As long ago as the time of the cave-dweller, who was clothed in
shaggy hair instead of in broadcloth or silk, prehistoric man
learned that the best arrow or spear was that tipped with the
best piece of flint. In brief, to do good work, you must have
good tools. Translated into the terms of today, this means that
the expert or specialist must be preferred to the untrained. In
nearly all walks of life this truth was taken for granted, except
in affairs connected with government and administration. A
President might be elected, not because he was experienced in
these matters, but because he had won a battle, or was the
compromise candidate between two other aspirants. As it was with
Presidents, so with the Cabinet officers, Congressmen, and State
and city officials. Fitness being ignored as a qualification to
office, made it easy for favoritism and selfish motives to
determine the appointment of the army of employees required in
the bureaus and departments. That good old political freebooter,
Andrew Jackson, merely put into words what his predecessors had
put into practice: "To the victors belong the spoils.
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