September 22, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/22/2011
Signed Book: Report of President's Committee on Civil Service Improvement. [Washington]: No publisher, February 1941. Quarto, contemporary burgundy morocco gilt. First edition, presentation copy, of this report by the committee Roosevelt entrusted with moving several thousand federal employees into the civil service, specially bound in full morocco for William H. McReynolds, who was an Administrative Assistant to the President and Liaison Officer for Personnel Management under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1941 until Roosevelt's death. His duties brought him in contact with those agencies of the Federal government dealing with personnel and manpower problems. The volume is signed by all the members of the committee including the chairman, Justice Stanley Reed, Justice Felix Frankfurter, Justice Frank Murphy, Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, William H. McReynolds, Leonard D. White, General Robert E. Wood, and Gano Dunn. Only 8 copies of this edition are listed by OCLC, three of which are held by the government. Another, less scarce edition was published by the Government Printing Office in 1941, almost certainly later in the year as it was also newly typeset, unlike this edition composed of mimeographed sheets. A fine tight copy with bold signatures. We know of only one other example being offered at this time, that example by a prominent New England autograph dealer priced at $2,200.00. Unlike this example, that example has had some restoration. A great rarity. On June 24, 1938, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 7916, which extended the Civil Service Act of 1883 to approximately 24,000 higher-level positions. While most of the positions were quickly reorganized within the Civil Service, roughly 5,000 of the positions, which were professional, scientific, or otherwise specially skilled, required a more complex transition. While officially those positions were classified as professional, scientific, or otherwise specially skilled, the vast majority were attorney positions. In order to facilitate a smooth shift into the Civil Service, Roosevelt issued a second order at the beginning of 1939, Executive Order 8044, that postponed the application of the earlier order to those positions and created a special committee to "make a comprehensive study of methods of recruiting, testing, selecting, promoting, transferring, removing, and reinstating personnel." The Committee on Civil Service Improvement, after several intensive meetings, produced this report, which offered extensive suggestions and recommendations for integrating attorney, engineering, architectural, natural science, administration, and social science positions into the Civil Service. With a sheet approving the report bound in, signed by all eight of the committee members and witnessed by the executive secretary. The committee members included Supreme Court Justices Stanley Reed, Felix Frankfurter, and Frank Murphy; Attorney General (and later Supreme Court Justice) Robert H. Jackson; Administrative Assistant to the President and Liaison Officer for Personnel Management William H. McReynolds; public administration expert and Roosevelt appointee Leonard D. White; Sears, Roebuck executive and U.S. General Robert E. Wood; and well-known electrical engineer and Cooper Union president Gano Dunn.
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