How a president’s death helped kill Washington’s “spoils system”

In the 1800s, the main job requirement for most federal employees was loyalty to the newly-elected president, who would fill the government bureaucracy with his supporters. But after a rejected office-seeker shot President James Garfield, reformers won long-sought-after changes: workers hired for their expertise, not their fealty. Correspondent Mo Rocca talks with journalist and historian Scott Greenberger about how a meritocracy finally came to the federal government, and finds out what Mark Twain had to do with it.

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