By Stephen Smoot
Last week, the opinion piece in this space discussed one 19th century institution, the brokered convention. This week, the “spoils system” gets its due.
Like the brokered convention, the “spoils system,” as friends and foes to the idea alike called it, came from the Era of Jackson. When elected president, Andrew Jackson openly rewarded his supporters with federal jobs. “Spoils system” comes from Jackson’s own words; he said “to the victor goes the spoils.”
In that time period, the federal government employed a little over 10,000 individuals, compared to a little less than three million currently.
Over time, a complex system of rituals emerged. The federal government continued to grow. President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration employed approximately 15,300, providing more opportunities to motivate campaign support via holding out the promise of secure, if temporary, employment.
Presidents did not make all appointments for “patronage” positions as they were called. State party leaders, depending on how much confidence the President placed in them, had tremendous say over appointments. The most powerful state-based positions were Collector of Internal Revenue, United States Attorney, and United States Marshal. Less influential figures could vie for a plethora of postmaster positions.
Clarksburg’s Nathan Goff for a time both held the office of US Attorney and led the state Republican Party. Receiving an office of this stature often signaled who would ascend to higher positions, such as Governor or Congress. That said, his influence over appointments was not complete.
Stephen Elkins, who gently seized control of the party from Goff in the 1890s, had more established federal connections and a nearly unquestioned control over such jobs. Elkins, however, hated the onerous and divisive task of choosing from a large number of applicants for a relative handful of jobs. One could not always trust in the loyalty of appointees and often rejection resulted in resentment.
Those who pushed for civil service reforms and non partisan federal employment argued that the unseemly scramble for jobs cheapened the government and its workforce. Also in many cases, particularly with postmaster positions, the only qualification was loyalty to the party and assisting it during campaign season. A discouraging number of illiterate and functionally illiterate individuals received postmaster jobs across the nation, for example.
President Rutherford B. Hayes antagonized party bosses by promising “reform in our civil service . . . a reform that will be thorough, radical, and complete.” He added that “public officers should owe their whole service to the Government and to the people.” Hayes did not get what he wanted immediately, but civil service reform eventually won the day.
But has it given the federal government the type of employees that Hayes envisioned in his call for reform?
Civil service gives the federal government career employees. The positive of a career employee lies in the fact that they accumulate knowledge and experience over time that can make them more effective in their jobs. Protections against “unreasonable” removal give them security in case they must execute a policy against the wishes of someone, somewhere, in power.
Ideally, they work in a practical manner without reference to politics or ideology. They work for the betterment of the country more than themselves and develop a national viewpoint that allows them to see parts of the big picture that others cannot.
Ideally, anyway.
In all too many cases, long tenure of service provides the opportunity for federal employees to carve fiefdoms within their agency, use their knowledge of policies and procedures to solidify their position. Others, knowing the difficulty of removal, remain in place as the lilies of the field, neither toiling nor spinning.
All too many go from college – in cases of higher level positions, the Ivy League – to federal employment without the opportunity to pick up “real life” experience. Career officials of this stripe know what they learned in school and in government service, but in no other context.
For all of the drawbacks of the spoils system, it offered one clear advantage in consistent turnover. Federal employees gained experience that they then, by necessity, took into the private sector when administrations changed. A new President from a different party meant that the federal government might lose valuable experience, but also gain insight from an entirely new set of perspectives.
The automatic firing of political appointees did mean a loss of experience, but a gain in the effect of creative destruction.
Political appointees also often brought a broad spectrum of perspectives beyond their ideological and political loyalties. They worked in other fields, in other places, and for other people, giving them a more varied life experience than a lot of federal employees today.
Also, they did not have to navigate the infamously and bewilderingly complicated computer portals used for civil service federal hiring. This process automatically weeds out those with less technological savvy, but who might otherwise bring strong characteristics to the job.
Why this history lesson? Because the federal government is a bloated and broken bureaucracy that has much more control over Americans’ lives than insight into their needs. The spoils system allowed for abuses comparatively picayune to the pain it can inflict today. While the Chevron decision and others has pulled back on the leash, the federal government could still benefit from a regular refresh of its leadership and also rank and file employees.
