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Selection and Tenure of Bureau Chiefs in the National Administration of the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Arthur W. Macmahon
Arthur W. Macmahon*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

The bureau chiefs are the key figures in national administration. The units that they direct are inclusive enough to lend themselves to the purposes of supervision and coördination and to bring their heads in touch with the machinery of budget-making and legislation, but sufficiently focused to preserve for them a saving contact with details and technique. The importance of their positions can hardly be exaggerated.

Who are the present bureau chiefs? What has been their training? To what extent have they been recruited within the services they now direct, and to what extent from outside? What factors have influenced their selection? How long have they been in office? Judging by their experience as well as by the frequency with which their predecessors have been changed, how secure seems to be their tenure? These are the questions to which this paper is addressed. Its purpose is modest; it is not expected to uncover findings not already known, at least in general terms. A systematic canvass of the bare facts, however, will help to a more precise understanding of the actual situation and perhaps facilitate discussions of our working theory of the relation of politics to administration. The time is opportune for taking stock. Within the past fifteen years each of the great parties has swept into the seats of power after a period of deprivation.

In determining the scope of this inquiry, the term bureau is used somewhat broadly, to denote any major subdivision of an executive department.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , August 1926 , pp. 548 - 582
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1926

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References

1 This statement begs the question of the further development of a system of under-secretaries and assistant-secretaries, now apparently well under way but still undefined in direction. The writer hopes in a later article to deal with this question and to examine the selection and tenure of under-secretaries and assistant-secretaries in the national government.

2 See especially the impersonal summary in Mayers', Lewis valuable book on The Federal Service (1922), 99–110Google Scholar. The useful volumes in the series of Service Monographs of the United States Government, issued by the Institute for Government Research, do not, as a rule, mention the personal aspects of the history of the units which are so carefully traced from the statutory side.

3 This statement disregards the intermediate divisions that are tending to develop in departments which, like Treasury and Agriculture, have not only an under-secretary, but also several virtual assistant-secretaries, each assigned to a group of bureaus or to a particular phase of work that ramifies widely through the department.

4 At the present time the individuals in charge of seven of fifteen units in the Department of State happen to have the status of “foreign service officer” in accordance with the act of May 24, 1924. Six of the remaining eight have a civil service background, although all eight were appointed as “drafting officers,” under the provision exempting “officers to aid in important drafting work in the Department of State.” (Civil Service Rule II, sec. 3, Schedule A, subd. II.)

5 “Attorneys, assistant attorneys, and special assistant attorneys” are specifically excepted from examination. (Civil Service Rule II, sec. 3, Schedule A, subd. I). The assistant attorney general assigned to the customs division (located in New York City), however, has been in the service of the United States since 1899, when he started as a clerk of the Board of General Appraisers. At least one other of the seven assistant attorneys general had long prior service in the Department of Justice. The head of the Bureau of Investigation (an excepted position), entered the department as special assistant in 1919 and was appointed director in 1924. The position of superintendent of prisons is specifically excepted, but Mr. L. C. White, who in 1925 replaced Heber H. Votaw, brother-in-law of the late President Harding, was at one time superintendent of industries at Sing Sing prison and was for three years in the same work in the department of corrections of New York City. Mr. White died July 1, 1926.

6 The last appointed of the four, Robert S. Regar, third assistant postmaster general (in charge of fiscal divisions), rose from stenographer and was chief clerk of the department at the time of his appointment in 1925.

7 The Interstate Commerce Commission, for example, has twelve bureaus. The position of chief of bureau is in the competitive classified service in seven cases (in five of which the present incumbents were chosen by promotion), is excepted from examination in the case of four, and in one instance is a presidential office.

8 The head of the Government Printing Office shifts regularly with party changes, although the law states that the occupant of the position “must be a practical printer and versed in the art of book-binding” (28 U. S. Stat. L., 603). There have been twelve Public Printers since 1876. George H. Carter, public printer since 1921, received his practical experience as clerk of the joint committee on printing for some years previously. The General Accounting Office is presumed to enjoy a special degree of independence, in view of the fifteen-year term and extraordinary procedure in removal prescribed for the comptroller general in the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. John R. McCarl, the first incumbent, had a political background as secretary to Senator G. W. Norris for four years and then as executive secretary of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee from 1918 to 1921. The unattached Veterans' Bureau, created by statute in 1921, has been trying since March, 1923, under the direction of a former army officer, Brig. Gen. F. T. Hines, to forget the episode of its first director, now in jail.

9 The term restriction, as used here, does not cover such occasional stipulations in the organic acts as the provision that the Director of the Bureau of Mines must be “thoroughly equipped by technical education and experience”; or that the Commissioner of Fisheries must be a “person of scientific and practical acquaintance” with the problems involved; or that the chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry must be a “competent veterinary surgeon”; or that the Director of the Geological Survey must not be financially interested in mineral lands. Regarding the uncertain force of such provisions (apart from their possible value in furthering tradition) see 34 Opinions of the Attorney General, 96 (1924)Google Scholar, involving the present Public Printer's qualifications.

10 The information is drawn, among other sources, from considerable correspondence, interviews, and the files of personnel divisions. The pity is that so hasty and cold-blooded a summary will not permit the enthusiasm and human detail which are deserved by many an instance of distinguished but obscure and often self-sacrificing public service, and that the mere names of the bureaus must suffice to remind the reader of the rich actualities of their work.

11 A check of the service-record cards in the files of the Civil Service Commission seems to indicate that not a single bureau chief whose position is classified and who obtained it by promotion took an examination at any late stage in his career.

12 An interesting example of how long a classified status can be preserved under extraordinary circumstances is discussed below, p. 564, in the case of Elwood Mead, who left the Department of Agriculture in 1907 but preserved his status by working for a foreign government and the state of California until 1924, when by re-instatement he was put without examination in the classified position of Director of Reclamation. It may be added that six of the men who are now bureau chiefs by presidential appointment preserve, personally, the classified status which they gained in prior government service: C. F. Marvin, Weather Bureau; G. K. Burgees, Bureau of Standards; Henry O'Malley, Bureau of Fisheries; D. H. Hoover, Steamboat Inspection Service; W. W. Steuart, Bureau of Census; Ethelbert Stewart, Bureau of Labor Statistics. This does not carry any protection in their present positions, but indirectly is an anchor to windward

13 See the provisions in Sec. 13 of the Classification Act of March 4, 1923, which state that the professional and scientific service shall include “all classes of positions the duties of which are to perform routine, advisory, administrative, or research work which is based upon the established principle of a profession or science, and which requires professional, scientific, or technical training equivalent to that represented by graduation from a college or university of recognized standing.” Within this service are seven grades, compensation in the lowest beginning at $1,860, and running to $7,500 for the highest grade.

14 In the Department of Agriculture, for example, L. O. Howard, chief of the Bureau of Entomology, Milton Whitney, chief of the Bureau of Soils, and E. W. Allen, director of the Office of Experiment Stations, were thus covered into the classified service about 1895.

15 Such comments as these, for example, abound in the departmental memoranda recommending promotions: “The investigation of American hops which he (Mr. Stockberger) undertook and carried out as a new line of investigation is regarded as a model of crop investigation in its relation to economic and agricultural conditions.” “One of the particular accomplishments of Mr. Warburton of an investigational nature was his development and establishment of selections for the Sixty-Day and Kherson Oats.”

16 Dr. Galloway resigned to become Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Later he was dean of the N. Y. State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, but he is now pathologist and consulting specialist in the office of foreign seed and plant introduction in the Bureau of Plant Industry—a refreshing case of the return of a research-worker from the diversions of administration.

17 Dr. B. E. Fernow—a German by birth, educated in the Forest Academy at Muenden and at the University of Koenigsberg—was chief of the division of forestry when it was first definitely organized in 1887 and continued in charge until 1898, when he went into academic work. Gifford Pinchot, a graduate of Yale, 1889, who had studied forestry abroad and at Biltmore, was appointed head in 1898 and served until January 7, 1901. In the meantime the division was made a bureau in 1901 and named the Forest Service in 1905, when the national forests were transferred to the Department of Agriculture. Pinchot's removal by President Taft, as a result of the controversy with Secretary Ballinger over the Alaskan claims, helped to make political history. Pinchot's successor, Henry S. Graves, was head of the famous Yale Forestry School at the time of his appointment. He returned to academic work after his resignation as chief of the Forest Service in 1920, and is again dean of the Yale Forestry School.

18 The first director was W. O. Atwater, professor of chemistry at Wesleyan University and director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. He resigned in 1891 and was succeeded by A. W. Harris. Dr. True entered on the editorial side of the work and was assistant director when Mr. Harris resigned in 1893.

19 Infra, p. 571.

20 The other three on the list from the District of Columbia were: Harvey W. Wiley, so long chief of the Bureau of Chemistry; W. F. Hillebrand, chief chemist of the Bureau of Standards; and F. W. Clarke, chief chemist of the Geological Survey.

21 Rule X, Sec. 3, as amended May 2, 1924, provides: “any person may be re-transferred to a position in which he was formerly employed or to any position to which transfer could be made therefrom if since his transfer he has served continuously and satisfactorily under any of the following conditions …. (3) In the service of a state, county, municipality, or foreign government in a position in which he has acquired valuable training and experience.” The growing significance of the relations of national and state personnel will be commented on in the concluding instalment of this article.

22 The act which created the Department of Labor in 1913 (37 U. S. Stat. L., 736) stated that there should be a commissioner and deputy commissioner of naturalization under the Secretary of Labor and that appointments to these positions should be “made in the same manner as appointments to competitive civil-service positions.”

23 40th Report of the U. S. Civil Service Commission, 1922–1923, p. 152–3. By an order on December 24, 1923, two others, including Wilmeth, James L., were given authority to reénter the classified service. 41st Report, 1923–1924, p. 105Google Scholar.

24 Smith, Darrell H., The Office of the Supervising Architect (1923), p. 45Google Scholar.

25 Op. cit., p. 44.

26 The full text of Rule II, Sec. 10 (an amendment of July 25,1914), is as follows: “Whenever the Commission shall find that the duties or compensation of a vacant position are such, or that qualified persons are so rare that in its judgment such position cannot, in the interest of good civil-service administration, be filled at that time through open competitive examination, it may authorize such vacancy to be filled without competitive examination, and in any case in which such authority may be given, evidence satisfactory to the Commission of the qualifications of the person to be appointed without competitive examination shall be required. A detailed statement of the reasons for its action in any case arising hereunder shall be made in the records of the Commission and shall be published in its annual report. Any subsequent vacancy in such position shall not be filled without competitive examination except upon express authority of the Commission in accordance with this section.”

27 The appointment of Dr. H. C. Taylor, without examination, was approved by the Commission on March 13, 1919, on the basis of a statement from the Secretary of Agriculture that a committee consisting of those in charge of rural economics and farm management studies at Cornell, Ohio State, Minnesota, California, and the Massachusetts Agricultural College had been considering the reorganization of the Department's work in agricultural economics, and that “he [Dr. Taylor] is one of the two or three leading men in the country on rural economics and farm management and, so far as the Department knows, is the only man with the requisite qualifications whose services could be secured.” It is understood that Thomas P. Cooper declined to consider appointment at that time.

28 The Civil Service Commission, writing to the Secretary of Agriculture on August 22, 1925, and recalling the terms of a letter on September 27, 1923, which had dealt with appointments under Rule II, Sec. 10, said: “We urged that even in cases of such appointments, the Commission should be consulted at the time initial steps are taken to fill the vacancy. At the time we cited two reasons for this: first, it would avoid an embarrassing situation which might arise if the prospective appointee had been offered the place and the Commission should later feel that it could not properly approve the appointment; second, the Commission believes that it can be of real service to the department in securing qualified candidates.”

29 Civil Service Rule XII reads: “Section 6 of the act of August 14th, 1912, 37 Stat. L., 555, provides ‘That no person in the classified civil service of the United States shall be removed therefrom except for such cause as will promote the efficiency of said service and for reasons given in writing, and the person whose removal is sought shall have notice of the same and of any charges preferred against him, and be furnished with a copy thereof, and also be allowed a reasonable time for personally answering the same in writing ….’” The Attorney General held that the term “classified civil service” was here used “in the more popular sense of the competitive service” (38 Opinions of the Attorney General, 181).

30 After serving as associate editor of the Farm Journal, Dr. Spillman reëntered the Department of Agriculture in 1921 as consulting specialist in farm management.

31 Supra, p. 571, note. Born on a farm in Iowa in 1873, Dr. Taylor completed the course at the Iowa Agricultural College in 1896 and between that time and 1901 pursued graduate studies in economics at the University of Wisconsin under Richard T. Ely, at the London School of Economics, and at the University of Halle and Berlin. He was a member of the Wisconsin faculty, specializing in agricultural economics, from 1901 until he was made chief of the Office of Farm Management in 1919. Since leaving the Department in 1925, Dr. Taylor has been connected, among other things, with the staff of the Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities.

32 The following proviso is usual, however: “Competitors who attain an eligible average in the examination may be given an oral test to determine their personal characteristics of address, judgment, adaptability, and general fitness for the performance of the duties of this position. The oral test will be given to competitors in the order of their standing and only to such number as the needs of the service require. A competitor who fails to pass the oral test will not be eligible for appointment.”

33 Writing on this point in a private letter in reply to an inquiry regarding the particular examinations under consideration, the secretary of the Civil Service Commission remarked that, in a case like the examination for the position of chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, “ …. we should expect the publications submitted by a successful candidate to cover the technical papers produced in his earlier years, together with later administrative reports containing the results not only of his own research but of the subordinates in his organization.”

34 The quotation is from an unofficial letter of February 8, 1926 from the secretary of the Civil Service Commission to the writer, in which it is said that the Commission “has notified the appointing officials that in the event of any unreasonable delay between the occurrence of a vacancy and a request for certifications of eligibles, a temporary appointment to fill the vacancy will not be approved, unless it is very clearly shown that such delays have not been used for the purpose of looking over the field and selecting some individual for the place.”

35 Significantly, Mr. Cooper was the only one who passed the examination that is discussed abbve. The writer is not informed how many candidates competed.

36 The remaining bureaus will be treated and some conclusions drawn in the second instalment of this article, which will appear in a later issue.

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