reporting on behalf of the Maryland Association, he said that it had been living of late a "tranquil life," and Mr. Bonaparte had also afforded him an explanation as to why the same was true of the District Association. This explanation was the demoralizing influence of propinquity; Baltimore, the home of the Maryland Association, being so very near to Washington.

Seriously, however, the District Association has reason to congratulate itself, as does the League, in the important fact that President Roosevelt, in his recent annual message to Congress, recommended that the provisions of the Civil Service Law be extended so far as to include the municipal government of the District. Legislation of this character, the local association had been endeavoring to secure ever since its organization, and it has had in this effort the earnest support of the Board of Commissioners for the District, as well as the Board of Trade, and other reform organizations. In addition, the officers of the District Association had been of some assistance to the officials of the League, in matters pending before Congress, as for instance, in the case of the Veterans' Preference Bill, consideration of which by the Senate, at least, the Association had been enabled to prevent at the last session of the last Congress, and the Association felt, as did all civil service reformers, that it had every reason to feel very hopeful regarding the progress of the movement, and that at the next annual meeting it was hoped that a still more favorable report would be made to the League by the attending representatives of the local association.

Mr. H. J. Milligan, for the Indiana Association:

The Association in Indiana has been doing some good work in the past year. In March, last, a committee was appointed to investigate certain alleged abuses in the Indianapolis post-office. While these were not violations of the letter of the civil service law, they were violations certainly of the spirit of the law, in this-as was shown by the report of the Investigating Committee-that certain "places" had been made for dependents of Congressmen and Senators, where the public service did not demand the services of the persons appointed. In one notable instance a place was made and a new office created in the post-office where the postmaster did not ask for the place to be made, where the appointee was capable of discharging very few duties, and where he really had little or nothing to do. But, so far as we are able to learn, the civil service law has, as it stands, been very faithfully observed in Indiana by the Federal officers.

We have in Indiana no State civil service law. Our State institutions, however, have been managed for several years on a non-partisan plan to the great advantage of the service. In the city and county government we are wallowing in the mire of favoritism and bossism; but the example of the Federal civil service law, before a great while, I am sure, will lead to the adoption by the State of the merit system, and we are moving, slowly perhaps, but surely, to that end.

Mr. George McAneny, for the New York Association:

Since the passage of the State civil service act of April 19, 1899, both New York State and city have had an admirable set of civil service rules. In the city, for fifteen months prior to that date and under the virtually unrestricted control of the Tammany administration, the rules had been very imperfect, and many hundreds of appointments had been made without examination through the methods that they allowed. Under the revised code, which in the case of the city was promulgated on July 11, 1899, while the improvement has been very marked, some opportunities for evasion have still remained. With almost every officer of the city government bent on defeating the purposes of the law, by all practicable means, this is perhaps not surprising, but I should say that the genuine operation of the merit system has gone at least "half way," and possibly more than half.

Incidentally, the results of the evasions of the rules in some of our more prominent departments, have offered some striking instances of the necessity of civil service reform. I will mention, by way of example, three departments, those of Police, Street Cleaning, and Public Health.

In the Police Department the promotion examinations were so arranged that 75 per cent. of the rating of candidates was fixed by the Board of Police Commissioners themselves for the "record" of the men, leaving 25 per cent. only for the written examination, with reference to their knowledge of laws and ordinances, rules and regulations, their capacity for making reports, etc., etc. The Civil Service Reform Association discovered that in such important examinations as those for promotion from sergeant to captain, and from roundsman to sergeant, these ratings were fixed arbitrarily by the Police Board, without reference to the actual merit of the men, and for the purpose clearly of placing them in such positions upon the eligible list that they might be at once reached for appointment. At the request of the Association a formal investigation was held by the State Civil Service Commission, as the result of which these examinations were officially discredited. The eligible lists were set aside, suits were commenced to oust the nineteen persons already appointed as captains, and the rules were so amended that in the future the examination will be based wholly upon the merit and fitness of the men and will be in no degree within the control of the Police Department. New examinations are now being held under this system for all of these higher grades.

The significance of this change is highly important. It has long been the understanding that while it has been possible to promote men to the higher posts in the Police Department arbitrarily, and by manipu lation of the rules, such appointments, very often, have either been given by favor or sold outright. Where men have paid for their places it is their natural instinct to recoup themselves by levying blackmail upon others, and there can be no doubt that this pernicious system has been at the bottom of a large part of the iniquity with which the New York Police Department has been charged. The new system renders this sort of thing almost impossible, and the men who are selected on their merits

without dependence on favor, political or commercial, are pretty certain to make far better disciplinarians and more honest policemen.

In the Street Cleaning Department, while the Tammany Commissioners have retained perhaps two-thirds of the men who served in the lower grades under Col. Waring, they have by skilful management made political favor the rule in filling the higher places, and the result has been a destruction of discipline, and the degradation of the efficiency of the Department to a degree rarely, if ever, reached before, The previous experience of the Commissioner of Street Cleaning himself had been that of a "book-maker" at various suburban race tracks. This failure of civil service reform at the top, carried out through various grades down to the sweepers, has been, as I have said, demoralizing, and is largely, no doubt, the cause of the wretched condition of the streets to-day. The death rate of New York City for the early part of December is 3 degrees higher than it was in the corresponding period a year ago.

Our Board of Health is charged with the inspection of various trades, and of the sale of fruit, vegetables, milk and other perishable commodities. Many of the inspectors employed for this work were smuggled in through evasion of the rules. Some of them, during the earlier period, were appointed temporarily. There is one case at least in which the results were curiously significant, when a batch of these appeared for examination for permanent retention. The Civil Service examiners had invited suggestions for questions from the office of the Board of Health itself. Some eighteen or twenty specimens of fish and other foods were sent to the examining rooms, labeled by numbers, and the candidates were required, after an inspection of the samples, to write down the names and qualities of each. Before the actual examination, however, the examiners changed these numbers about. One of the temporary people promptly tumbled into the trap and wrote on his paper the numbered list as the Board of Health had originally prepared it, calling his mackerel "lobster," etc., etc. The connivance of some one in the office of that department was clearly shown, and the examination was cancelled. An interesting side-light is thrown, however, on the fitness of the men originally chosen for this highly important class of work.

Another function of the Board of Health has been to examine the sanitary condition of tenements. For this purpose, under an act of 1895, a corps of fifty patrolmen were assigned from the main police force, and were known locally as the Sanitary Squad. The act in question required that they should pass a civil service examination as to their special fitness and understanding of the tenement work before the assignments were made. When the present charter was passed and Tammany came into power to administer it, it was promptly claimed by the Health Department that the requirement for a civil service examination for the sanitary policemen was impliedly repealed. Most of the trained men on the squad were accordingly returned to patrol duty, and the force since then has been made up of men selected without examination, on the theory that the sanitary places are "easy berths," the patrolmen fortunate enough to be assigned to them being selected by the Commissioner of Police for reasons of his own. The creation of our new Tenement De

partment, which will be established on January first next, will remedy this state of affairs, but a deal of damage has already been done.

While these have been some of the discouraging conditions, there have been many things to encourage us. Most important of all the examinations, so far as they have in fact been used, have been prepared on sensible lines, and conducted with thorough honesty.

The new charter, which will go into effect on January first, and under which Mr. Low, as Mayor, will reorganize the municipal service, is a very great improvement upon the charter it replaces. The Civil Service Commission, which it is proposed shall be increased in membership from three to seven, will have largely increased powers. It will have the same authority to investigate conditions in the public service with reference to the administration of the civil service law, as a committee of the Legislature would have. It may summon witnesses, compel the production of books and papers, and administer oaths. It is not unlikely to be one of the principal agencies through which Mr. Low will carry on his work of general municipal reform, and there can be little doubt that, with the Mayor's approval, it will have the power to place the civil service rules and classification themselves upon a stronger basis than ever before. I believe that the opportunity that is now offered in New York to identify civil service reform in a conspicuous way with economy in administration, and with the creation of municipal order, is one of the most encouraging facts in the situation that the League at this meeting has in view.

Mr. R. Francis Wood, for the Pennsylvania Association: Mr. Wood reported that, as the League had been told on former occasions. the only civil service law in the State was one applying to the City of Philadelphia, and was defective chiefly in not providing proper machinery for carrying out its provisions. The Mayor and heads of departments constitute the Civil Service Board, and make no reports of their proceedings, nor will they admit members of the Association or other citizens to the examinations. It is known that examinations are held, as the City Controller, who has to certify to the salary list of the City, requires a card to be filed with him giving the date when each man is examined, and these cards have been inspected by members of the Association from time to time; but we believe the whole system, as carried out, is nearly valueless, the rules being framed so as to effectually nullify the provisions of the act.

The Association hopes soon to begin again an agitation in favor of civil service reform, confining its efforts chiefly, however, to colleges throughout the State. In the Federal offices few or no complaints of violation of the Civil Service Law or Rules have been made during the past year.

Col. John W. Ela, for the Chicago Association:

During the eleven months of 1901 there have been 63 examinations by the Civil Service Commission of Chicago, of which 45 were original entry examinations (30 in the official and 15 in the skilled labor service) and 18 promotional examinations.

The promotional examinations have been given special attention in the past year. The new rule requires such examinations whenever there are two or more persons who have worked a year in the grade below. The object is to make advancement to higher ranks and pay depend upon meritorious work in the rank below. The daily records of conduct and efficiency form the principal elements in promotional examinations. These daily records, which were introduced early in the year, and from which the Commission receives monthly reports from each Bureau, have been steadily increasing in accuracy, the tendency to mark everybody 100 having been gradually subdued. They are also required to be produced in hearings on charges of incompetency, and their correctness is now seldom impeached. The Commission expects that the annual reports of the heads of departments at the end of the year will show such a saving, over previous years, in the cost of doing the city's work, as will reflect credit on these efficiency records, and on the character of the civil service examinations.

Under Section 12 of the Act (the removal section) during the eleven months the Commission has held 51 hearings, resulting in 32 removals from the service of the city, II suspensions, without pay, for varying periods, and 8 cases where the charges were not sustained. In addition to these, there have been numerous investigations by the Commission in cases of complaints growing out of laying off for want of funds or work and reinstatements and other alleged violations of the rules of the Commission.

There are two Trial Boards appointed by the Civil Service Commission, one in the Police and the other in the Fire Department. The decision of these Boards and the testimony taken in each case are reported to the Commission, and the decision must be approved by the Commission to be effective.

The Police Trial Board has heard 104 cases in the last eleven months, removing 17 men from the force, and the Fire Trial Board 50 cases, with 12 removals. A large proportion of the results of these cases, before both Boards, being fines or deductions from pay. These Boards, up to the first of last month, consisted of the higher officers in the Departments respectively, with a representative from the office of the Civil Service Commission. For what it believed to be good reasons, the Commission has made a change in the Police Trial Board, and it now consists of two of the Civil Service Commissioners and one Inspector of Police.

All but a small percentage of the entire city service is now working under the provisions of the Civil Service Act, and after examination and certfication by this Commission. I believe it is generally conceded that the efficiency of the recent examinations has been pretty constantly increasing, and that the incompetents-whether they are there on account of improper examinations or other causes-are being gradually weeded

out.

Our Supreme Court has settled the constitutionality of the Civil Service Act upon nearly, if not quite, every possible point, and yet the law is now passing through a period of apparent storm and stress, in which there is considerable noise but no real danger. Its opponents in