States clothes the president with powers in certain
respects rivaling those of the kaiser. The power of veto which the
Constitution vests in the president exceeds any prerogative possessed
by the king of England. On the other hand the power to make war rests
with Congress, while in Great Britain it requires no parliamentary
act. Mallock enlarges upon this thought and shows that socialist
organizations and labor unions are successful only because they are
arbitrarily managed. Their so-called leaders are, in fact, oligarchs.
The Russian Revolution, like the French Revolution, was avowedly of
democratic origin, but in fact both were as despotic as anything the
world has ever seen. The strength and grandeur of the government of the
United States, as established by the Constitution, lies in the most
happy combination and blending of these two fundamental principles,
popular sovereignty and centralized strength.
The primary difficulty in solving the so-called labor question lies, I
think, in failing to recognize the individuality—the personality of
the employee. Some tiny share of profits is offered in lieu of
increased wages and it is accepted as a mere sop. The offer of stock at
a price below the market, with easy payments, is looked upon as a cheap
way of tying the hands of the employee, and as an insurance against
strikes. I think I am safe in saying that in a very large majority of
cases where any of these methods have been tried the men have resented
them, and in some instances spurned them. Then the employer concludes
that labor will not accept decent treatment, closes his ears, his mouth
and his heart and proceeds to get all he can and to give as little as
can possibly be forced out of him.
If the basis of masculine happiness is, as I have tried to show, the
divinely implanted desire for creatorship, sovereignty and achievement,
then we will find it impossible to satisfy the subconscious longings of
the human heart with shorter hours, increased wages, or with some
slight share of profits in lieu of increased wages. If I am right in my
analysis the pathway of access to the real man in the overalls—and a
real man is in the overalls and must be discovered—is by some scheme
that will necessarily recognize him as a real, thinking and potential
entity.
Most humans prefer to be called “citizens” rather than “subjects.”
Autocrats speak of their subjects. In republics there are no subjects.
All are fellow citizens. If this thought can be carried into the
industrial world, the “citizens” therein will find their heart hunger
appeased, their hope inspired and they will lift their heads into the
clearer atmosphere of industrial opportunity, and possibility of
ultimate social recognition. If the theory of evolution has any
foundation in fact the species began to lift its head with the first
impulse of hope, and its whole body stood erect when the consciousness
dawned of being human. A free, brave and hopeful people never went mad.
Desperation and failure of recognition is the parent of revolution.
Most anyone will fight when called “it.”
Pardon a little personal observation which has direct bearing upon
increased efficiency resulting from no other cause than recognition and
hope. Forty years ago immigrants from both Germany and Sweden came from
Castle Garden to my town every few days. They had been born “subjects”
and they toiled after their arrival as they had toiled before as
“subjects.” They moved with the air of “subjects.” In my imagination I
can see those German families coming up the middle of the street in
wooden shoes, single file, the man ahead empty handed except his long
pipe, the wife close behind with a baby in her arm, and a big bundle on
her head, and the children in regular succession according to age,
which seldom varied more than two years. There must have been some hope
in the man’s heart or he would not have left his native country. But
neither his gait nor his other movements betrayed it. These immigrants
immediately sought and secured employment, but they were not worth much
the first month or so. It did not take long, however, until it would
dawn upon them that opportunity had actually knocked at their door. A
few Sunday afternoons on the porch of friends who had left the
Fatherland as poor as they, and who were now comfortably situated, plus
a wage scale of which hitherto they had only been told, transformed
those big fellows. I am not exaggerating when I say they would do
without urging from fifty to one hundred percent more work six months,
and often six weeks, after their arrival than when they came. They had
begun “building castles in Spain.” They were dreaming dreams and the
central figure in every vision was a home of their own, and personal
recognition. Instead of being subjects they had determined to become
citizens.
Can this transformation still be wrought? If it can all danger is past.
Of one thing I am certain. It cannot be done by legislation.
CONCLUSION
I came to man’s estate thoroughly believing that the Constitution of
the United States is the greatest chart of liberty ever penned by man;
and nothing that I have seen, nothing that I have heard, and nothing
that has transpired in all my mature life has shaken my faith.
I think I must have been born an optimist. From earliest recollection I
have liked the rooster that crows in the morning better than the owl
that hoots in the nighttime. And what is best of all, the surroundings
of my childhood and youth were exceedingly hopeful. I have seen few
hours of discouragement and none of despondency. Despising the
pessimist, I have resolved, and am resolved, that nothing shall dim my
hope or weaken my confidence either in my country or in the American
people, and yet in spite of myself I sometimes feel a very unwelcome
impulse.
I observe the teachings of Jefferson forsaken and instead of the
minimum of government and the maximum of liberty, more and more of
government and less and less of liberty. I see ignored the warnings of
Washington against weakening the energy of our governmental system by
making changes in the Constitution. I mark the trend away from
representative government towards direct government, a policy that has
wrought ruin whenever and wherever it has been tried. I note the
growing disrespect for authority in the home, in the school and on the
street, coupled with certain slurs at the forms of law, as well as for
judgments and decrees rendered in harmony therewith, emphasized by bald
and naked threats to undermine and, if possible, overthrow our entire
judicial system. I overhear the subtle suggestion to our youth that
they need give no thought for the morrow, for the government will soon
insure employment; that it is folly to make themselves efficient, for
the government will sooner or later guarantee wages regardless of
merit; that they need not practice thrift, for the government will
ultimately pension their old age regardless of profligate habits or
vicious living. I discover a growing recognition of capitalistic,
industrial and even servant classes, with attempts at class
legislation, all subversive of republican ideas, republican traditions
and republican institutions. When I realize that all this is as yet
only a verdant growth from socialistic, not to say anarchistic seed
sown broadcast with scarcely a protest, and knowing that a harvest must
yet be garnered, I am at times apprehensive.
But I am reminded that this is the people’s government. If they want it
this way it is their business and not mine. If they make a mistake they
are abundantly able to respond in consequences. All of which is true,
but the fact that it is true, and awfully true, only emphasizes the
importance of alert men in the watch towers.
Recognizing the existence of the greatest crisis of all time, a crisis
wherein all that we call Christian civilization is imperiled, and being
unable to hold my peace I have produced what I hope shall be considered
an argument. I have tried to prove scientifically that the fathers were
wise beyond their generation. Nothing is scientific that will not stand
the test of application. I consider the unschooled George Stevenson a
scientist of the first order. He thought out, and worked out, a safety
lamp for the protection of coal miners, who during every hour of their
toil stood in imminent danger of explosions. Then to prove that he was
scientifically correct he had himself lowered into the mine in the
nighttime, and, standing there alone, thrust his lighted lamp into the
escaping gas. The achievements of the past afford proof positive that
our form of government, our policy and our purpose of government were
scientifically correct. It cannot be exploded or overthrown. Its only
danger is from those of its own household, the children of its own
institutions, who may undermine it.
Even the most casual reader must have discovered that in a very marked
degree we have departed from the teachings of the Fathers. This we have
done first in our form of government, and secondly in our purpose of
government, both of which tend strongly to bolshevism, sometimes called
socialism, and sometimes called “pure democracy.” It might as well be
called Rousseauism. The name is immaterial. The thing itself is the
same old snake that first charms, then strangles, covers its victim
with ooze and swallows at leisure.
There is little in the book except what the writer considers has direct
bearing upon one or the other of two major proposition. First:
Representative government was the correct principle when established,
and therefore is correct now and will be correct to the end of time.
Second: The government was originally correct in granting liberty of
action to the citizens and in limiting its own activities to strictly
governmental functions. Third: Each and every departure from correct
principles or wise policies has led by one pathway or another in the
direction of bolshevism.
No people will ever outgrow correct principles of government any more
than they will correct principles of agriculture. The fact that times
have changed, that inventions have revolutionized industry and that
improved methods of transportation have annihilated space, do not in
the slightest degree make erroneous a correct principle of government
any more than they render false a principle of nature. If the law of
gravitation were a provision of the Federal Constitution, there were
many in the United States who would have sought to amend it when the
“Titanic” went down. They would have argued that when the principle was
promulgated by the Great Law Giver, there were neither icebergs nor
steamships.
The argument that the people are wiser now than they were is false. The
Constitutional Convention contained a larger proportion of college
graduates than any convention that has since assembled anywhere, and
some of the wisest, and safest and most experienced were not college
men. The people who came to America prior to 1787 came for motives as
lofty as have actuated those of recent years, and in character, breadth
of purpose and intelligence they compare favorably with immigrants of
today. In addition, they had many advantages which we do not possess.
They had time to think, the prime essential of greatness. They had
neither the inclination nor the opportunity to read news items from all
over the globe in three or four editions of a metropolitan newspaper,
which professedly prints only news, but prints it several times each
day. Meditation is necessary for a statesman whether he be required to
discharge his responsibility in the halls of legislation or permitted
to do so at the polls.
In defending our form of government, I have submitted a brief argument
for an independent judiciary. This should be unnecessary in any country
enjoying and professing adherence to Anglican liberty. In justification
I plead the growing disrespect for, and the multiplied attacks upon,
our whole judicial system.
I have also sought to show by the record, as well as by some reference
and analysis of human aspirations and emotions, that the governmental
policy pursued for many years was correct, and therefore is and will be
correct forever. If I have failed to make it clear that for more than
one hundred years the government fostered every industry and fathered
none, I have made poor use of the material at hand. I have sought to
show that the government merely safeguarded the liberties of the
people, while her citizens pursued their happiness and won it in
achievement, which, in regular sequence, made the nation great. If the
argument has any force, it should lead irresistibly to the conclusion
that if America expects to make further advancement, the only sure way
is to return to these fundamental principles.
I have referred to and briefly discussed bolshevist or socialist
doctrines, including confiscation of property, only because they are
all involved in the departure from the policy of the fathers. When the
Republic changed its course little by little away from granting liberty
and affording opportunity and began to restrict and to absorb what the
citizen had formerly enjoyed, the way was opened for all the elements
of revolution. To understand the gravity of the situation one must
study the logical effect, and to comprehend the effect some reference
to similar movements in France and Russia is necessary.
I have sought to strengthen the argument against governmental
interference in purely secular affairs by showing the unavoidable
handicap the government is under when it enters the field of business.
This has occasioned some analysis of the Civil Service system, with
illustrations of its actual operations.
That my country will return to its original form and purpose, I am more
than hopeful; yea, I am confident. It must be that the United States
will revert to representative government in its original simplicity. It
cannot be otherwise than that a wise citizenship will again select
their representatives because of aptitude and will retain them in
positions of responsibility until they shall have acquired efficiency
through experience, gauging their worth, the while, by results rather
than by subservient obedience. An ambitious people, resourceful and
hopeful, virile and expectant will certainly take their government out
of business, and confine its operations to the legitimate functions of
government. All the traditions of the past, all the teachings of the
Fathers, all the warnings of history are against paternalism. No
government ever made or will make a people great except as it
guarantees liberty whereby the people shall make themselves great. No
people ever have made or will make themselves great by relying upon
their government to do for them the things which the Almighty
intended—yea decreed—that they should do for themselves.
APPENDIX A
UNSKILLED LABORERS
Treasury Department, Nov. 11, 1903.
To Civil Service Commission:
Your letter of November 4th relative to the adoption of rules governing
the employment of laborers in the Federal Service at Boston is at hand.
I will have occasion to take the matter up with the President, and if
he desires the rules signed I shall be glad to comply. Otherwise I
shall decline.
My principal objection is the fact that paragraph 6, “Definition of
Classified Work,” contained in the regulations governing the employment
of classified laborers, adopted July 23, 1903, has proved very
impracticable. In fact that Department not only violates these rules
every day, but ignores them and is compelled to do so. I am also
advised that the Civil Service Commission not only violates them, but
ignores them. I respect the Commission for doing this, and my respect
would not be diminished if it would repeal such regulations as have to
be ignored by the very men who promulgate them. The fact that they are
thus ignored by the Civil Service Commission is supported by the clear
and repeated statement of a member of the Commission, made in my office.
And this is not all. It is well nigh impossible to secure from the
skilled laborer register of the Commission persons who are willing to
perform the menial service which is required of unskilled laborers. The
rule referred to forbids our taking unskilled laborers from our payroll
to perform this menial service, and permit them incidentally to perform
service that requires a knowledge of reading and writing. We are now in
the midst of a prolonged correspondence with the Civil Service
Commission over a case arising at San Francisco where the offense was
that an unskilled laborer, assigned to handle merchandise, was
permitted to go to a pile of bales and boxes on the docks and select a
package that was needed for examination, and exercised his ability to
read the number on the package. Had some skilled laborer gone with the
unskilled laborer, to read the number, and had then informed the
unskilled laborer that that package bore the desired number, all would
have been well. Under the rules for which you are contending it
requires two men to get a package, when either one can get it alone,
and then it takes a man and a stenographer in this office to conduct
the correspondence that grows out of the offense of allowing either one
to do it unaided by the other. If the President wants this condition
inaugurated at Boston and other ports, as well as at San Francisco, I
shall be very glad to see that it is done.
I will be very glad to co-operate with the Civil Service Commission to
improve the service in this Department, not only in Boston but in every
port. I am a firm believer in Civil Service, and, I may add, in the
machinery of Civil Service but I am more interested in improving the
product than in perfecting the machine. So far as I am concerned I will
not voluntarily sign and promulgate rules for the mere sake of signing
and promulgating rules. I will co-operate to the fullest extent in
anything that will improve the service.
Very respectfully,
LESLIE M. SHAW.
REQUIREMENTS FOR MALE UNSKILLED LABORERS
Treasury Department, Jan. 26, 1904.
To the Civil Service Commission:
Your letter of the 14th inst, submitting for approval a statement of
physical requirements for male unskilled laborers is received.
I am unalterably opposed to a graduated scale of physical ability. If a
man of medium weight, 130 lbs., and minimum height, 5 ft. 3 in., and
with strength to carry a minimum weight, 150 lbs., is to be marked 70,
as you propose, then a man weighing 200 lbs., 6 ft. tall, and able to
carry 200 lbs., would I supposed be marked 80; and a man weighing 300
lbs., 6 ft. 5 in. in height, and able to carry 500 lbs., should be
marked 100. No one would have such a man around. He would be physically
incompetent. Either a man is physically competent or he is not. Most of
the defects referred to as sufficient to justify rejection are all
right. I have no objection to a list of competents being made and from
that list we will select. But I would rather base my judgment upon the
appearance of an applicant who would come into the office and say “good
morning” and retire than all the physical examinations that the Civil
Service Commission can give.
I do not care to prolong the correspondence; I simply will not consent
to accept unskilled laborers on a graduated scale of physical ability.
I do not care whether a man can lift 150 lbs. or 400 lbs. when there be
only 10 lbs. to lift.
Very respectfully,
LESLIE M. SHAW.
APPENDIX B
TEA EXAMINER
Treasury Department, Dec. 15, 1904.
To the Civil Service Commission:
I am in receipt of your communication of November 21st certifying three
names from which to select a Tea Examiner.
I hereby file objection to each and all of the persons so certified
because of mental unfitness for the position for which they apply.
There is no tariff duty on tea and the sole purpose of examination of
tea is to protect the American people from cheap and deleterious
preparations. A competent tea examiner must be able to pour hot water
on a sample of tea and by tasting, tell within five cents per pound of
what it is worth, and to determine accurately whether the sample is
composed of tea or of some imitation or preparation thereof, and
whether it has been adulterated. Whether he can speak the English
language or sign his name is immaterial. If he knows tea, and is honest
and incorruptible, the American people will get protection. These men
know no more about tea than you or I and they are as unfit for the
place as either of us.
In proof of the foregoing, one of the names certified is that of a
clerk in the Customs Service and is known to this Department to be
wholly unfit for Tea Examiner. He is a clerk and not a Tea Expert.
Another is a bookkeeper, and has been continuously thus employed since
1886, and knows nothing about tea and does not pretend to.
The third is now an opener and packer in the Customs Service and admits
that all he knows about tea is the fact that he once sold coffee. The
serious side of this matter is the absolute and literal truth of the
foregoing.
Some conception of the importance of the position may be gained from
the fact that over three hundred packages of alleged tea have been
excluded in the last ninety days at that port alone.
Very respectfully,
LESLIE M. SHAW.
The balance of the correspondence is unimportant in view of the
Commissioner’s letter of Dec. 9, 1905, practically one year thereafter,
quoted page 173, and in which the Commission states that after two
examinations, on its recommendation the place was excepted by the
President and filled independent of Civil Service.
APPENDIX C
TOBACCO EXAMINER
Treasury Department, December 15, 1904.
To the Civil Service Commission:
I am in receipt of your letter of the 12th inst. certifying three names
eligible for selection as Tobacco Examiner at the port of ————.
I hereby file objections to each and all because of mental unfitness
for the position for which they apply.
The Tariff Duty on unmanufactured tobacco is in part as follows:
Per lb.
Wrapped Tobacco, unstemmed $1.85
Wrapped Tobacco, stemmed 2.50
Filler Tobacco, unstemmed .35
Filler Tobacco, stemmed .50
Filler Tobacco, if packed or mixed
with more than 15 per cent of
wrapper tobacco, unstemmed 1.85
If stemmed 2.50
Tobacco, the product of two or more
countries or dependencies when
mixed, unstemmed 1.85
If stemmed 2.50
This is sufficient to show the importance of the position and the
necessity of having an expert tobacco man as examiner. No one of these
certified is competent. The first is a clerk and stenographer. He has
been a letter carrier and is now a clerk in the Customs House at
$1,200.00 per annum. He is a professional Civil Service Examination
taker, and admits having “crammed” as he terms it for this examination.
He has never had anything to do with the tobacco business except that
he was once stenographer to a tobacco merchant.
The second is a storekeeper and clerk in the Customs Service. He has
had no experience whatever in tobacco except to have seen bales of
tobacco while storekeeper for the government.
The third has been a cigar maker but does not pretend to know anything
about the tobacco business except a little experience in making cigars
from tobacco purchased by others, and that in a very small way. He is
in my judgment wholly unprepared to protect the revenues of the
government against the frauds continually attempted by unscrupulous
importers, who pursue the line of least resistance, and bring their
tobacco to the port where deception is least likely to be detected. He
is equally unprepared to protect the honest importer from competition
with the unscrupulous.
In kindness but in honesty let me say that the man who conducted the
examinations has no conception whatever of the qualifications needed in
a tobacco examiner.... These applicants may be nice men, and they may
wear good clothes, and they may speak good English, and may be men of
integrity, but no one of them is fit to hold the very important
position to which he aspires, and for the simple reason that he knows
nothing at all about the only thing he needs to know anything about,
to-wit: Tobacco!
Very respectfully,
LESLIE M. SHAW.
The balance of the correspondence is unimportant in view of the
Commission’s statement in its letter of Dec. 9, 1905, quoted page 173,
that after three examinations the President on request had excepted one
tobacco examiner and the place had been filled independent of
examinations.
APPENDIX D
Correspondence between the Secretary of the Treasury and the
Civil Service Commission _in re_ Trial Lawyers.
Treasury Department, Sept. 20, 1905.
To the Civil Service Commission:
Gentlemen:
I wish you would hold an examination for special agents at the earliest
possible moment. As I explained to your Mr. —— the other day, the
Department needs some special agents with legal training. Not all
special agents need legal training, but there are many times when cases
have to be prepared for presentation to the Board of General
Appraisers, or to the Court, where legal experience is almost
essential. I will give you an illustration: Not long ago I needed to
send a man to Europe to investigate alleged undervaluations in crockery
and chinaware. I had the matter investigated by three special agents
and special employees with no satisfactory results. They did not know
what was essential, and did not seem to know evidence when they saw it.
I then appointed an experienced lawyer as special employee and sent him
over. The evidence he collected ought to secure a fifty percent advance
on these goods.
I want to urge that in this instance you prepare the questions so as to
exclude everyone who is not an experienced lawyer. I also desire to see
the questions before the examination is held. I want to cooperate with
the Commission, and I urge the Commission to cooperate with me in
getting material absolutely necessary to good administration.
Very truly yours,
LESLIE M. SHAW,
Secretary of the Treasury.
SECOND LETTER
Treasury Department, October 14, 1905.
To the Civil Service Commission:
Gentlemen:
How are you progressing preparatory to the examination for special
agents? I am very anxious that this shall be done at the earliest
possible moment. I have a well-defined policy that I would like to put
in operation before I retire.
Very truly yours,
LESLIE M. SHAW.
FIRST LETTER FROM THE COMMISSION
December 2, 1905.
The Honorable
The Secretary of the Treasury:
Sir:
Referring to the examination for special treasury agents which you
desire this Commission to hold and with respect to which you make oral
inquiry today, the Commission has the honor to state that the questions
on government, law, and customs matters prepared by your Department
have been given careful consideration. It is the opinion of the
Commission that the questions are of such a character that they might
be answered by a person without testing his qualifications for the
position of Special Treasury Agents, and that, on the other hand,
failure to answer the questions would not indicate lack of
qualification for such position.
The Commission is sincerely desirous of co-operating with your
Department in securing competent persons for the service, but it does
not believe that an examination along the lines indicated in the
material submitted by your Department would have the desired effect.
The Commission very seriously doubts whether the position of Special
Agent can be filled as satisfactorily by open competitive examinations
as by transfer or promotion of trained and experienced employees in the
service who are familiar with the workings of your Department and
especially with customs matters.
Very respectfully,
————
Commissioner.
REPLY TO FOREGOING
Treasury Department, December 5, 1905.
To the Civil Service Commission:
I am in receipt of your letter of the 2nd relative to an examination
for Special Agents to the Treasury Department.
I know you will pardon me if I insist that I know better the necessary
qualifications of Special Agents than any person who knows nothing
about it whatever. If there were experienced employees in the service
who could be transferred I certainly should do so rather than to await
an examination. You will remember a personal interview I had with you
about this some months ago, and several requests, some of them personal
and some of them in writing followed by the preparation of the
questions in this Department, still followed by oral inquiry to which
you courteously refer. I will explain again that I need some lawyers in
the Special Agent Force. The government loses millions every year (and
I speak within bounds) for want of suitable preparation of cases for
presentation to the Board of General Appraisers. I want men who know
evidence when they see it and who know how to present a case. I do not
want a physician or a preacher, but I do want and must have lawyers. I
care very little whether they know anything about Customs matters or
not—they can learn that but they may know everything about Customs
matters and cannot become lawyers. I have clerks in the Department who
have graduated in law but that does not make a lawyer of a man. I know
what the Department needs, and I want that need supplied. Please advise
whether you will hold the required examinations or whether I will have
to fill the vacancies with incompetent clerks, or by executive order.
If you will join in a request that suitable men be put into this
important work by executive order I will let the Civil Service
Commission make the nominations from a list which I will furnish, or I
will ask them to furnish the list and I will make the nominations. I am
not trying to escape the Civil Service, for I heartily believe in it
when so applied as to bring material that can be used to bring results.
I appreciate your expressed desire to co-operate and I only ask that
you make it good by co-operating.
Very truly yours,
LESLIE M. SHAW.
LETTER FROM THE COMMISSION
December 9, 1905.
The Secretary of the Treasury:
The Commission has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
of the 5th inst. in which are indicated your wishes with respect to the
proposed examination for Special Agents.
In reply your attention is invited to the general questions on
government, law and customs matters which have been submitted to the
Commission by your Department. Of the fifty-three questions so
submitted, fifteen are of a general character and could be readily
answered by any law student. Only three relate to evidence in any form.
These are of such an elementary character that they may be found in any
text book on the subject and are not sufficient to bring out a
satisfactory knowledge of evidence. There are thirty-seven questions
bearing directly upon customs matters although your letters indicate
that a knowledge of the subject is not to be required of applicants.
After careful consideration of the matter and in view of your recent
letter it is believed that the questions submitted by your Department
are not suitable for an examination of Special Agents.
_After discussing the responsibility which the Commission must bear the
letter proceeds_:
In this connection your attention is invited to an examination for law
clerk, Class 4, held for your Department in April, 1903. This
examination was prepared along the lines indicated by you and your
statement that only graduates of reputable law colleges who had had at
least three years practical experience subsequent to graduation would
be acceptable to the Department, was incorporated in the announcement.
The examination consisted principally of practical questions in law and
the preparation of opinions upon stated cases. Of the 367 persons who
competed only 20 attained eligibility. The results of this examination
were very unsatisfactory to the Commission and to a large number of the
competitors who felt that injustice had been done them. It is
understood that several persons who were regarded by the officials of
the Treasury Department as qualified for the position failed in the
examination. A large number of appeals from the ratings were received,
some of them being from men who were graduates of the best law schools
in the country and who had many years experience in the practice of law
in the general field.
_Then follows reference to examinations for Tobacco and Tea Examiners
quoted in Chapter_ XXIII; _and the letter closes as follows_:
The Commission is strongly of opinion that in the entire force of the
Treasury Department, comprising as it does many thousand employees,
persons can be found who possess suitable qualifications for Special
Agents.
Very respectfully,
————
Commissioner.
Treasury Department, December 11, 1905.
To the Civil Service Commission:
For three months I have been trying to get some lawyers on the eligible
list that I may improve the Special Agent Service, and I am this near
success: I have had the solicitor for this Department prepare a list of
questions to be submitted with others which the Commission may be
pleased to prepare. I have not examined the questions. They were
prepared by Judge O’Connell, who has been a practicing lawyer of
extensive experience for twenty years, and has several times served on
the committee to examine applicants for admission to the Supreme Court
of his state. These questions your Commission refused to use and
declined to prepare others. You tell me that I must fill the vacancies
from clerks in the Department. This I will never do. The vacancies will
remain while I remain unless I can fill them in a way that in my
judgment will improve the service. Possibly some clerk in your
Department can prepare a better list of questions than Judge O’Connell
has submitted. If so I have no objection. In fact I have no objection
to any course you may be pleased to pursue and I have no further
suggestions to make. I only ask that some time within a year or so the
Civil Service Commission get a few lawyers within reach for the special
service where lawyers are necessary. The government loses millions
every year for the want of men in the Special Agent force, competent to
prepare cases for submission to the Board of General Appraisers. If the
Commission shall elect to assist me in the premises I shall appreciate
it very much, and if it declines to act in the future, as it has
declined in the past I shall submit, unless I can devise some other way
to improve the service.
Very truly yours,
LESLIE M. SHAW.
COMMISSION’S REJOINDER DATED DEC. 20, 1905.
We are clear that vacancies in the position as Special Agent cannot be
satisfactorily filled by open competitive examinations....
... If it be your desire as indicated in your letter that we should
hold an examination for law clerk we will do so; and if you wish to
make use of that register in filling vacancies in the position as
Special Agent, it is of course your privilege to do so.
Very respectfully,
————
Commissioner.
Thereupon the Secretary of the Treasury made request:
“Replying to your letter of December 20th handed to me by your Mr. ——
and in harmony with our verbal understanding I request that the Civil
Service Commission hold an examination, giving it such name as it may
deem appropriate but so arranged as to exclude all but graduates from
law colleges, and who in addition have had not less than three years
experience in active practice including trial of cases in _Nisi Prius_
Courts. I desire to make use of these clerks as Special Agents. They
should be eligible for appointment direct or by immediate transfer
without waiting six months. I need them now, and will be pleased if the
Commission will expedite the examination in every possible way.”
On December 29, 1905, the Commission submitted draft of an announcement
of an examination for law clerks in the Treasury Department and added:
“It is requested that the announcement be returned to this office at
your earliest convenience with such suggestions as you may desire to
make in regard thereto.”
Suggestions were made January 4, 1906.
“I suggest that you eliminate from the first paragraph the following:
‘In making certifications to positions in the Customs Branch of the
Treasury Department, consideration will be given to experience showing
familiarity with Customs Law and practice in Customs Cases.’
There is not a lawyer in the United States who has had experience in
Customs Cases whom I would appoint Special Agent, except those who are
earning five times what the position will pay. There are some in the
cities, and especially in New York, quite a number of disreputable
fellows who have had some experience in practice in Customs Cases, but
there is not a New York lawyer of experience in Customs Cases whom I
would appoint Special Agent except as I say those who would not accept.
I care nothing for familiarity or practice in Customs Cases. What I
want is a man competent to practice in Customs Cases, and with
integrity enough to justify his appointment.”
As already stated, without fault of the Commission no lawyer who had
ever tried a case in any court was ever made eligible and the Secretary
of the Treasury could secure one only from the eligible list. There was
an eligible list of law clerks but no list of lawyers.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
This text has been preserved as in the original, including archaic and
inconsistent spelling, punctuation and grammar, except as noted below.
Obvious printer’s errors have been silently corrected.
Text in italics in the original work is represented herein as _text_.
Small capitals are shown herein as all capitals.
Footnotes have been renumbered and then moved to directly below the
paragraphs to which they belong.
“Tallyrand” was changed to “Talleyrand”
“cocklebur” was changed to “cockleburr”