instance in enforcing this rule, we have the sympathy and co-operation of the employes' league. The adoption by three commissions, and its use by the public, of a rule by which charges may be filed by citizens against officers and employes in the service, where, in the judgment of the secretary of the commission, the facts alleged under oath by a citizen, and supported by the affidavit of one or more witnesses would, if charged and established, amount to cause for removal of the officer or employe from the service, marks an important departure.

At present, officers of a medical society, members of the Chicago Board of Trade and a labor union are asking the Association to put certain grievances against pubfic officers in shape for a hearing under the civil service laws.

The Mayor of Chicago has requested the city civil service commission to investigate inefficiency and dishonesty in the police force; the chief of police, all of the inspectors, and most of the captains, in all about 150 officers, have been shown to be so entangled with graft, vice and special interests, or so blind and incompetent, that their discharge may be safely prophesied.

By order of the finance committee of the city council, the comptroller's annual budget has been sent the civil service commission for a report on useless positions, regrading and means of cutting out waste in the public payroll.

In reference to the state, Cook County and Chicago. parks civil service commissions, the main problems have arisen in connection with introducing the new laws which went into effect July 1. In all these fields there are anomalies peculiar to a period of transition from a spoils to a merit era.

The state commission is doing its work with exceptional thoroughness and standing up against the political pressure of the transition period. It has made good progress in classifying and standardizing the 2,500 new positions under it, including several hundred in the statehouse itself.

The Cook County commission has unfortunately felt the baneful influence of a president who has handicapped its progress by many abuses.

The three park civil service boards of Chicago introduced a new law with little friction and with excellent constructive achievements.

In several cities outside of Chicago the civil service commissions are making good fights for the integrity and development of the merit system. This is notably true in Waukegan. In Springfield the city commission has introduced the efficiency-recording system. Strong civil service sections appear in a new law for the commission form of government for Illinois cities.

Mr. Charles G. Morris submitted the report from the Civil Service Reform Association of Connecticut:

Connecticut has for about a dozen years been attempting to get some civil service measure from its legislature, either a charter for one or another of our cities or a general bill introducing civil service rules in the state, but until the last legislature we accomplished nothing. This last legislature had left over to it from the preceding session a bill providing for the general introduction of the merit system. The judiciary committee, which had to report on the bill before it was formally presented for legislative action, refused to consider the introduction of the merit system in the state service, but accepted our draft of a measure making it possible for cities to adopt. the system by popular vote. When that bill was presented to the legislature it went through, I believe, without a single dissenting voice in either the House or the Senate, so it was made a non-partisan measure. It did not go into effect until November 1, and we have not had time to take any action under it yet. There are several cities interested and talking seriously of trying to adopt. civil service rules by a vote under this law before another year is over. It may be voted on at any general election or the city council may call a special election for this purpose.

The city of New Haven has had the merit system for a number of years under a loosely drawn charter provision and has had experiences similar to those of other cities under bad mayors and poor boards, but the last two years we have had a good mayor who has strengthened the board. The system is respected in New Haven and apparently working harmoniously and moderately satis

factorily, but not quite as freely as it could work under a better statute. I believe that this is all there is to report from Connecticut.

Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte submitted the report from the Civil Service Reform Association of Maryland:

Mr. President, in Baltimore since the League honored us with her visit, we have had what Mrs. Sioussat not inaptly described as "cataclysmic conditions." We have had not merely the experience of those places where they have had bad mayors and bad commissions, but the experience of an absolutely insupportable Mayor and no commission at all. The present Mayor of Baltimore City was elected in May after two very hotly contested campaigns. His selection as the candidate for the Democratic nomination was made by what it has become customary in Baltimore to call the "Royal Family," which is a modern and somewhat more euphonious name of what we used to call the "Ring." This selection was a surprise, because it was generally thought he was too nearly what the "Royal Family" would consider an ideal mayor for them to imagine that the voters would express approval of their choice. Nevertheless, they did select him, and it turned out that they builded better than we thought they knew, for he was nominated as the Democratic candidate by a large majority and obtained the position, although by a narrow majority and after a close contest.

As I think I have told the League in previous years, the Baltimore public schools have been, ever since our new charter was introduced in 1898, the battle field of an unremitting warfare, a war without truce or parley, between those who want to get rid of the abuses which were imbedded in those schools when they were first brought under civil service reform principles, and those who want those abuses perpetuated and if possible aggravated. The principal subject matter of controversy was the Superintendent of Schools, a Mr. Van Sickle, who had been there from the time of the first choice for the position under the new charter and who had made himself conspicuously and persistently unpleasant to politicians, grafters, lazy teachers and all the various elements that would naturally resent such interference. He had been exposed for a number of years, in fact nearly through

his whole term of office, to continuous hostilities from a portion of the teachers, a portion of the school board, practically all the politicians, and a good many other people in the community, but he had steadily held on and brought about many great improvements in the schools. Matters had come to a head in the school board just a little before the time that the League was in Baltimore, and the net result of that situation was that several vacancies had been created and filled by new commissioners, and the board stood seven to two in favor of Van Sickle and his and our ideas. After our new Mayor came in he found that three of the friends of Mr. Van Sickle had been in less than six months and, therefore, under the terms of the charter could be removed by him without charges or trial. He first asked the board to summarily dismiss Mr. Van Sickle, which they refused to do then he notified these three gentlemen that he would turn them out if they would not vote for Mr. Van Sickle's decapitation, but would leave them in if they would. They declined to consider the suggestion and he actually did dismiss them. He had a good deal of trouble, I am glad to say, in filling the vacancies; but he at last succeeded in getting two young physicians and a tobacconist to take the positions.

Since then, without going into details, which, though interesting, would take up too much time, things have gone from bad to worse and worse to yet worse in the board, and all of the old members have resigned and have been replaced by persons conspicuous, first, for their incompetency, and, secondly, for their sympathy with the Mayor and his ideas. The situation of affairs in our public schools is, therefore, at the present time decidedly unsatisfactory from our standpoint. I am not sure that it is satisfactory to anybody's standpoint just now, because so much odium was created by these proceedings that the results of the last election have not pleased the "Royal Family" at all. I think that they may be said to have worn mourning-I believe Royal Families do wear mourning for a moderate space of time-and they are understood to have been in a state of seclusion from public affairs reflecting; a fact which has not, however, prevented the Mayor from consistently applying the spoils

system in all other departments of the city government as well as the schools.

It may be mentioned that, according to report, medical inspection is to be abolished in the schools, on the ground that it interferes with the politicians and it attended with expense. There has also been a threat of a raid on the fire department. The Maryland Civil Service Reform Association has expressed its view on this situation from time to time. The Executive Committee directed its Chairman and a sub-committee to publish a statement to the effect that the Mayor's action might have been expected from the headman of an African village, but was an anomaly in the chief executive of a great American city of the twentieth century. The members individually joined with such effect as they could in the many protests (and it is creditable to the community to say they were not merely many but earnest) made against these proceedings; and these did not turn out to be merely "hot air," as the results of the last election have in a measure shown.

We also protested against the scheme for doing away with the merit system in the fire department, and it does really seem that, if we have not punctured it, at all events we have delayed its consummation. It appears to be for the moment abandoned.

At the time the League was with us we were hoping for the adoption of a new charter for Baltimore City, or of considerable amendments in the present charter which would contain a very thorough application of the merit system. While these amendments have undergone various vicissitudes, the prospect of relief in that respect is not immediate. At present we have a Republican Governor, or we will have in January, for the first time in many years; but both houses in the Legislature are strongly Democratic. Whether we will get through the charter amendments for Baltimore City or not is very uncertain; in fact, there is considerable danger in agitating their adoption, since one of their features is to considerably increase the powers of the Mayor, and if we continue to have the benefit of the services of the present Mayor, and if the provisions introducing the merit system should be eliminated by the Legislature, which