Moses’ merit system threatened the careers of decades of loyal patronage workers

Evidence

The downgrading of seniority in Moses’ system would mean that these city employees would lose a large advantage—in many cases their only advantage—over bright young outsiders trying for their jobs. The elimination of unnecessary jobs would mean that some of them would be out of work entirely. Moses’ insistence on demotion for men who failed to score high enough on new examinations to qualify for the jobs they presently held would have the most far-reaching effects of all. Men who had run their ward boss’s errands for years in return for advancement up the civil service ladder now came to realize that under Moses’ system the rewards for which they had waited so long might be snatched from them; in fact, for many of them, “might” was only a euphemism; they knew all too well what their qualifications were and how they would make out on honestly run examinations. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 336

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Moses proposed reducing every government job to weighed mathematical grades — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 320; Even reform allies saw Moses’ plan as unfair to deserving workers — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 347; Moses’ ‘open competition’ meant restricting high office to the educated elite — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 233 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Ottoman reformers proposed replacing patronage with Prussian-style meritocracy #responds-to (0.75)