izing
administrative employees helpful to administrative efficiency. The
chiefs were allowed comparatively little effective authority over their
subordinates, and subordinates could not be held to any effective
responsibility. A premium was placed upon ordinary routine work which
observed carefully all the official forms, but which was calculated with
equal care not to task its perpetrators.

The American civil service will never be really reformed by the sort of
civil service laws which have hitherto been passed--no matter how
faithfully those laws may be executed. The only way in which
administrative efficiency can be secured is by means of an organization
which makes a departmental chief absolutely responsible for energetic
work and economical administration in his office; and no such
responsibility can exist as long as his subordinates are independent of
him. He need not necessarily have the power to discharge his
subordinates, except with the consent of a Board of Inspectors; but he
should have the power to promote them to positions of greater
responsibility and income, or to degrade them to comparatively
insignificant positions. Efficiency cannot be secured in any other way,
because no executive official can be held accountable for good work
unless his control over his subordinates is effective. So far as the
existing civil service laws in city, state, and the United States fail
to bestow full responsibility, coupled with sufficient authority, upon
departmental chiefs, they should be altered; and their alteration should
be made part of any plan of constructive reform in the civil service.

The responsibility of departmental chiefs and their effective authority
over their subordinates necessarily imply changes in the current methods
of selecting these officials. The prevailing methods are unwise and
chaotic. In some cases they are appointed by the chief executive. In
other cases they are elected. But whether appointed or elected, they are
selected chiefly for partisan service. They hold office only for a few
years. They rarely have any particular qualification for their work.
They cannot be expected either to take very much interest in their
official duties or use their powers in an efficient manner. To give such
temporary officeholders a large measure of authority over their
subordinates would mean in the long run that such authority would be
used chiefly for political purposes. Administrative efficiency,
conseq