{"id":14453,"date":"2021-09-02T17:40:18","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T21:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/?p=14453"},"modified":"2021-09-02T17:42:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T21:42:36","slug":"the-man-with-the-pull-got-the-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2021\/09\/the-man-with-the-pull-got-the-job\/","title":{"rendered":"“The man with the pull” got the job"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thirteen thousand Philadelphians worked for the city at the start of the 20th<\/sup> century, about the same time Lincoln Steffens dubbed Philadelphia \u201cthe most corrupt and the most contented\u201d city in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did payroll and patronage play out on the street?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
City Hall – Civil Service Bulletin Board, November 10, 1905 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to historian Walter Licht, an estimated 10,000 city jobs were \u201cdistributed to loyal party workers,\u201d who, \u201cin return for employment\u2026pledged portions of their salaries to the political machine, a long-standing practice that had not been ended with reform legislation.\u201d In fact, Licht continued, \u201cinvestigations revealed that 94 percent of all employees in the city actually paid between 3 and 12 percent of their annual incomes to the coffers of the Republican Party organization for a total take of $349,000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philadelphia was addicted to this corrupt, pay-to play (or pay-to-work) system. Sure, the city \u201chad gone through the motions following the lead of the United States government in establishing a competitive examination system for appointments to federal jobs,\u201d but legislation creating a civil service board for Philadelphia in 1885 \u201chardly curbed spoilsmanship.\u201d In the City of Brotherly Love \u201cthe mayor and his department chiefs were able to bend the system to their needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And everyone knew it. As Theodore Roosevelt put it 1893 (he was an advocate of Civil Service reform): \u201cI should rather have no law than the law you have in Philadelphia. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1905, the \u201creform forces succeeded once again in securing legislation at the state level\u201d creating \u201ca new civil service commission for Philadelphia, a seemingly more independent agency.\u201d Mayor John Weaver apparently embraced the reform, vacating and replacing leadership and appointing Frank M. Riter to run the new commission. The mayor \u201cannulled\u201d earlier eligible lists\u201d providing Riter with a clean slate and a fully-funded office poised for reorganization and reform. As for his part, Riter was determined to secure \u201cpublic confidence\u201d having committed his commission to \u201cfull publicity and absolute fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By October, 1905, after Riter\u2019s rash of new civil service examinations had been advertised, implemented and scored, he installed in City Hall courtyard \u201ca large bulletin board\u2026for displaying the results of examinations.\u201d Everyone could read the results whether the positions were guards at the House of Correction, plumbers in the Electrical Bureau, or patrolmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the corruption continued. Only a few weeks before the installation of Riter\u2019s bulletin board, the Inquirer<\/em> revealed that Sheldon Potter, the Director of the Department of Public Safety, \u201cdisregarded Civil Service rule\u201d and made appointments only days before receiving the list of eligible candidates from Riter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Civil Service Examination – Police Sergeant in City Hall – October 17, 1916 (PhillyHistory.org) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Inquirer<\/em> also implicated the mayor with circumventing the rules. \u201cWeaver Insincere In Civil Service,\u201d read a headline, \u201cappointments show men with high averages ignored for political favorites.\u201d Civil War veterans had been “especially discriminated against by administration policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn no respect is the insincerity of so-called \u2018reform\u2019 shown up more glaringly than upon the bulletin board of the civil service bureau on the seventh floor of City Hall, the Inquirer pointed out. There can be seen posted long lists of eligibles for various kinds of city positions. \u2026 It is here that the utter failure of the administration to live up to its professions of a square deal for every applicant is conspicuously set forth. \u2026 A half dozen veterans of the Civil War, standing high on the list have been deliberately passed over and political favorites of the Mayor and his friends, far down on the list, have been given preference. Not only have the veterans been ignored, but other applicants with high averages have been left out and men far below them in the averages of the civil service tests have been given the appointments. \u2026 The man with the pull got the job regardless of his special fitness for it, and the man with the high average or near the top of the list has been ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Civil Service Commission – Recreation Instructor’s Examination, August 1, 1934 (PhillhHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Still, Riter continued as if corruption had been effectively curtailed. His commission continued to offer examinations and to advertise the results. From March through December 1906, Riter’s office tested and scored 4,551 applicants for more than 170 positions\u2014everything from clerks to bricklayers, carpenters to elevator operators, engineers to firemen, patrolmen to drain inspectors, stenographers to telegraph operators, tinsmiths to waitresses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who got the jobs? . . . Well, that was not his to say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Sources: Walter Licht, Getting Work: Philadelphia, 1840-1950,<\/em> (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992)];  \u201cPotter Disregarded Civil Service Rules,\u201dOctober 7, 1905; \u201cWeaver Insincere In Civil Service,\u201d October 12, 1905; – Riter, the Versatile, Plays Head Waiter,\u201d October 18, 1905; Secretary Riter\u2019s Bulletin Board, October 25, 1905; The First Annual Report of the Civil Service Commission of the City of Philadelphia, Jan 2, 1907. All in The<\/em> Philadelphia Inquirer; <\/em>\u201cFirst Annual Report of the Civil Service Commission of the City of Philadelphia, January 2, 1907\u201d in Annual Message of the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia with the Annual Reports of Directors of Departments<\/a><\/em>, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1907).]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirteen thousand Philadelphians worked for the city at the start of the 20th century, about the same time Lincoln Steffens dubbed Philadelphia \u201cthe most corrupt and the most contented\u201d city in America. How did payroll and patronage play out on the street? According to historian Walter Licht, an estimated 10,000 city jobs were \u201cdistributed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}