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believes that it will be followed by proper laws reorganizing and reclassifying the consular and diplomatic services and establishing firmly in them the merit principle of the highest type in appointment and promotion.

The League earnestly commends the attitude of the President and the Postmaster-General regarding the retention in office of fourth class postmasters during satisfactory service.

The League regards as a precedent of important and far-reaching consequence the action of the President in dismissing from the service William S. Leib, lately Assistant Treasurer at Philadelphia, on the ground of persistent evasion of the civil service law in the matter of appointments in his office. To permit evasions of the law would be in effect to repeal it.

The League also notes with great satisfaction recent instances of the enforcement of the "pernicious political activity" order and the action of the Postmaster General in directing the Assistant Postmaster at Louisville to resign from the Republican State Committee or from his position in the United States service at his election. It regrets that a similar case arising in the Internal Revenue Department did not meet with the same disposition.

The League earnestly recommends the continued extension of the merit system to classes of civil employees not now classified, and especially to the deputy collectors of internal revenue, the retention and improvement of promotion examinations and an amendment to the rules which shall confer upon the Federal Commission jurisdiction to investigate cases of pernicious political activity by civil employees.

The League records its satisfaction in the improvement in the civil service system in the Philippines and regrets the failure to adopt a satisfactory law in Porto Rico.

The League congratulates the country upon the appointment of Mr. Bonaparte to the Cabinet. Familiar, by many years service as member and chairman of the Council of the League, with the principles of the merit system and the public benefits which have attended its extension in the Federal service, and an earnest and

effective exponent of the advantages which will attend the further extension and strict enforcement of the law and rules, his counsel cannot fail to support and sustain the best efforts of the President towards achieving that end.

The League records its conviction that the spirit shown by the voters in the recent elections, particularly in Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York, prepares the way for a general adoption and strict enforcement of the merit system wherever the corruption and debasing evils of boss domination are felt or threatened, for out of the power to distribute the public offices as rewards for personal or partisan services, the boss system grew, and upon that power it mainly thrives. To establish and enforce the test of merit and fitness determined by a competitive examination as the sole means of obtaining public employment is to offer equal opportunity to all citizens and in large part to prevent or destroy the corruption and misgovernment attending the boss system.

In view also of the business functions which are or may hereafter be exercised by American cities, it again. emphasizes the importance of the adoption and strict enforcement of the merit system, as an indispensable condition for the successful and economical conduct of public business, and as the best means of preventing the dangers and abuses which must otherwise arise from the concentration of great financial and executive powers in the hands of a small number of officials.

For these reasons it urges the extension of the merit system to those communities where it has not yet been adopted and constant vigilance in its administration.

The Chairman announced that the reading of the report of the Committee on Consular Reform would be postponed until the afternoon.

Mr. Vaughan then presented and read the report of the Special Committee on the subject of removals1 in the civil service and also the following resolution adopted by the Council at its meeting of December 14, approving the report:

Printed in full at page 69.

Resolved, That the report of the Special Committee on Removals be received and submitted to the League at its meeting of December 15, and be it further

Resolved, That the Special Committee on Removals be continued with a request to investigate the question further and particularly with reference to the advisability and practicability of placing the virtual power of removal in the Federal service outside of Washington in local executive offices.

A discussion 1 followed the reading of the report, in which Hon. Alford W. Cooley, United States Civil Service Commissioner; Mr. Western Starr, of Chicago; Mr. Ansley Wilcox, of Buffalo; Mr. Merritt Starr, of Chicago; Mr. Shepard, of Buffalo; Mr. Charles S. Fowler, Chief Examiner of the New York State Civil Service Commission; Mr. Henry W. Hardon, of New York, and Hon. William B. Moulton, President of the Illinois State Civil Service Commission, participated.

Mr. Ansley Wilcox, of Buffalo, submitted a suggested revision 2 of Rule XII. of the United States civil service rules, stating that this revision did not meet his own ideas in all respects, but was brought forward as a suggestion to improve the form of the rule without changing its substance to any great extent. Upon motion the matter was referred to the Special Committee on Removals, to report at the next meeting of the Council.

FOURTH SESSION.

HOTEL PFISTER,

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 15. 'HE League reconvened at 3 P. M., Mr. Dana in the chair.

THE

The report of the Special Committee on Consular Reform was read by Hon. William B. Moulton, of Chicago. It was moved and seconded that the report be accepted and printed in the proceedings of the meeting and that the committee be continued to act along the lines laid down in the report. The motion was carried.

Printed in full at page 73; at page 87; at page 88.

The reading of reports from the Civil Service Reform Associations composing the League was then resumed, as follows:

Mr. Max B. May, for the Civil Service Reform Association of Cincinnati:

The Committee on Resolutions this morning did Cincinnati the honor to refer to it in the sweeping changes that have just taken place. It is an encouraging voice that comes from the West. For the first time in sixteen years the State of Ohio is now in a position to adopt a civil service law for the State, county and city, because the Governor-elect of that State, who will be inaugurated on the 8th day of January next, is not only a man who, as the head of a large corporation, recognizes that ability and merit should be the sole test for office, but is also a man who in his previous political career has had absolutely no connection with any boss or any machine.

The Cox machine, thanks to the efforts of the former president of the Cincinnati Municipal Reform Association, the Hon. William H. Taft, the Secretary of War, has received its death knell—at least it is hoped that the viper has been killed, not merely scotched.

I might say that the local Association is already at work on the preparation of a bill which will be submitted. to the general assembly at the earliest possible moment.

The Association, immediately after the election of the city ticket, sent a letter to all the successful candidates, in which they recommended that the changes about to be made should be made slowly, if at all, and that no one should be removed from office unless such person had been guilty of what is known in the Federal law as "offensive partisanship," or otherwise connected in the upbuilding and maintenance of the Cox machine, which, as you all know, has been one of the most powerful weapons for evil in the country.

The victory at Cincinnati was non-partisan; and the great question now is, how should the people act in the absence of a civil service law?

The main official body in Cincinnati is the Board of Public Service. When a new code was adopted in 1903,

through the influence of the late Senator Hanna, who was very anxious to destroy the power of the "Johnson machine," as he called it, at Cleveland, the federal system of government which then applied at Cincinnati was abolished, and the maintenance of the streets and the repair and construction thereof, and the management of the water department, were placed in the hands of a body known as the Board of Public Service.

Now the question is, how shall they proceed in the making of appointments? They have adopted, in order probably to rid themselves of annoyance rather than for any other reason, a system of applications. They opened an office in one of the large buildings in Cincinnati which was known as an application office, and prepared a blank in which they required each person who was an applicant for office to state his name, ward, precinct, what position he wanted and the history of his career, and the names of the people that recommended him. Whether this is done with any serious intention or not of course is not known.

The local Association, as I have already stated, is now at work through its sub-committee in the preparation of a bill. The Association at Cleveland and other gentlemen throughout the State have promised their co-operation, and I think we may state with some degree of certainty, at least of hope, that when the League meets a year hence our State will be included in the reports to be had from States having civil service reform laws, and that the name of Ohio, one of the Northwest territories, will be linked with that of Wisconsin and Illinois.

There is another matter which the local Association asked me to bring up here. It is properly not a part of the duties of the Civil Service Commission, as such, to exercise any influence over Presidential appointments. More than two years ago the Association filed a complaint against the United States Marshal at Cincinnati, Mr. Fagin. The matter was taken up by the Commission and by it referred to the Department of Justice. A member of your council, who unfortunately is not present, took a personal interest in this matter and submitted a report to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice sent an inspector, or an investigating committee,

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