POLITICS AND PUBLIC SERVICE:

Discussion of the Civic Art in America,by Leonard D. White '14 and T. V.Smith. Harper & Brothers, New York,1939.$3.00.

The United States government is the largest single employer in the democracies of the world. With 840,000 in the federal executive service and some 2,500,000 on the payrolls of state and local governments, the stakes are high in the party battle for spoils. Last year over 530,000 of the federal employees were under civil service. Executive orders this year are expected to transfer 100,000 more patronage jobs to the civil service system.

Is the patronage system wholly evil? Can the machinery of democratic politics survive without it? If patronage is abandoned in favor of the merit system, under civil service, to what extent will the public administration benefit? Answers to these questions are advanced by two distinguished professors of the University of Chicago: L. D. White, a New England Republican and a former member of the U. S. Civil Service Commission: and T. V. Smith, a Southern Democrat and Congressman-at-large from Illinois.

Both, in their vigorous dialogues that color the book, defend the important role of the political party in our democracy. They present fairly the partisan's arguments for patronage: particularly the claims that patronage is the most practical means in sight for financing the political parties, and that party selections for office are better than often admitted.

Whatever the case for patronage, however, the authors agree on the need of freeing the public service from partisanship. They emphasize the public service as the prime example of large scale management, requiring superior managerial ability and highly technical skills.

The social responsibilities of the complex and expanded public service require characteristics they do not find in the hurly-burly of politics. That genuine, healthy political conflict would not disappear with patronage they seek to prove by examples of specific areas in the United States where administration prospers without patronage. Moreover, they contend, the parties now have more patronage than they need.

Realists, the authors do not propose drastic changes. Instead, they advocate reduced patronage and consequently increased civil service by easy stages, until all public jobs except those that are policy-making come gradually under an improved civil service.

Their treatment is refreshing; their viewpoints are provocative. They do not dwell upon the basic issue itself of the expansion of government functions. It is to be regretted that there is not emphasis upon the reasons for the differences between the British and American civil service systems—and most particularly upon the growing stress upon career service as an increasing opportunity for the young college graduate of marked abilities, a development in which Mr. White himself has played such a forceful part; for, as the civil service grows in prestige, patronage will decline.