MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The federal government is the largest employer in the U.S., with just over 3 million civilian civil service workers. These workers are responsible for everything from delivering your mail to making sure your tap water is drinkable. They are hired based on their qualifications and expertise, and they're supposed to do their job regardless of which party is in office. Now, this was not always the case. Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei, cohosts of NPR's history show Throughline, bring us the story of how a presidential assassination gave rise to the modern federal civil service.
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RUND ABDELFATAH, BYLINE: On July 2, 1881, President James Garfield was about to board a train in Washington, D.C., when out of nowhere, he's shot twice.
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ABDELFATAH: The station erupts into chaos, and Garfield is lying on the train station floor.
RAMTIN ARABLOUEI, BYLINE: Charles Guiteau, the man who shot President Garfield, is arrested right away at the train station.
CANDICE MILLARD: He's immediately taken to a prison.
ABDELFATAH: This is Candice Millard. She's the author of "Destiny Of The Republic."
MILLARD: He believed that God had chosen him for a great purpose, so he thinks that he helped Garfield win the White House.
ARABLOUEI: Guiteau had delivered a single speech for Garfield's campaign. And when Garfield won the presidency, he believed he was owed a major government job in return. When he didn't receive it, he thought killing Garfield would make things right.
MILLARD: He was mentally ill, and he was delusional. He believed very happily and vigorously in the spoils system.
ARABLOUEI: The spoils system is exactly what it sounds like. It's the idea that whoever wins the presidency should be able to fill all those federal government jobs with people who are loyal - to the winner goes the spoils. So this meant that jobs like postman or tax collector weren't filled by the most qualified person, but instead, the job was given out like a perk to party loyalists. It had been in use for decades at all levels of government.
ABDELFATAH: But when the Civil War happened, suddenly the federal government grew exponentially to support the war effort. And there were a lot more jobs to be filled via the spoils system. The Republican Party, which controlled every branch of government at that point, used it to their advantage. But when the war ended, many people started to call the system out as corrupt and unfair. In fact...
MILLARD: Within the Republican Party, you had this deep divide. There were the Stalwarts...
ARABLOUEI: Stalwarts.
MILLARD: ...Who believed that the spoils system was great, and it made a lot of sense, and they needed to protect it to keep it going.
ARABLOUEI: And then there were what some people derisively called...
MILLARD: Half-breeds, who believed that it was essentially corrupt and needed to be reformed.
ARABLOUEI: The term half-breed was an insulting way to describe someone of mixed native and European descent. And the Stalwarts used that term to insult Republicans who criticized the spoils system, meaning they were only half Republican.
SCOTT GREENBERGER: It's hard for Americans in the 21st century to understand how civil service reform could be, like, the No. 1 issue at the top of the national agenda, but it was in the late 1870s.
ARABLOUEI: This is...
GREENBERGER: Scott Greenberger.
ARABLOUEI: He's the executive editor of a news site called Stateline and has written extensively about this time in American politics. He says going into the 1880 election, the spoils system...
GREENBERGER: Was the major issue.
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ABDELFATAH: So the spoils system is on the top of everyone's minds at the 1880 Republican Convention in Chicago. James Garfield, an Ohio House representative at the time, attends to give a speech in support of a presidential candidate that's against the spoils system. But then something unexpected happens. He gives an amazing speech, and...
MILLARD: Someone in the crowd shouts, we want Garfield, and everybody just goes crazy. And Garfield suddenly finds himself the Republican nominee for president of the United States.
ARABLOUEI: Garfield is in total shock.
ABDELFATAH: Months later, Garfield wins the presidential election, and even though the Republicans and the country are still divided about the issue, he calls out the need to reform the spoils system in his inaugural speech.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As James A. Garfield) The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law.
ARABLOUEI: But reform can take time. So from the first day he takes office, Garfield is faced with the spoils system. Every day, random people would walk into the White House and queue to ask the president for a job.
MILLARD: Say you want to be in charge of your post office in your little town, go to the White House and make your case to the president himself.
ARABLOUEI: And Garfield hated it.
MILLARD: This is what made life hell, really, for Garfield when he was president. He specifically said, I don't know why anyone would ever want to be president.
ARABLOUEI: And that's what brings us back to the man who shot President Garfield on July 2, 1881 - a man named Charles Guiteau. He was one of these office seekers who wanted to keep the spoils system going.
ABDELFATAH: Garfield ends up eventually dying from his bullet wounds, but his efforts to reform the civil service don't die with him. Chester Arthur, the vice president who assumed the presidency after Garfield's death, keeps the issue alive with the help of a Democratic Ohio senator.
ARABLOUEI: George Pendleton was a prominent Democrat, but like some of the reform-minded Republicans, he opposed the spoils system.
ABDELFATAH: He puts together a civil service reform bill that would come to be called the Pendleton Act. It did things like set up a test for all federal government job seekers.
ARABLOUEI: At this time, it was a revolutionary idea - you get the government job because of your ability, not just party loyalty. The spoils system was so entrenched in American politics, it was going to be hard to pass this bill. But President Garfield's death galvanized a movement for reform that couldn't be stopped.
ABDELFATAH: And shortly after, on January 16, 1883, a little over a year after Garfield's death, President Chester Arthur signed the Pendleton Act into law.
GREENBERGER: It was most definitely the beginning of the professional civil service that we have now. And in subsequent decades, they added civil service protections for more workers, and it grew and grew and grew.
ARABLOUEI: At first, the Pendleton Act only covered about 10% of federal jobs - a few thousand federal workers. But as time went on, it expanded to eventually cover the vast majority of the federal workforce, which now measures in the millions.
GREENBERGER: These people who are professional civil servants, many of whom have been there for decades through administrations Democratic and Republican, they serve the American people. They're not serving whoever happens to be in the White House. And they have expertise. And yes, they're supposed to be implementing the laws faithfully, but their jobs are not to advance the agenda of any party or a particular president.
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KELLY: Scott Greenberger ending that short history of the modern federal civil service. You can hear more from Throughline's Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei wherever you get your podcasts.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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