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had we not felt obliged to restrict our offer of pamphlets, free of charge, to 25 copies to each school. A superintendent in one town asked for copies for 42 teachers, while a request for 600 primers came from Omaha, Nebraska. We are now beginning extensive work outside of Massachusetts. There has been a steady demand for our high school pamphlets by Mr. Edward Cary and Mr. Woodruff. A special effort in Pennsylvania has resulted in the application of 55 schools for 6,000 pamphlets. During the past year requests have come from 325 high schools and colleges, and the number of pamphlets used in our school work reaches a total of 30,000.

In addition to these, 16,000 pamphlets have been distributed to clubs and individuals. Large numbers have been supplied for meetings of the State Federations of Women's Clubs in Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Vermont and Wisconsin.

A beautiful medal has been designed for the new York Auxiliary and ourselves by Miss Frances Grimes, who has given lavishly of time, strength and talent. Our grateful acknowledgement is due to Mr. Saint-Gaudens for the generous contribution of his invaluable criticism and inspiration to this medal, an additional example of the public-spiritedness of the sculptor, who is constantly giving his services to further the civic or artistic development of the country. Bronze replicas of this medal may be ordered by our members and clubs in Massachusetts to offer as the reward for school prize essays on civil service reform. Eight successful competitors were awarded this medal last spring, one in Worcester, the others in Brookline. The medal will be, we feel, far more valuable than any money prize in teaching the meaning both of the subject and the reward. The figure of a woman typifying the State with the impartial scales in one hand is specially timely and suggestive in this autumn of civic victories, and the words "The best shall serve the State" were written for the medal by her whose life has fulfilled them, whose death now illumines them with rays of light,Mrs. Charles Russell Lowell.

The re-appearance in the Massachusetts Legislature. of the Spanish War Veterans' Preference bill called again

for our active opposition. The signatures collected by us in protest to this bill amounted to 5,180 and represented 75 cities and towns, a striking advance to the numbers of the previous year. Later the total signatures received rose to 6,844, of which 3,484 were sent in by 107 clubs, as a result of the devoted and systematic work of the State Federation Civil Service Reform Committee. Mr. R. D. Weston Smith most kindly gave us his services as counsel at the hearing, when nearly one hundred were present to oppose the bill. The immediate and unanimous referring of it to the next General Court was the speediest and most decisive blow which the bill has yet received.

The investigation of our 21 county jails is at last completed. This work was undertaken by us to aid the Massachusetts Association in its attempt to include the county offices under the civil service law of Massachusetts.

The "Federation Bulletin" continues to be a most useful organ for the spread of short articles on civil service reform which are supplied both by ourselves and others. As the 'Bulletin," published originally for the Massachusetts Federation alone, has now become also the official journal of the General Federation of Women's Clubs as well as of the Federations of Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York, its helpfulness to our cause is constantly increasing.

The interest in the merit system shown by Mrs. Decker, President of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, has had its influence in Massachusetts as elsewhere and last year many clubs responded to her suggestion of devoting a meeting in January to the subject. It is difficult indeed to make the supply of speakers meet the demand and it is only possible through the sacrifice of personal and professional interests by Messrs. Dana, Vaughan, Brooks and Kennedy of the Massachusetts Association and through the indefatigable zeal of Miss Bacon, Mrs. Oakley, Miss Whittier and our President, Mrs. Cabot. Our Assistant Secretary, Miss Nichols, has spoken at eighteen meetings during the year.

At this Milwaukee meeting our last word must be of

one of our Executive Committee, Miss Perkins of Concord, for here in Milwaukee five years ago she made the appeal to clubwomen to take up this great cause. This beginning has already resulted in a Civil Service Reform Committee in the General Federation of Women's Clubs and in 17 State Federations, with sub-committees in 14 more. It is an illustration of the grain of mustard seed but the great flourishing of that seed must have been the blessing deserved by the consecration of spirit of her who sowed it.

Mr. Lucius B. Swift submitted the following report from the Civil Service Reform Association of Indiana:

As to Indiana there is little new to be added to the report of last year. In one respect public opinion in Indiana as regards the merit system is at present in something of a fossilized condition. It will be remembered that years ago we had a long and very bitter struggle over the misuse of our public institutions by the spoils system. No civil service law was the result of that struggle,. but public opinion was so thoroughly aroused that party machines no longer dared use the public institutions as mere spoils without regard to the welfare of the inmates. Out of these circumstances has grown a practice which is in effect very near the merit system. The boards of control represent both political parties and are appointed by the governor and may, under certain conditions, be removed by him. Yet when parties change in the State government the boards are not changed, and it is now difficult to get an employee out of one of these institutions by reason of politics or to get a new employee in on the same ground. With things as they are, when we speak of the necessity of a civil service law people point to the State institutions and ask what more we can want since we already have practically the merit system. But it will be observed that everything is practically under the control of the governor and if sometime we should have a governor like our old friend Tom Taggart, we might get a lesson as to what a governor could do unrestrained by a civil service law. It may be that we shall have to endure the wreck and ruin which some such governor might cause before we can secure such a law. In our cities and

counties generally, while there are marks of improvement, yet partisanship is still responsible for an immense amount of very bad government.

The United States grand jury has recently indicted Col. Huffman under the charge of violating the civil service law by soliciting assessments in a government building at Goshen. Col. Huffman has been one of the wheel horses of the organization and his indictment has created consternation among a large body of other wheel horses. Their indignation has centered upon the district attorney, who is himself a leader of leaders among wheel horse teams. "Can it be possible," they say, "that Joe Kealing has had Col. Huffman indicted?" Of course the district attorney only did his duty; nevertheless, Col. Huffman has publicly stated that one of his defenses will be that he was sent up north to look after campaign funds among government employees by Joe Kealing. It does not appear, however, that the district attorney advised him to violate the law.

I want to say a word about our congressmen. They are always a picturesque and interesting lot. As a rule they are able men, very largely orators, and they are all honest men. But they have been brought up in small country towns, and, generally speaking, they have never grasped the progress which has been made in matters of administrative government. Just now they are making a great outcry because the President proposes to exercise his constitutional duty by selecting officers without giving them their old privilege of "naming" the men. They will get over this and they will find that they are not weaker in their respective districts by reason of this deprivation. In fact, one of them is now actually engaged in reforming the Government Printing Office. It is his first piece of reform work, and it is no exaggeration to say that he enjoys it hugely, and it is also beyond question that this work has raised him more in the estimation of his own district and of the people of the State than anything else he ever did. It is safe to say that when our congressmen begin to grow up to the times, they will grow very rapidly and will lay aside and be ashamed of the old gods.

SECOND SESSION.

A 1

HOTEL PFISTER,

THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 14.

T 8.30 P. M. the League reconvened at the Hotel Pfister. On invitation, Captain Irving M. Bean, the President of the State Civil Service Reform Association of Wisconsin, took the chair.

The Secretary read the following letters, received from Dr. Daniel C. Gilman, President of the League; Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, Secretary of the Navy; and Hon. John Weaver, Mayor of Philadelphia:

Will you be so good as to present to my colleagues and friends in the National Civil Service Reform League the assurance of my regret that it will not be possible for me to attend the meeting in Milwaukee. Early that week I shall be very much engaged in the affairs of the Carnegie Institution, which holds its annual meeting on Tuesday, the twelfth, and marks out the work for the coming year.

We have every reason to congratulate ourselves on the progress of the principles and ideas which underlie our Association. Now it is desirable that these principles and ideas should be understood and accepted in every part of the country, and for that reason I am very glad that the next meeting is to be held in the State of Wisconsin which has been a leader in education and in many other important public services. I hope that other meetings will be held in other States of the interior and of the west. From my point of view it is most desirable that the principles which we recognize should be discussed and, as far as possible, adopted in many other associations than those which pertain to national affairs. Not only political action, but also the action of boards of education and of charities is now, to some extent at least, badly influenced by the endeavor to secure in appointments personal and friendly support, rather than the recognition of ability, character and fitness for the office in question. The more

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