, April 16, 1872.
The Advisory Board of the civil service, having completed the grouping contemplated by the rules already adopted, have recommended certain provisions for carrying the rules into effect.
The recommendations as herewith published are approved, and the provisions will be enforced as rapidly as the proper arrangements can be made; and the thirteenth of the rules adopted on the 19th day of December last is amended to read as published herewith.
The utmost fidelity and diligence will be expected of all officers in every branch of the public service. Political assessments, as they are called, have been forbidden within the various Departments; and while the right of all persons in official position to take part in politics is acknowledged, and the elective franchise is recognized as a high trust to be discharged by all entitled to its exercise, whether in the employment of the Government or in private life, honesty and efficiency, not political activity, will determine the tenure of office.
By the President: , Secretary of State.
From these rules are excepted the heads of Departments, Assistant Secretaries of Departments, Assistant Attorneys-General, Assistant Postmasters-General, Solicitor-General, Solicitor of the Treasury, Naval Solicitor, Solicitor of Internal Revenue, examiner of claims in the State Department, Treasurer of the United States, Register of the Treasury, First and Second Comptrollers of the Treasury, other heads of bureaus in the several Departments, judges of the United States courts, district attorneys, private secretary of the President, ambassadors and other public ministers, Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Director of the Mint, governors of Territories, special commissioners, special counsel, visiting and examining boards, persons appointed to positions without compensation for services, dispatch agents, and bearers of dispatches.
No person will be appointed to any position in the civil service who shall not have furnished satisfactory evidence of his fidelity to the Union and the Constitution of the United States.
The evidence in regard to character, health, age, and knowledge of the English language required by the first rule shall be furnished in writing, and if such evidence shall be satisfactory to the head of the Department in which the appointment is to be made the applicant shall be notified when and where to appear for examination; but when the applicants are so numerous that the examination of all whose preliminary papers are satisfactory is plainly impracticable, the head of the Department shall select for examination a practicable number of those who are apparently best qualified.
Examinations to fill vacancies in any of the Executive Departments in Washington shall be held not only at the city of Washington, but also, when directed by the head of the Department in which the vacancy may exist, in the several States, either at the capital or other convenient place.
The appointment of persons to be employed exclusively in the secret service of the Government, also of persons to be employed as translators, stenographers, or private secretaries, or to be designated for secret service, to fill vacancies in clerkships in either of the Executive Departments at Washington, may be excepted from the operation of the rules.