CAMBRIDGE: Richard Henry Dana, W. W. Vaughan and Morrill Wyman, Jr.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY: C. L. McGovern.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: John W. Douglass, John Joy Edson, Harry English, Charles C. Glover, H. H. Glassie, Geo. Wm. Hill, Rev. Teunis S. Hamlin, Dr. Frank S. Howe, Francis E. Leupp, Tallmadge A. Lambert, Charles Lyman, Rev. Dr. Alex. Mackay-Smith, Henry B. F. MacFarland, Theodore W. Noyes, Charles W. Stetson, Frederick L. Siddons, A. L. Sturtevant, Gen. Ellis Spear, C. C. Snow, Rufus H. Thayer and Adolph G. Wolf.

HOPKINSVILLE, KY.: James Roaman.

INDIANA: Wm. Dudley Foulke.

NASHVILLE, TENN.: Herman Justi.

NEW YORK: Carl Schurz, Silas W. Burt, Charles Collins, Alfred Bishop Mason, George McAneny, George Haven Putnam, W. J. Schieffelin, Oscar S. Straus, Henry Villard, C. W. Watson and Everett P. Wheeler.

PHILADELPHIA: Herbert Welsh, Charles Chauncey, W. W. Montgomery, Charles Richardson, Edward S. Sayres and R. Francis Wood.

PRINCETON COLLEGE: H. B. Armes, A. G. Lybyer, W. E. Lampe and W. J. Wright.

ROCHESTER: Elbridge L. Adams.

ST. PAUL, MINN.: Charles P. Noyes and A. R. Kiefer. YALE UNIVERSITY: Lanier McKee.

In response to invitations extended by the League to affiliated societies, delegates were also present from a number of such organizations, as follows:

BOSTON:-Massachusetts Reform Club: Andrew Fiske and Samuel Y. Nash.

Municipal League: Samuel B. Capen, J. G. Thorp, Jr. and Arthur Hobart.

CAMBRIDGE.-Library Hall Association: R. H. Dana, J. G. Thorp, Jr. and Morrill Wyman, Jr.

MARIETTA, O.- Citizens' Association: Prof. John C. Shedd.

NEW YORK.-Council of Confederated Good Government Clubs: Wm J. Schieffelin and M. D. Rothschild.

Board of Trade and Transportation: Oscar S. Straus. PHILADELPHIA.—Municipal League: Charles Richardson and Herbert Welsh.

TROY, N. Y.-City Club: Mont G. Curtis.

Citizens' Association: Rev. T. P. Sawin.

WASHINGTON.-Civic Centre: John M Gregory Rev. Alex. Kent, Charles Lyman, Mrs. Ellen S. Mussey, Miss Josephine Clark, Rev. Dr. S. M. Newman, Edwin Willetts and V. F. Willoughby.

Board of Trade: Henry F. Blount, Gardiner G. Hubbard, Myron M. Parker, Simon Wolf, John B. Wright and S. W. Woodward.

The morning session of the 12th, commencing at 10.30 o'clock, was occupied by a joint meeting of the General and Executive Committees, held in the rooms of the Cosmos Club.

At 2.30 o'clock in the afternoon, an open meeting of the League was held at the Cosmos Club, the president in the chair. An address of welcome was made by Hon. Charles R. Ross, president of the Board of District Commissioners, who was introduced by Mr. John Joy Edson, president of the Civil Service Reform Association, of the District of Columbia.*

• Page 48.

The president then withdrew, calling Mr. Sherman S. Rogers to the chair, and the following papers were read:

"The Appointment and Tenure of Postmasters." Richard Henry Dana.*

"The Important Function of Civil Service Reform." F. L. Siddons.t

"Results of Recent Agitation of Consular Service Reform." Jonathan A. Lane.‡

"Superannuation in the Civil Service." Wm. Dudley Foulke. §

The annual address of the president, "Congress and the Spoils System," was delivered at Metzerott's Hall at 8 o'clock on the evening of the 12th. It is as follows:

* Page 51. + Page 60. + Page 63. § Page 76.

CONGRESS AND THE SPOILS SYSTEM.

An Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the National Civil Service Reform League at Washington, D. C., December 12, 1895.

BY HON. CARL SCHURZ.

It is with a feeling of peculiar satisfaction that I greet the fifteenth annual meeting of the national Civil Service Reform League at the seat of the National Government-the place where the necessity of the Reform we advocate has been most conspicuously demonstrated, and where also its most conspicuous and fruitful successes have been achieved.

No intelligent observer who visits Washington from time to time can fail to be struck with the evidences of the constant growth of the national Government in the magnitude and scope of its functions, corresponding to the multiplication of the public and private interests that come into contact with it. From a thin string of agricultural settlements on the Atlantic coast, here and there dotted with small trading towns, this Republic has in a century expanded into a vast empire spanning a continent, excelling in wealth and material power every other nation on the globe. With its growth it has. changed its character. Its bucolic stage has long been passed. Its agricultural interests, however great, have lost their former predominance. That great store of rich virgin lands which formerly offered homes and sustenance to the advancing population, has shrunk to petty proportions, and will soon altogether cease to play

an important part in our social development. The expansion of our industrial activities and of our facilities of communication has attracted large masses of humanity to our cities, several of which are already far beyond the million line, while others are pressing hard upon it. According to present appearances the time is not very distant when a majority of the American people will be congregated in towns. Altogether, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that in some important respects we are approaching the social conditions of the old world. It is true, we still observe striking and essential differences, but they are gradually growing less.

Under these circumstances the municipal governments of our large cities are confronted by problems of unaccustomed and constantly increasing magnitude and complexity; and the State and national governments, too, find themselves burdened with new duties and responsibilities which force an enlargement of their functions and their machinery, and more exactingly tax their working capacity as well as their wisdom. I do not mean to inquire here whether this expansion of the province of government is desirable or undesirable, but merely to point it out as a fact and to invite attention to some of its consequences.

There are certain propositions so self-evident and so easily understood that it would appear like discourtesy to argue them before persons of intelligence. Such a one it is, that as the functions of government grow in extent, importance and complexity, the necessity grows of their being administered not only with honesty, but also with trained ability and knowledge; and that in the same measure as this necessity is disregarded in a democratic government, the success and the stability of democratic institutions will be impaired. But while every sane man accepts this proposition as self-evident in theory, it may be said that every opponent of Civil Service Reform denies it in practice and, I regret to add, a good many men deny it in practice who would object to being called opponents of Civil Service Reform.

When I speak of the success and stability of demo