elaborate and doubtful legal process. Moreover, if the head of a bureau or a collector or a postmaster were obliged to prove negligence, or insolence, or incompetency against a clerk as he would prove theft, there would be no removals from the public service except for crimes of which the penal law takes cognizance. Consequently, removal would be always and justly regarded as a stigma upon character, and a man removed from a position in a public office would be virtually branded as a convicted criminal. Removal for cause, therefore, if the cause were to be decided by any authority but that of the responsible superior officer, instead of improving, would swiftly and enormously enhance the cost, and ruin the efficiency, of the public service, by/ destroying subordination, and making every lazy and worthless member of it twice as careless and incompetent as he is now.

If, then, the legitimate cause for removal ought to be determined in public as in private business, by the responsible appointing power, it is of the highest public necessity that the exercise of that power should be made as absolutely honest and independent as possible. But how can it be made honest and independent if it is not protected so far as practicable from the constant bribery of selfish interest and the illicit solicitation of personal influence? The experience of our large patronage offices proves conclusively that the cause of the larger number of removals is not dishonesty or incompetency; it is the desire to make vacancies to fill. This is the actual cause, whatever cause may be assigned. The removals would not be made except for the pressure of politicians. But those politicians would not press for removals if they could not secure the appointment of their favorites. Make it impossible for them to secure appointment, and the pressure would instantly disappear and arbitrary removal cease.

So long, therefore, as we permit minor appointments to be made by mere personal influence and favor, a fixed limited term and removal during that term for cause only would not remedy the evil, because the incumbents would still be seeking influence to secure reappointment, and the aspirants doing the same to replace them. Removal under plea of good cause would be as wanton and arbitrary as it

is now, unless the power to remove were entrusted to some other discretion than that of the superior officer, and in that case the struggle for reappointment and the knowledge that removal for the term was practically impossible would totally demoralize the service. To make sure, then, that removals shall be made for legitimate cause only, we must provide that appointment shall be made only for legitimate | cause.

All roads lead to Rome. Personal influence in appointments can be annulled only by free and open competition. By that bridge we can return to the practise of Washington and to the intention of the Constitution. That is the shoe of swiftness and the magic sword by which the President can pierce and outrun the protean enemy of sophistry and tradition which prevents him from asserting his power. If you say that success in a competitive literary examination does not prove fitness to adjust customs duties, or to distribute letters, or to appraise linen, or to measure molasses, I answer that the reform does not propose that fitness shall be proved by a competitive literary examination. It proposes to annul personal influence and political favoritism by making appointment depend upon proved capacity. To determine this it proposes first to test the comparative general intelligence of all applicants and their special knowledge of the particular official duties required, and then to prove the practical faculty of the most intelligent applicants by actual trial in the performance of the duties before they are appointed. If it be still said that success in such a competition may not prove fitness, it is enough to reply that success in obtaining the favor of some kind of boss, which is the present system, presumptively proves unfitness.

Nor is it any objection to the reformed system that many efficient officers in the service could not have entered it had it been necessary to pass an examination; it is no objection, because their efficiency is a mere chance. They were not appointed because of efficiency, but either because they were diligent politicians or because they were recommended by diligent politicians. The chance of getting efficient men in any business is certainly not diminished by inquiry and investigation. I have heard an officer in the army say that he could select men from the ranks for special

duty much more satisfactorily than they could be selected. by an examination. Undoubtedly he could, because he knows his men, and he selects solely by his knowledge of their comparative fitness. If this were true of the civil service, if every appointing officer chose the fittest person. from those that he knew, there would be no need of reform. It is because he cannot do this that the reform is necessary.

It is the same kind of objection which alleges that competition is a droll plan by which to restore the conduct of the public business to business principles and methods, since no private business selects its agents by competition. But the managers of private business are virtually free from personal influence in selecting their subordinates, and they employ and promote and dismiss them solely for the interests of the business. Their choice, however, is determined by an actual, although not a formal competition. Like the military officer, they select those whom they know by experience to be the most competent. But if great business houses and corporations were exposed to persistent, insolent, and overpowering interference and solicitation for place such as obstructs great public departments and officers, they, too, would resort to the form of competition, as they now have its substance, and they would resort to it to secure the very freedom which they now enjoy of selecting for fitness alone.

Mr. President, in the old Arabian story, from the little box upon the seashore, carelessly opened by the fisherman, arose the towering and haughty demon, ever more monstrous and more threatening, who would not crouch again. So from the small patronage of the earlier day, from a civil service dealing with a national revenue of only $2,000,000, and regulated upon sound business principles, has sprung the un-American, un-democratic, un-republican system which destroys political independence, honor, and morality, and corrodes the national character itself. In the solemn anxiety of this hour the warning words of the austere Calhoun, uttered nearly half a century ago, echo in startled recollection like words of doom: "If you do not put this thing down, it will put you down." Happily, it is the historic faith of the race from which we are chiefly sprung that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It is that

faith which has made our mother England the great parent of free states. The same faith has made America the political hope of the world. Fortunately removed by our position from the entanglements of European politics, and more united and peaceful at home than at any time within the memory of living men, the moment is most auspicious for remedying that abuse in our political system whose nature, proportions, and perils the whole country begins clearly to discern. The will and the power to apply the remedy will be a test of the sagacity and the energy of the people. The reform of which I have spoken is essentially the people's reform. With the instinct of robbers who run with the crowd and lustily cry "Stop thief!" those who would make the public service the monopoly of a few favorites denounce the determination to open that service to the whole people as a plan to establish an aristocracy. The huge ogre of patronage, gnawing at the character, the honor, and the life of the country, grimly sneers that the people cannot help themselves and that nothing can be done. But much greater things have been done. Slavery was the Giant Despair of many good men of the last generation, but slavery was overthrown. If the spoils system, a monster only less threatening than slavery, be unconquerable, it is because the country has lost its convictions, its courage, and its common sense. "I expect," said the Yankee as he surveyed a stout antagonist, "I expect that you're pretty ugly, but I cal'late I'm a darned sight uglier." I know that patronage is strong, but I believe that the American people are very much stronger.

GEORGES JACQUES DANTON

"TO DARE AGAIN, EVER TO DARE!"

[Georges Jacques Danton, a prominent member of the Convention that carried out the great French Revolution, was born in Arcis-sur-Aube in 1759. He received a good education, with a view to entering the legal profession, and while still a very young man he began the practice of law in Paris. His energies were speedily absorbed by the distracted state of public affairs, it being happily said of him that he was a born revolutionist. The first conspicuous use he made of his gift of eloquence was to urge on the mob that stormed the Bastile. He founded the order of Cordeliers, a society of radical revolutionists. By the time the so-called Legislative Assembly had gained control of public affairs, Danton was all powerful in it. When the enemies of France were marching on Paris, and the alarm ran through the city to summon volunteers to arms, Danton delivered a magnificent tirade in the Assembly. His election as deputy from Paris to the National Convention enabled Danton to give full expression of his revolutionary views. He joined the most radical group, but even he was appalled by the horrors of the Reign of Terror, as Robespierre's system of extermination was called. Danton, in consequence, was distrusted by the irreconcilable revolutionists, who determined to be rid of him. He was seized, hurried to trial, and guillotined in 1794. The first of the following speeches was delivered in the National Assembly, 1792; the second, also in the Assembly, 1793; the third, at the Convention, 1793.]

T seems a satisfaction for the ministers of a free people

All are stirred, all are enthused, all burn to enter the combat.

You know that Verdun is not yet in the power of our enemies, and that its garrison swears to immolate the first who breathes a proposition of surrender.

One portion of our people will guard our frontiers, another will dig and arm the entrenchments, the third with pikes will defend the interior of our cities. Paris will sec