civil service law was enforced throughout all the departments, regardless of the unfriendliness of many of the department chiefs and congressmen and senators. Certain rules prescribed the methods of selecting government employees by competitive examinations, fairly conducted and open to all. There was a constant struggle all over the country to evade these rules, and to slip in political favorites without examinations. This gave Commissioner Roosevelt plenty of fighting to his taste. He had pitched battles with influential postmasters and collectors in various parts of the country, with powerful congressmen and senators and with at least one member of the President's Cabinet itself.

In a magazine article he sketched the kind of persistent warfare that he was called on to wage: "There is a certain order of intellect — sometimes an order of senatorial intellect - which thinks it funny to state that a first-class young man, thoroughly qualified in every respect, has been rejected for the position of letter-carrier, because he was unable to tell the distance from Hong Kong to the mouth of the Yangtsekiang, or answer questions of a similar nature. A senator, for instance, makes statements

of this character. I then write to him and ask him his foundation for such an assertion. Presumably he never receives my letter, for he never answers it. I write him again with no better results. I then publish a contradiction in the newspapers. Then some enterprising correspondent interviews him and he states the question is true, but it is beneath his dignity to reply to Mr. Roosevelt."

While Mr. Roosevelt was a member, the Commission adopted many common-sense measures aimed to bring public employment within reach of the people of all sections and of all parties. It began the custom of holding examinations all over the country for clerkships in Washington. Then, when a large number of members of Congress voted against a proper appropriation for the expenses of the Commission, Mr. Roosevelt cured them of their hostility by discontinuing the examinations in the districts from which they came. He argued that if the Commission was not to have enough money, it was only fair to spend what it had on the districts whose representatives had shown by their vote that they desired the service.

Southern members, being Democrats, and not of

the

party in power, were generally suspicious of the Commission. Mr. Roosevelt assembled the correspondents of the Southern press, and, through them, said to the people of that section: "This is an institution not for Republicans and not for Democrats, but for the whole American people. It belongs to them and will be administered as long as I stay here in their interest without discrimination." The young men of the South responded to this open invitation and began to take the examinations and receive appointments, all of which had the effect on public opinion which Mr. Roosevelt had sought. The Southern people knew his national reputation for saying what he meant and they took him at his word.

When an independent mayor was chosen in New York, Mr. Roosevelt was anxious to have a hand in the government of his native city. At first he was offered the place of Street Cleaning Commissioner. He thought he had no special fitness for the work of that department and declined the appointment. Then he was appointed President of the Board of Police Commissioners, an office which he accepted with enthusiasm.

He had been six years on the Civil Service Commission at Washington and naturally felt that he had done all that he could in that work. He had seen the service greatly extended and had done more than any other man to make the system understood and appreciated by the people at large.

Incidentally, he had gained a close insight into the organization and operation of the entire executive department of the national government, a rare experience which would serve him well in due time.

AT THE HEAD OF THE NEW YORK POLICE

President of the New York Police Commission, under Mayor Strong, from May, 1895, to April, 1897.- Wrestling with one of the most corrupt bodies in the world. - Stopping blackmail and political influence. Loafing patrolmen surprised by the Commissioner at all hours of the night and in all sections of the city.Enforcing the Sunday liquor law. - Turns German jeers into cheers. — Praise from the saloon-keepers. — The boon to the poor of the East Side from closing saloons on Sunday. Seizing unfit tenement houses. Protecting an antiJewish agitator with Jewish policemen.

As president of the New York Police Board, Mr. Roosevelt was only one of four members. He went to work with such vigor, however that the public held him responsible for the entire Commission. The mayor himself was overshadowed. National attention was drawn to a merely local office, and the press of the country discussed this police commissioner and his running fight for law and order in the metropolis, as a subject of general interest.

A Washington newspaper correspondent, describing his call at the office of the Commission in Mulberry Street, wrote: "Theodore Roosevelt is