of the service did not at once produce the effect of wholly curing all appointing officers of the widely prevailing spoils disease.

It was found that those of them who were unscrupulous enough to care more for party politics than for the public interest, as well as others who had not courage enough to stand up against the pressure of political influence, would make arbitrary removals for the purpose of opening a chance for some trick by which, in spite of the competitive system, they might put the favorites of power into the vacated places,—and not seldom they succeeded, either by way of arbitrary promotions, or of emergency appointments, or by other devices. And it may be said that nothing has done more to shake the popular belief in the good faith of the merit system than such dishonest practices.

To such artful violations of the spirit of the civil service law President McKinley's order is intended to put a stop. It does not make a removal subject to a formal judicial proceeding. It does not limit the discretion of the executive officer to an extent prejudicial to the discipline of the service; but it does make the reason assigned for every removal as well as the answer thereto a matter of public record, and it will thus render the executive officer for every removal from a place under the competitive rule amenable to the judgment of public opinion as well as to the judgment and the corresponding action of his superiors. The new rule, if carried out with fidelity and firmness, will thus be well apt to rid the service of a very offensive and dangerous abuse, and President McKinley fully deserves all the praise he has received for this achievement.

To secure the enforcement of the order the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Gage, with recommendable promptness issued excellent instructions to executive officers under the Treasury Department prescribing an appropriate mode of procedure, and containing the important injunction that reductions in grade and salary should be treated in all things like removals-this to put a stop to the tricky device followed by some unscrupulous executive officers, of forcing worthy public servants to resign by arbitrarily reducing them to a lower grade which they could not accept with self-respect -a practice most objectionable on account not only of its injustice, but also of its peculiarly sneaking character. This

action on the part of the Sectretary of the Treasury was most praiseworthy, and it is greatly to be hoped that his instructions will be made a uniform rule for all the executive departments that have not yet adopted them.

not.

Nothing would gratify me more than to be able to add that the President's order had already borne all the good fruit which it is expected to bear. But I regret to say that so far it has Many reports have come to us from Washington as well as from other parts of the country which represent executive officers as making or recommending removals or reductions without assigning any just cause, or any cause at all. There is no doubt that some of those reports will, upon careful examination, turn out to be unfounded, or at least exaggerated. But it must also be admitted that some of the cases that have come to our knowledge, bear an exceedingly ugly look and leave scarcely any doubt that the President's order has in those instances been treated with wanton defiance. It

is hardly necessary to say that public officers doing this not only violate their official duty, but are basely disloyal to their chief; especially if they count upon the goodness of his heart to let their offence pass with impunity. For they must know that such leniency on his part would only serve to encourage further defiance and turn the praise he has received for issuing the order into scorn and reproach for permitting it to fall into contempt. It is confidently to be expected that the President, as such offences come to his notice and the facts are fully ascertained, will enforce respect for his order by duly punishing the offenders.

A matter in which not only the civil service reformer, but the whole commercial community takes a lively interest, is the improvement of our consular service. As is well known, certain rules were established under the last administration for the examination of candidates for consular offices drawing $2,500 or less down to $1,000 salary. It is reported that this system is being continued by the State Department, but in what manner and with what effect I am unable to say. Inquiries addressed to the State Department by the officers of this League as to the scope of the examinations and the relative number of those who have succeeded and those who have failed in them, have been answered to the effect that such things are treated as strictly confidential by the Department

and that the information cannot be furnished. I can only repeat what I said in former annual addresses, that a system of mere pass examinations may do some good when conducted with particular conscientiousness and courageous independence from political influence, and may then, as Secretary Olney called his measure, be" a step in the right direction," but that, as all experience has shown, pass examinations are apt to degenerate into a mere matter of form, a mere pretense of a test of qualifications, in which as a rule those succeed who have the strongest backing, and those fail who have none. Pass examinations for the consular service have been tried at various periods, and they have always taken that course. Whether they have or not in the present instance, I am unable to tell, the matter being strictly confidential. But this I may say with assurance: If our commercial community wants a real reform in the method of appointment to consular positions, it must insist upon three things: competitive examinations for admission to the lowest grade of the consular service, promotion only for merit, and removal only for cause, From this rule should, at most, only those few consular positions be excepted that have a diplomatic character.

It

The postmaster, too, is receiving promising attention. is a hopeful sign that the Posmaster-general, a business man not suspected of being a civil service reform theorist, has from a mere business point of view found it expedient to advocate the removal, by Congress, of those restrictions by which the consolidation of minor offices with those which are central, had been hampered. And altough the subjection to proper civil service rules of the fourth class post offices, which so far have furnished the material for the most widespread spoils scandals, may as yet seem ever so far away, still it is approaching and may be nearer than even the most sanguine among us now apprehend.

"The system has the approval of the people, and it will be my endeavor to uphold and extend it." These are the closing words of the paragraph touching civil service reform in the President's annual message. In his endeavor to uphold and extend the merit system the President will have a larger majority of the people on his side than any of his predecessors ever had, for what formerly seemed to be only a dream of idealists, is now a practical fact, well understood and recognized in its

ance.

beneficial effects by the enlightened public opinion of the country. As I pointed out in my last annual address, not one of President McKinley's predecessors has, since the enactment of the civil service law, failed to distinguish his administration by large and important extensions of the domain of the merit system. It would be doing injustice to his motives as well as to his powers to fear that in his achievements President McKinley might remain behind the best of them. He has signalized the very beginning of his administration by an advance of exceeding importAnd now, considering that wellnigh the whole clerical part of the governmental machinery was already under the merit system when he took office, and need only be protected against the wily attempts of spoils politics to invade it, we may hope that President McKinley may recognize it as his part of the great work, to carry the reform beyond those limits. There is good reason for believing that the necessities of the consular service have already engaged his care; and whoever undertakes seriously the task of putting that, as well as any other, branch of the government service upon a footing of thorough efficiency, will soon recognize that the first requirement is its absolute emancipation from the influence of the patronage mongers.

There is a force working for civil service reform which is now far more effective than ever before. It is the character of the opposition to it. As the number of good citizens favoring our cause increased and grew into a majority, the opposition became numerically weaker but far more desperate and vociferous. And the more it becomes desperate and vociferous, the more recklessly it discloses its true nature and its aims. Civil service reform is now gaining in the esteem and friendship of the people, not only by the recognition of its correct principles and in good results, but also "for the enemies, it has made." The very shamelessness with which certain Republican politicians now clamor for the repudiation of their platform pledge to enforce and extend the civil service lawa pledge of which Mr. McKinley in the House of Representatives once said that "if the Republican party is pledged to one thing more than another it is the maintenance of the civil service law, and its enlargement and further application to the service "—the very vehemence with

which they rush upon the President they have just elected, to force him to break his word and to proclaim himself a dishonest man the very audacity with which they seek to deceive the people with the most barefaced falsehoods about the civil service system-and all this for the palpable purpose of looting the government for party spoil-these very exhibitions of unscrupulousness and fury make unprejudiced men, who never cared much about civil service reform, stop and ask: "What does this all mean? Can a fight carried on so indecently be a good fight? Must not the right be on the other side?"

There was a rumor in the newspapers that the opponents of civil service reform planned a national convention to be held in this very city of Cincinnati for the purpose of organizing a grand movement for the overthrow of the civil service law. This plan is very much to be commended and I fervently hope that its promoters will strain every nerve to insure its execution. Nothing could be a more striking object lesson than a grand muster of the enemies of civil service reform in bodily exhibition. Nothing could be more edifying to the people of Ohio than an open denunciation of the honored son of their State who now stands at the head of the republic, by members of his own party for doing his manifest duty as President and patriot. Nothing could be more generally instructive than clear avowals by themselves of their principles and aims.

Their leading statesman, Representative Grosvenor, has already sounded the keynote of their movement by a cry of exultation with which, in a letter to a Washington newspaper, he recently greeted the triumph of that nest of political pirates, Tammany Hall in the city of New York. Mr. Grosvenor says: "The battle cry of Van Wyck (the Tammany candidate for Mayor) is a liberal political education to the people of the United States. He won a victory unprecedented, and he gave out but one great battle cry, and that thrilled through the hearts of a great body of the American people and an echo will be heard. That battle cry was: 'I will put none but Democrats into office in New York."" Mr. Grosvenor can hardly ignore the fact that there was, accompanying this, another and kindred Tammany battle cry: "To hell with reform!" the two watchwords being inseparably united. And then, after this enthusiastic greeting to Tammany Hall, Mr. Grosvenor