The area of patronage subject to distribution by favor should therefore be restricted to the narrowest possible limits. The first step to this end is to place the whole clerical force of the municipal government by law under rules regulating appointments similar to those which govern the so-called classified service of the United States. This requires a system of examinations upon the result of which appointments are to depend; and these examinations should throughout be competitive—the men rated highest to receive the places—for only competitive examinations honestly conducted exclude the exercise of favor. Nor should exceptions from the operation of the competitive rule, such as still exist in the United States service, be admitted. Most of these exceptions are not only unnecessary but hurtful in their effect. There is, for instance, no good reason why an employee of the Government who is required to give bond should be exempted from the competitive rule while another charged with similar duties is subject to it, for those who are graded highest in the examination are probably the most able to secure the required bond. Many of the so-called confidential places which have been exempted on the pretended ground that they are confidential, have no confidential character worth speaking of. It is now admitted by every well-informed man that the exemption from the civil service rules of the chiefs of division in the great offices is not only not in any sense demanded by the public interest, but that it has a demoralizing effect upon the service. In general it may be said that the exceptions serve only to save for the spoils-monger as many places as under any plausible pretext could be saved, and that their existence is a constant incitement to circumvention of the law.
The second step is to put the whole laboring force of the municipal government, skilled as well as unskilled,
