1941 FIRST EDITION OF THE REPORT OF PRESIDENT’S COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE, IN A SPECIAL FULL MOROCCO-GILT BINDING PRESENTED TO JOSEPH PRENDERGAST, THE ASSISTANT TO THE CHAIRMAN, SIGNED BY THE ENTIRE COMMITTEE INCLUDING JUSTICES REED, MURPHY, JACKSON, AND FRANKFURTER

(FRANKFURTER, Felix, REED, Stanley, MURPHY, Frank et al.). Report of President’s Committee on Civil Service Improvement. [Washington]: No publisher, February 1941. Quarto, contemporary burgundy morocco gilt. $1750.

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 Joseph Prendergast, the assistant to the chairman, and 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.

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. 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. This copy was specially bound and presented to Joseph Prendergast, the assistant to Chairman Stanley Reed. It has Prendergast’s name gilt-stamped on the front. With a copy of a letter from Prendergast to Chairman Reed laid in, in which Prendergast thanked Reed for letting the Attorney General know of the service Prendergast had rendered to the committee and expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to work on the project.

Interior generally fine, joints expertly repaired, boards with light restoration. A very good copy.