How has the American bureaucracy grown? 467most significant changes occurred during the Progressive Era, from 1890 to 1920.
Many laws and executive actions increased the government’s regulatory power
during this period, including the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the Pure Food
and Drug Act of 1906, the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906, expansion of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, and various conservation measures.^21 Now
the federal government was no longer simply a deliverer of mail and a defender of
borders; rather, it had an indirect impact on several aspects of everyday life. When
Americans bought food or other products, went to work, or traveled on vacation,
the choices available to them were shaped by the actions of federal bureaucrats in
Washington and elsewhere.
These developments were matched by a fundamental change in the federal
bureaucracy following passage of the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Act. This
measure created the federal civil service, in which the merit system (qualifications,
not political connections) would be the basis for hiring and promoting bureaucrats.
In other words, when new presidents took office they could not replace government
workers with their own campaign workers. Initially, only about 13,000 federal jobs
acquired civil service protections, but over the next two decades many additional
positions were incorporated into the civil service. In some cases, presidents gave
civil service protections to people who had been hired under the spoils system to
prevent the next president from replacing these bureaucrats with his or her own
loyalists. Over time, these reforms created a bureaucracy in which people were
hired for their expertise and allowed to build a career in government without
having to fear being fired when a new president or Congress took office.^22 In the
modern era, virtually all full-time, permanent government employees have civil
service protection.The New Deal, the Great Society, and the Reagan Revolution
Dramatic expansion of the federal bureaucracy occurred during the New Deal
period in the 1930s and during the mid-1960s Great Society era. In both cases, the
changes were driven by a combination of citizen demands and the preferences of
elected officials who favored an increased role of government in society. These
expansion trends were only marginally curtailed during the Reagan Revolution
of the 1980s.The New Deal “The New Deal” refers to the government programs implemented
during Franklin Roosevelt’s first term as president in the 1930s. At one level,
these programs were a response to the Great Depression and the inability of local
governments and private charities to provide adequate support to Americans during
this economic crisis. Many advocates of the New Deal also favored an expanded
role for government in American society, regardless of the immediate need for
intervention.^23 Roosevelt’s programs included reforms to the financial industry as
well as efforts to help people directly, including the stimulation of employment and
economic growth and the formation of labor unions. The Social Security Act, the first
federally funded pension program for all Americans, was also passed as part of the
New Deal.^24
These reforms resulted in a vast increase in the size, responsibilities, and capacity
of the bureaucracy, as well as a large transfer of power to bureaucrats and to the
president.^25 While the Progressive Era reforms created an independent bureaucracy
and increased its state capacity, the New Deal reforms broadened the range of policyfederal civil service
A system created by the 1883
Pendleton Civil Service Act in
which bureaucrats are hired on the
basis of merit rather than political
connections.Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal
programs greatly expanded the power
of the federal government and the
bureaucracy. As this cartoon shows,
these changes were controversial, with
some seeing them as moving too much
power from Congress to the president
and bureaucracy.Full_14_APT_64431_ch13_454-487.indd 467 16/11/18 1:44 PM