tent clerk at his desk or a sleepy watchman on his beat. Cause for the removal of a letter carrier in the post-office or of an accountant in the custom-house would be presented with all the pomp of impeachment and established like a high crime and misdemeanor. Thus every clerk in every office would have a kind of vested interest in his place because, however careless, slovenly, or troublesome he might be, he could be displaced only by an 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 intrusted 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 practice 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 succcess 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. * * *

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 two million dollars, 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 enstartled 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.

(Delivered before the American Social Science Association at its meeting in Saratoga, New York, September 8, 1881.)

Polygamy.

By GEORGE F. EDMUNDS, of Vermont.

(Born 1828.)

HE Senator from Ohio (Mr. Sherman), I suspect, is quite right in what he has said that this measure is very likely not to accomplish all that some people might suppose it would accomplish. It may be that the domination of this autocracy, hierarchy, theocracy I use all the terms - will still control the political action of the Territory of Utah; but we try the mildest of measures first. We take out by this bill from the present Government of Utah all of its essential powers, because the statistics and the information that we have demonstrate that the Government of the Territory of Utah from top to bottom now is and has been for a long time I do not know but all the time including both houses of its Territorial Assembly, in the hands of the polygamists. Every member of its Council but one is a polygamist glorying in from two to six wives. Every one but two or three of the twenty-six members of its House of Representatives is also adorned with that distinction. And when you go into the executive offices of that Territory much. the same thing exists.

Now this act, if it has no other effect, will have the effect of displacing from political supremacy all the persons whom the laws of the United States for twenty years have said were people who ought not to be allowed to carry on a government. It will have that effect provided the President of the United States, and the Senate of the United States, his constitutional advisers, select for the administrative and judicial offices of that Territory men who are wise enough and able enough to enforce the laws; and that, I may say, has been the great difficulty for the last twenty years that the Government of the United States is far from being free from criticism upon that point. It will do so much.

Now if there be in this Mormon church a body of people, as we believe there are, who have no more faith in this idea of polygamy than any Senator who hears me has, as a fact, and who wish to discourage it, and who wish to emancipate themselves from the tyranny of this hierarchy that now has its foot on their necks, there will be a chance for them to assert themselves.

It is true that this is something like what the Senator from Georgia and