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ANNUAL MEETING

OF THE

NATIONAL CIVIL SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE.

PURSU

DECEMBER 14 AND 15, 1905

URSUANT to a call, duly issued, the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the National Civil Service Reform League was held at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the 14th and 15th of December, 1905. Delegates from Civil Service Reform Associations and Auxiliaries in attendance during the several sessions were the following:

BUFFALO: Walter J. Shepard, Ansley Wilcox. CAMBRIDGE: Richard Henry Dana, W. W. Vaughan. CHICAGO: James S. Handy, W. B. Moulton, Merritt Starr, Joseph Mason.

CINCINNATI: Max B. May.

CONNECTICUT: Dr. Amos P. Wilder.

INDIANA: Harry J Milligan, Lucius B. Swift. MASSACHUSETTS: Richard Henry Dana, Samuel Y. Nash, W. W. Vaughan.

NEW YORK: Hon. A. W. Cooley, Elliot H Goodwin, J. A. Gwynne, Henry W. Hardon, Albert de Roode.

WISCONSIN Irving M. Bean, John A. Butler, Glenway Maxon, Charles G. Stearn.

WOMEN'S AUXILIARY OF MASSACHUSETTS: Miss Ellen C. Sabin.

In response to invitations issued by the League to municipal reform associations and to other bodies interested in the reform of the civil service, delegates were present from a number of such organizations as follows: CITY CLUB Of New York: Elliot H. Goodwin.

GOOD GOVERNMENT CLUB OF CAMBRIDGE: Richard Henry Dana.

MASSACHUSETTS REFORM CLUB: Samuel Y. Nash. OUTDOOR ART ASSOCIATION: Miss Grace Young. VOTERS' MUNICIPAL LEAGUE OF MINNEAPOLIS: Stiles P. Jones.

INVITED GUESTS: Hon. A. W. Cooley, Hon. Ernest Warner, General F. C. Winckler, Hon. Samuel E. Sparling, Professor John A. Fairlie, Joseph C. Mason, Charles S. Fowler, John C. Birdseye.

THE

MEETINGS OF THE LEAGUE.

'HE headquarters of the League during the period of the meeting were at the Hotel Pfister, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The proceedings at the several general sessions of the League, commencing the afternoon of December 14, were as follows:

FIRST SESSION.

HOTEL PFISTER,

THURSDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 14.

THE League convened at 2.30 P. M. In the absence

of the President and Vice-Presidents, Mr. Richard Henry Dana, Chairman of the Council of the League, took the chair.

The minutes of the last annual meeting having been printed and distributed, the reading of the same was, on motion, omitted.

President Charles R. Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin, delivered an address of welcome,1 to which Mr. Dana, on behalf of the League, made a response.2

Hon. Samuel E. Sparling, President of the Wisconsin State Civil Service Commission, read a paper entitled the Merit System in Wisconsin, which was followed by a brief discussion of some of the features of the Wisconsin civil service law.

Hon. William B. Moulton, President of the Illinois State Civil Service Commission, read a paper entitled Civil Service Reform in Illinois.4

2

Printed in full at page 94; at page 97; at page 100; at page 114.

In the absence of Mr. A. O. Harrison, the Secretary of the Kansas City Civic League, and of Hon. F. J. Chamberlin, of the Civil Service Commission of Denver, their papers entitled respectively, Kansas City and Civil Service Reform,1 and The Progress of Civil Service Reform in Colorado,2 were, upon motion, ordered to be printed in the proceedings of the meeting.

The Chairman then asked Mr. Stiles P. Jones, Secretary of the Voters' League of Minneapolis, to speak on the progress that had been made in that city under the present administration toward the placing of appointments to office on a basis of merit.

Mr. Jones:

I can give no very cheerful news from Minneapolis of accomplishment or effort toward civil service reform, either in city or State administration. There is this encouraging feature, however, that the conditions for agitation of the subject, looking to practical results in the future, are certainly more favorable than at any time within my knowledge. Sentiment for higher standards of municipal performance in Minneapolis is making very satisfactory progress. The people are getting constantly more out of sorts with the inefficiency and demoralization accompanying the present partisan and political administration of city business, and I can see the time coming when they will welcome the addition of some measure of civil service regulation in the management of the details of local government.

Partisanship and party fealty are abating much in intensity in Minneapolis, in part through the working of the direct primary system-in effect in Minneapolis for the past six years and in the State for four years. The voters are taking a more business-like attitude in the selection of their municipal servants. Civil service regulations, covering the operation of some of the city departments, is the next natural and logical step.

Some effort has already been made to this end. A civil service clause making practical application of the

1

2

Printed in full at page 117; at page 124.

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