of Ohio, among the Republicans, and Messrs. Wilson, of West Virginia, and Sayers, of Texas, among the Democrats. Among others whom Mr. Roosevelt mentions as having been active champions of the law in the lower house were Messrs. Hopkins and Butterworth of Illinois, Mr. Greenhalge of Massachusetts, Mr. Henderson of Iowa, Messrs. Payne, Tracy and Coombs of New York. Among its chief opponents were Messrs. Spinola of New York, Enloe of Tennessee, Stockdale of Mississippi, Grosvenor of Ohio, and Bowers of California. In the Senate Hoar of Massachusetts, Allison of Iowa, Hawley of Connecticut, Wolcott of Colorado, Perkins of California, Cockrell of Missouri, and Butler of South Carolina always supported the Commission against unjust attack. Senator Gorman was the chief leader of the assaults upon the Commission, Senators Harris, Plumb, Stewart and Ingalls being his allies. Mr. Roosevelt was so active and impartial in his enforcement of the law that when President Cleveland, in 1893, succeeded President Harrison, he asked Mr. Roosevelt to remain in office, and so for two years more, under a Democratic President, he carried on the work of prosecuting offenders against the Civil Service law. In his six years' service he added twenty thousand posts to the lists under the scope of the merit system, or more than were placed on that roll in an equal length of time before or since. Mr. Roosevelt had thus proved that Civil Service, honestly administered, was of practical value. Indeed, he goes so far as to say there is in American life no other cause so fruitful of harm to the body politic as the spoils system. He does not believe that competitive examinations in all cases result in securing the best men. Indeed, such examinations, shrewdly manipulated, may easily defeat the end aimed at. But if there is an honest desire on the part of the authorities to secure good results there is no doubt that the public service may be steadily raised to a higher state of efficiency. Mr. Roosevelt resigned as Civil Service Commissioner May 5, 1895, and was appointed Police Commissioner of New York city May 24 following. CHAPTER X. PURIFYING CITY POLITICS. ROOSEVELT APPOINTED PRESIDENT OF POLICE BOARD OF THE CITY SUNDAY CLOSING LAW MADE ASSASSINATION BY DYNAMITE. The appointment of Mr. Roosevelt by Mayor Strong to the presidency of the Police Commission aroused a storm of protests from the corrupt politicians who had now come to fear and hate him with a bitterness born of repeated exposures and defeats at his hands. He had introduced into politics a new element, with which the men who controlled the machines were not at all familiar, and they resented it as a tiger resents the appearance of a higher vertebrate animal in the jungle where heretofore he has held undisputed sway. That a man might be honest in office, so far as his personal affairs were concerned, they could well believe. Indeed, it was necessary for the success of the machine that there should be such men in office. They were the leaven for the loaf of elections; the "honorable men" with which to fill the platforms at public meetings, whose names might head the lists of representatives of the party in the public prints. Good men were as necessary to the machine as bad men. But their goodness must be negative; a goodness that did not extend far beyond itself and was satisfied and complacent in the contemplation of its own virtues. But positive goodness was another matter, dangerous, destructive and not to be entertained. Mr. Roosevelt, not being a negative, but a radically positive character, they found no place for him in their combinations. He would not have peace on any terms short of absolute honesty and efficiency. He had been offensive enough to the spoilsmen while he was in Washington, fighting day and night for the enforcement of the National Civil Service Law. have him at the head of the Police Board of the city of New York meant war on corruption and no quarter. It was not to be borne. He must be crushed at the outset. After all, it was only one man against ten thousand, and the thousands had this one in their territory. To This was the feeling of the machine politi cians in New York when, on May 5, 1895, Theodore Roosevelt accepted the presidency of the newly appointed Police Board, with the understanding that the duty of that board was to cut out the chief source of civic corruption in the city by cleansing the police department. At the city election the previous fall William S. Strong had been elected Mayor on an anti-Tammany platform, by a coalition composed partly of the regular Republicans, partly of anti-Tammany Democrats, and partly of independents. The business depression throughout the country in 1893, which resulted in a general suspension of industries, followed by idleness and vagrancy, had caused a political reaction against the Democratic party, which was then in power, and this feeling no doubt contributed more or less to the success of the reform ticket; but it is doubtful if the result would have been materially changed had the National Democratic party still held favor with the people. Crime and lawlessness had grown to such enormous proportions under the protection of the dominant party in New York that even the dullest and most careless citizen felt the gravity of the situation. Corruption had honeycombed every department of the |