splendid federal and state governments is a constitutional representative democracy.

Constitutional representative democracy is and always ought to be the corner stone of free government. Because of mis-government brought about by the spoils system the radical reformers desire to break down our present system of constitutional representative democracy and substitute in its place a pure democracy by the use of the initiative, unlimited referendum and recall, substituting socialism and communism for individualism, with the attendant evils of government ownership of railroads, coal mines, oil wells and cattle ranches and municipal operation of public utilities.

These suggested remedies are absolutely destructive of constitutional representative democracy and individualism. Why fly to these unknown experiments for the purposes of correcting the abuses of government caused largely by the spoils system?

Why not apply the well known and tried remedy of the merit system which has proven itself to be the sure means for the restoration and preservation of constitutional representative democracy under which we have grown great politically, morally and industrially?

Le us proceed gradually but firmly in supplanting the spoils system with the merit system.

We have begun well in Ohio where the police and fire departments of the seventy-one cities of the State have been removed from politics.

Let us next take the hospitals, infirmaries and jails out of politics. This can be followed by the state charitable institutions and finally extended to all branches and departments of state, county and municipal government.

Begin at first with the non-competitive system as was done in England and gradually substitute for it the open competitive system.

Natives and officials of Ohio have been exemplars, constructors and defenders of the American merit system. Grant urged it upon Congress and appointed the first American civil service commission; Hayes stood upon the first political platform, earnestly advocating a merit system; Garfield was the unhappy victim of the maddened brain of a disappointed spoilsman; Pendleton was the father of the first efficient National Civil Service Law; McKinley raised his voice at all times in Congress in support of appropriations to carry on the great work; Judge Thoman was a member of the first civil service commission under the Pendleton law; Garfield, the Junior, a civil service commissioner under Roosevelt; Taft introduced the merit system into the insular possessions; and under Nash the

merit system was extended to the police and fire departments of seventy-one cities in Ohio.

I have an abiding faith in the conservatism, patriotism and wisdom of our citizens and their representatives and believe that when the time is ripe, Ohio will take her place beside Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin and the Federal Government in making the administrative branch of the Government of Ohio and its counties and cities independent of the other departments.

Education.

(A response at the annual dinner of the Ohio State Board of Commerce, Southern Hotel, Columbus, Ohio, December 17, 1904.)

Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen

I dreamed last night that I was dead, and as the airship-dead-car put me ashore in the other land, I saw just ahead of me a handsome, dapper little gentleman with a red bag in one hand and a bright object in the other. As he trudged along ahead of me up to the gate, I thought, "Now, if I can only take hold of his coat-tails it may be I will be taken in too, because he always gets there." But as I made a dash for my friend, Allen R. Foote,* I was grabbed by a colored messenger of St. Peter who said I would have to wait my turn. I objected strenuously to being held by a colored man, but he reminded me that under the Constitution of the United States, which he said was in force in Heaven, there could be no discrimination on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The little gentleman with the red bag whispered to St. Peter and passed in. I walked up to the gate and St. Peter said, "Where are you from?"

*He had just been présented with a loving cup.

"Ohio," I said.

"What was your occupation?"

I told him.

Then he said, "To what did you ever belong in life?"

I said, "I belonged to a great many organizations and was a member of the Ohio State Board of Commerce."

He said, "You can't come in."

"But you let Foote in," I said, "and he belonged."

"That's true," he answered, "but Foote has his loving cup and has promised to open a cold bottle.'

I told him I was chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, but he said he was very fond of a cold bottle but not of "hot air." He said, “Take the elevator!"

I took the elevator and when I reached the bottom, I found Old Nick waiting. He said, "Hello, James, I'm glad to see you; I've been looking for you," and he offered to show me around. Just then two or three fellows grabbed a woman and put her in the fire and she burned very quickly. I said, "Who is that woman you are treating so cruelly?" He said, "You ought to know; she was the most famous citizen in Ohio."'*

*Cassie Chadwick, who was then under arrest, accused of swindling a number of very able Ohio bankers.