The Historical Evolution of Veterans Preference in the Civil Service Recruitment of American Federal Government

Through examining and analyzing the non-system preference in the early years, the system preference during two world wars as well as the limited preference after the Civil Service Reform of 1978, this article not only traces the historical transforming process of Veterans Preference from unlimited to limited state in the civil service recruitment of American Federal Government, but also points out that the transformation did not change the fact in which Veterans Preference violates the Merit and reduces officials' quality. The author further argues that how to harmonize the relationship between Preference and Merit will be an important topic of American civil service reform in the new century.