The Pendleton Act
In the weeks following Garfield’s death, on Sept. 19, 1881, new civil service reform groups sprang up from Massachusetts to California. It seemed unlikely that Arthur, a creature of the spoils system, would be the one to upend it. But Garfield’s death and Sand’s entreaties had transformed him.
In 1883, Arthur signed the landmark Pendleton Act, laying the foundation for the civil service system of today. Under the law, applicants for certain federal positions had to take competitive examinations; workers would be promoted or fired based on job performance; and party operatives could no longer force employees to contribute either time or money to political campaigns.
But the initial protections applied only to federal departments in Washington and to custom houses and post offices with more than 50 employees — about 10 percent of all federal jobs. Its success or failure depended heavily on the goodwill of the president. He might or might not appoint a three-member bipartisan commission to craft the required regulations, and he could stall, or decline to extend, the rules it produced.
Would Chester A. Arthur faithfully execute the new law? Many had their doubts.
After signing the civil service bill in January, Arthur took his time choosing people to serve on the new Civil Service Commission, causing some reformers to wonder whether he intended to make the appointments at all. But in February he named three people dedicated to reform. Then, when the commission issued its rules, in May, reformers feared Arthur would gut them. Instead, he accepted them with only minor modifications.
As the months went by, it became clear that the president was implementing the regulations with vigor. Addressing the Civil Service Reform League that fall, reformer George William Curtis complimented Arthur for “his desire to give the reform system fair play” and noted that his attitude was surprising, given his history.
“The President’s previous course, and his faith in the spoils system as essential to effective party organization, had excited great apprehension that he would use his vast patronage in a manner to confirm and aggravate the evils of that system,” Curtis said. “But this apprehension has not been justified.”
In subsequent decades, civil service protections were expanded to cover more federal workers. Rules were enacted prohibiting government employees from being actively involved in political campaigns. The latter were codified in 1939 in the Hatch Act.