<P> The first code of civil service reforms, were designed to replace patronage appointees with nonpartisan employees qualified because of their skills . </P> <P> President Ulysses S Grant (1869--1877) spoke out in favor of civil service reform, and rejected demands in late 1872 by Pennsylvania Senator Simon Cameron and Pennsylvania Governor John Hartranft to suspend the rules and make patronage appointments . </P> <P> Grant's Civil Service Commission reforms had limited success, as his cabinet implemented a merit system that increased the number of qualified candidates and relied less on Congressional patronage . Interior Secretary Columbus Delano, however, exempted his department from competitive examinations, and Congress refused to enact permanent Civil Service reform . Zachariah Chandler, who succeeded Delano, made sweeping reforms in the entire Interior Department; Grant ordered Chandler to fire all corrupt clerks in the Bureau of Indian Affairs . Grant appointed reformers Edwards Pierrepont and Marshall Jewell as Attorney General and Postmaster General, respectively, who supported Bristow's investigations . In 1875, Pierrepont cleaned up corruption among the United States Attorneys and Marshals in the South . </P> <P> The Civil Service Reform Act (called "the Pendleton Act") is an 1883 federal law that created the United States Civil Service Commission . It eventually placed most federal employees on the merit system and marked the end of the so - called "spoils system ." Drafted during the Chester A. Arthur administration, the Pendleton Act served as a response to President James Garfield's assassination by a disappointed office seeker . The Act was passed into law in January 1883; it was sponsored by Democratic Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohio . It was drafted by Dorman Bridgman Eaton, a leading reformer who became the first chairman of the United States Civil Service Commission . The most famous commissioner was Theodore Roosevelt (1889--95). The new law prohibited mandatory campaign contributions, or "assessments," which amounted to 50--75% of party financing in the Gilded Age . Second, the Pendleton Act required entrance exams for aspiring bureaucrats . At first it covered very few jobs but there was a ratchet provision whereby outgoing presidents could lock in their own appointees by converting their jobs to civil service . Political reformers, typified by the Mugwumps demanded an end to the spoils system . After a series of party reversals at the presidential level (1884, 1888, 1892, 1896), the result was that most federal jobs were under civil service . One result was more expertise and less politics . An unintended result was the shift of the parties to reliance on funding from business, since they could no longer depend on patronage hopefuls . Mark Hanna found a substitute revenue stream in 1896, by assessing corporations . </P>

Should civil service reform be seen as a precursor to progressive reform