It is utterly inappropriate for carpenters, detectives, and mounted cattle inspectors along the Rio Grande--to instance three types of employment as to which I had to do battle to prevent well-meaning bureaucrats from insisting on written competitive entrance examinations.

It would be quite possible to hold a very good competitive examination for mounted cattle inspectors by means of practical tests in brand reading and shooting with rifle and revolver, in riding "mean" horses and in roping and throwing steers.

I did my best to have examinations of this kind instituted, but my proposal was of precisely the type which most shocks the routine official mind, and I was never able to get it put into practical effect.
The important point, and the point most often forgotten by zealous Civil Service Reformers, was to remember that the routine competitive examination was merely a means to an end.

It did not always produce ideal results.

But it was normally better than a system of appointments for spoils purposes; it sometimes worked out very well indeed; and in most big governmental offices it not only gave satisfactory results, but was the only system under which good results could be obtained.