Executive Order

In the exercise of the power vested in the President by the Constitution, and by virtue of the seventeen hundred and fifty-third section of the Revised Statutes and of the civil-service act approved January 16, 1883, the following rule for the regulation and improvement of the executive civil service is hereby amended and promulgated, as follows:

RULE XVI.

1. Whenever any officer having the power of appointment or employment shall so request, there shall be certified to him by the Commission or the proper examining board four names for the vacancy specified, to be taken from those graded highest on the proper register of those in his branch of the service and remaining eligible, regard being had to any fight of preference and to the apportionment of appointments to States and Territories; and from the said four a selection shall be made for the vacancy. But if a person is on both a general and a special register he need he certified from the former only, at the discretion of the Commission, until he has remained two months upon the latter.

2. These certifications for the service at Washington shall be made in such order as to apportion, as nearly as may be practicable, the original appointments thereto among the States and Territories and the District of Columbia upon the basis of population as ascertained at the last preceding census.

3. In case the request for any such certification or any law or regulation shall call for those of either sex, persons of that sex shall be certified; otherwise sex shall be disregarded in such certification.

4. No person upon any register shall be certified more than four times to the same officer in the customs or postal service or more than three times to any Department at Washington, unless upon request of the appointing officer; nor shall anyone remain eligible more than one year upon any register, except as may be provided by regulation; but these restrictions shall not extend to examinations under clause 5 of Rule VII. No person while remaining eligible on any register shall be admitted to a new examination, and no person having failed upon any examination shall within six months thereafter be admitted to another examination without the consent of the Commission.

5. Any person appointed to or employed in any part of the classified service who shall be dismissed or separated therefrom without fault or delinquency on his part may be reappointed or reemployed in the same part or grade of such service in the same Department or office within one year next following such dismissal or separation, without further examination, on such certification as the Commission may provide.

Approved, February 27, 1885.

CHESTER A. ARTHUR