Mr. Johnson moved that a committee of two be appointed by the President to audit the Treasurer's account. The motion was adopted, and Messrs. Wyman and Johnson were appointed.

Mr. Shepard, who had promised to prepare an essay to be read at the meeting having been prevented at the last moment from doing so, and from coming, sent a letter to the Secretary briefly covering the points in regard to which he had intended to speak, which was read.

Mr. Wheeler moved that the paper be returned to the writer for revision and that after revision it be printed and distributed among the various associations and the members of Civil Service Commissions and Examining Boards. The motion was unanimously adopted.

Papers which had been prepared pursuant to request of the President were then read by Messrs. Charles J. Bonaparte and Lucius B. Swift.

Mr. Wood moved that both of these papers be printed and circulated with the proceedings.

Mr. Wheeler expressed his dissent from certain of the statements made in the paper by Mr. Swift, and desired to amend the pending motion by directing that the papers be published separately. The amendment was accepted by Mr. Wood.

A long discussion then arose, not so much upon the merits of the statements in Mr. Swift's article which had been challenged by Mr. Wheeler (in regard to which several members expressed their hearty dissent from the position taken by the essayist), but rather upon the question as to whether the League is understood to be responsible for the views expressed in papers read before it and published with the proceedings. The opinion, expressed almost unanimously, was that no such responsibility is now or has ever been held to exist. The discussion was participated in by Messrs. Warren, Codman, Curtis, Bonaparte, Wheeler, Rogers, Dana, Potts, Richmond, Swift, de las Casas, Williams, Low, Myers, Cary, Thorp and Wood. Several propositions were made, amended

and withdrawn. Finally, by a rising vote of 15 to 12, a motion offered by Mr. de las Casas was adopted directing the Executive Committee in publishing such contributed papers hereafter to disclaim on behalf of the League all responsibility for the views expressed in them.

After some remarks by Messrs. Foulke and Swift the League then adjourned until 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

The beginning of the afternoon session was delayed by the late adjournment and the prolonged meeting of the Committee on resolutions, and the League did not reconvene until 3 o'clock. Mr. Bonaparte presented the following resolutions as the unanimous report of the Committee:

I. The National Civil Service Reform League, in common with all citizens who desire the overthrow of the great and perilous evil known as the spoils system, congratulates the country that the attempt to nullify the reform law during the present session of Congress was decisively defeated in the House of Representatives; that the law was defended by distinguished and able members of both political parties, and that the leader of the majority of the House declared that his party was pledged to nothing more than to civil-service reform, which, he said truly, was sustained by the best opinion of both parties, Republicans and Democrats alike. The league gladly recognizes the fact that about thirty-two thousand places in the public service are now filled upon free and fair competition by merit alone; while Commissioner Roosevelt gives public assurance that 92 per cent. of clerks so appointed under the late administration have been retained under the present administration. The league records with satisfaction the wholesome precedent of the action of the attorney-general of the United States in sustaining, after long controversy, the civil-service commission, and in causing the revocation of appointments made in

defiance of the reform law; and the indictment, although after long delay, by the grand jury of the District of Columbia, of the president and treasurer of a political club in Washington soliciting political contributions from government employes. With equal satisfaction the league recalls the success of the friends of reform in frustrating an attempt in Congress to evade the reform law by securing the appointment of pension examiners without the prescribed examination.

The league regards the complete, forcible and comprehensive explanation and defence of the principles, operation and results of reform which was made by the national civil-service commission before the committee of investigation of the House of Representatives, as a great and timely public service, for which the commission is entitled to public gratitude. It again congratulates the country upon the admirable choice of civil-service commissioners made by the present administration; a selection the merit of which has been demonstrated by the ability and efficiency with which they have performed the duties of their office; and the league mentions with pleasure as a sign of the progress of public opinion, the unqualified advocacy of the principles of reform by many of the leading journals of both national parties in the country.

II. Whilst according to the national administration the amplest credit for whatever advance may have been made in the practical application of civil-service reform to the conduct of public business, it is nevertheless our duty again to remind the country of the pledges made by the successful party at the last presidential election, and to note how far these pledges have been kept. The pledges of the party of administration were, first, that reform of the civil service, already auspiciously begun, should be completed by further extension of the reformed system to all grades of the service to which it is applicable; second, that the spirit and purpose of reform should be observed in all executive appointments; third, that all laws at variance with the object of

existing reform legislation should be repealed. These pledges have been disregarded; the reformed system has not been extended; not only have not the spirit and purposes of reform been observed in all executive appointments, but they have been often and gravely violated; the laws at variance with reform legislation have not been repealed, nor has there been any proposition for their repeal. Against this practical contempt of pledges the league records its unqualified protest.

III. The arbitrary removal of postmasters for no other cause than their political opinions or party affiliations, resulting in a partisan devastation of an important branch of the public service, is a breach of faith with the country and a grave offence against pure politics and the interests of an efficient public service.

IV. The League holds that the important duty of taking the census should have been committed to officers selected because of their fitness, and with no regard to political or partisan considerations, and it sees in the general dissatisfaction of the country. with the results of the census a logical consequence of disregard of these principles.

V. While holding that the power of removal should be vested in appointing officers subject only to a sound discretion, the League also holds that no opportunity for changing the public service which is not political, for partisan reasons, should be permitted. It therefore urges all friends of reform to press upon public attention and on Congress the repeal of the laws prescribing fixed terms of office, which were designed to facilitate partisan charges without the odium of express and positive removal. Places which are not political and which are filled by appointment should be vacated, except by death or resignation, only by the deliberate act of responsible appointing officers, after fair opportunity of explanation or denial of charges, and, in order that such officers may be held strictly to their responsibility, the widest publicity should be given to removals, and such officers

should be required by law publicly to record the reasons for removals made by their authority.

VI. The experience of Boston and Cambridge has proved the entire practibility of extending the system of selection by merit to the labor service of those cities, and in view of the renewal of our coast defences and of the reconstruction of our navy, the League recommends the application of the same system to the selection of laborers in the national navy yards, and the extension of the examinations to all other positions in the navy yards to which they are applicable, and it renews its recommendation of a similar extension of the merit system to the Indian service.

VII. As a measure of relief from one of the worst and most widely diffused abuses of the spoils system, the League approves the principles and object of the bill introduced in Congress during the present session to regulate the appointment of fourth class postmasters, by causing their selection to be made upon business principles and without regard to political interest and opinions.

VIII. The League reaffirms its unswerving fidelity to the American and democratic principle of the equal right of every citizen to seek and to compete on equal terms for appointment to office without the necessity of asking aid from party friends or political leaders. The practicability and benefit of civil service reform have been amply and conclusively demonstrated, and as the necessity of reform was never more urgent, the League declares that, in the interest of honest government, of the freedom and purity of the ballot and of the overthrow of political corruption, it will prosecute with unflagging energy its appeal to that matured opinion of the American people which steadily and happily reforms every abuse that menaces the welfare of the republic.

On motion of Mr. Storey, the resolutions, without debate, were unanimously adopted as a whole as the sense of the League. Mr. Foulke having called attention to the happy effect pro