The important point, and the point most often forgotten by zealous
Civil Service Reformers, was to remember that the routine competitive
examination was merely a means to an end. It did not always produce
ideal results. But it was normally better than a system of appointments
for spoils purposes; it sometimes worked out very well indeed; and in
most big governmental offices it not only gave satisfactory results,
but was the only system under which good results could be obtained. For
instance, when I was Police Commissioner we appointed some two thousand
policemen at one time. It was utterly impossible for the Commissioners
each to examine personally the six or eight thousand applicants.
Therefore they had to be appointed either on the recommendation of
outsiders or else by written competitive examination. The latter
method--the one we adopted--was infinitely preferable. We held a rigid
physical and moral pass examination, and then, among those who passed,
we held a written competitive examination, requiring only the knowledge
that any good primary common school education would meet--that is, a
test of ordinary intelligence and simple mental training. Occasionally
a man who would have been a good officer failed, and occasionally a man
who turned out to be a bad officer passed; but, as a rule, the men with
intelligence sufficient to enable them to answer the questions were of a
type very distinctly above that of those who failed.
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