Bureaucracy Blog Post

Chris Kemp

4/17/16

The Development of the Bureaucracy

The article I found discusses the development of the Bureaucracy, which is run by millions of bureaucrats.  The article begins by discussing that the original bureaucracy was very small and was made up of employees from the State, Treasury, and War departments.  George Washington stated “as shall be the best qualified” in relation to who would be hired for political employment.  Once Thomas Jefferson was elected president the system of patronage, or filling political jobs with friends and members of the party, became the new premise for political employment.  Andrew Jackson is recognized as the President who entrenched the spoils system, which he felt brought in a better rotation of workers in office.  The article then discuss’ the creation of thousands of jobs after the Civil War in order to handle the strenuous demands of war as well as the expenditure of the Post Office.  The article begins to cover the topic of the Pendleton Act which was established in 1881 which basically got rid of the spoils system and led to the merit system.  The article then discuss’ the growth of the 20^th century and the creation of independent regulatory commissions, the first of which was the Interstate Commerce Commission.  During the last half of the 20^th century the federal bureaucracy didn’t really expand that much but each individual did gain an increase in influence.  The article then discusses the organization of the bureaucracy and how overlapping duties and counterparts make things much more complicated.  The bureaucracy is controlled by both the president and Congress, who has the power to create, organize, and disband federal agencies.  The article concludes by breaking down and explaining the four broad types the bureaucracy typically falls under.  These four types are the Cabinet departments, government corporations, independent agencies, and regulatory commissions. 

This article clearly pertains to our current unit of study regarding the Bureaucracy.  I chose this article considering it discusses the organization of the Bureaucracy, the merit and spoils system, as well as departments and development of the bureaucracy.  This article covered many of the topics we are discussing, like the spoils and merit system which we made a poster about during class.  This article also discussed regulatory commissions as well as the Pendleton Act which are also topics we have discussed/made posters about.  In conclusion the majority of this article directly coincides with the content we are learning in class. 

http://www.ushistory.org/gov/8a.asp