Garfield’s Assassination and Civil Service Reform

“My God,” Garfield swore after only a few months in office, “what is there in this place that a man should ever want to get into it? Garfield, like Hayes, faced the difficult task of remaining independent while pacifying the party bosses and placating the reformers. On July 2, 1881, less than four months after taking office, Garfield was shot and died two months later. His assailant, Charles Julius Guiteau, though clearly insane, turned out to be a disappointed office seeker, motivated by political partisanship. He told the police officer who arrested him, “I did it; I will go to jail for it: Arthur is president, and I am a Stalwart.”

The press almost universally condemned Republican factionalism for creating the political climate that produced Guiteau. Attacks on the spoils system increased, and both parties claimed credit for passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883, which established a permanent Civil Service Commission consisting of three members appointed by the president. Some fourteen thousand jobs came under a merit system that required examinations for office and made it impossible to remove jobholders for political reasons. The new law also prohibited federal jobholders from contributing to political campaigns, thus drying up the major source of the party bosses’ revenue. Businesses soon stepped in as the nation’s chief political contributors. Ironically, civil service reform gave business an even greater influence in political life.

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VISUAL ACTIVITY Civil Service Exams In this 1890 photograph, prospective police officers in Chicago take the written civil service exam. With the rise of a written exam, issues of class and status meant that many men, particularly immigrants and their sons, needed education and not simply connections to make the grade. © Chicago History Museum, USA/The Bridgeman Art Library READING THE IMAGE: What types of people are sitting for the civil service exam? Would you expect to see women or people of color? CONNECTIONS: Who pressed for civil service reform, and what were the repercussions for those who held government positions?