The need to ensure responsible administration in government is an imperative concern for the field of public management. The interest in administrative responsi bility is crucial because public administrators are the people who place government into action. They manage and direct the operations of federal, state, and local organi zations providing essential services and programs. They issue directives and regula tions, which give meaning to public policy, and in the process, substantive policy choices are made. In addition, in these capacities, government administrators act on behalf of the people. Ultimately, they must be accountable to the public interest. As a consequence, public servants bear important moral and ethical obligations. Indeed, much of the history of public administration in the United States has focused on the question of how those obligations might best be met.At the time of our "bureaucratic begirmir\gs," George Washington, to whom fell the task of ensuring the initial integrity of a nascent civil service, insisted upon high moral standards as a basic qualification for public office.i In addition to competence and loyalty to the new consti tution, Washington stressed "fitness of character" as an important prerequisite for appointment to the government work force. This stan dard for appointment promoted the principled stature of Washington's administration as well as the legitimacy of the new regime. But as time passed, the importance of ethical obligations of public servants was magnified even beyond what it was in the crucial early years, and the problem of discerning proper ethical conduct became more complex.The late nineteenth century civil service reform movement addressed the issue of promoting an ethical public service by pushing for the implementation of merit systems for public employment. This reform, was corisidered necessary by its supporters because the politics of patronage appointments to the public work force had by that time bread cor\siderable corruption and abuse of power. Merit systems represented an effort to overturn that corruption by standing on a fovmdation of selection on the basis of open and competitive examinations; relative security of tenure achieved through employee protection from arbitrary, capricious, or politically motivated removal; and an expecta tion of partisan neutrality on the part of the public employee.