Political Spoils System Grips the Board of Public Works
As a new commissioner takes his seat, a swarm of job-seekers descends on City Hall in hopes of displacing sitting staff.
The usual tedium of a board of public works meeting was relieved yesterday by great excitement. The advent of a new commissioner, J. W. Van Broeklin, was in itself an important event, but to that was super-added the influx of a number of applicants for all the positions in the gift of the board. Nobody has resigned except Alexander, but as Commissioner Cochran said, 'Oh, I'll make the vacancies tomorrow.' For two hours before the opening of the session, there had been a throng around the city hall door, and several conferences were held by the mayor with the new commissioners and applicants for positions. A special meeting of the board will be held today at 2 o'clock to consider the applications, and bets were offered that the ticket will be set.
“Nobody has resigned except Alexander, but, as Commissioner Cochran said, 'Oh, I'll make the vacancies tomorrow.'”
This reflects the raw, patronage-based political culture of the 1890s, where municipal employment was a spoils system governed by party affiliation rather than professional civil service.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.