A kind word for the spoils system.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Special Anniversary Section: Who We Are; What We Believe; Why We Believe It

The liberal distrust of religion has been matched at times by a distrust of politics--the assumption that its practitioners were crude philistines or crooked deceivers. But, as Charles Peters wrote in 1976, increased participation in the workings of government is key to building a sense of community.

Anyone who has had a reasonable amount of contact with the federal government has encountered people who should be fired. There are some superb civil servants-maybe 10 percent of the total-who have every right to become indignant at blanket criticism of government workers. There are another 50 to 60 percent who range from adequate to good. Unfortunately, that leaves 30 or 40 percent from marginal to outright incompetent.

Yet fewer than I percent are fired each year. This is because 93 percent are under some form of civil service and therefore virtually impossible to fire.

Imagine yourself a supervisor with an employee who does nothing but read the paper and take coffee breaks. Thinking of firing him, you might turn to Title 5 of the U.S. Code and peruse parts 752.101 through 752.402 and 772.101 through 772.404, which describe one hearing and appeal after another. By the time you reached the end of 772.404, you'd say the hell with it and toss him the sports section.

I came to this position after a long journey through government that I began on the other side of the civil service question,

In the late 1950s, while working on the staff of the West Virginia legislature, I drafted a bill designed to transform a patronage-ridden personnel system into a civil service based on merit and offering genuine career protection for state employees. Wanting to get that bill enacted into law was one of the reasons I ran for the legislature in the next election, and it was a proud day in my life when the bill, bearing my name, was passed in the following session.

Then I came to Washington. Having seen the evils of too much political patronage, I was now exposed to the evils of too much civil service. The terrible disruption of continuity that came from massive personnel changes following each election in West Virginia was offset in Washington by the defensiveness and caution of civil servants primarily devoted to the protection of the institution for which they worked. If you can be fired only if your job is abolished-as is the case with practically all civil...