First, then, what is the attitude of our great political parties as to Civil Service Reform? Both have made in their platforms most emphatic protestations and pledges in favor of the merit system, but neither has held those pledges to be of the same binding force as its pledges. with regard to other subjects. In each party Civil Service Reform has warm friends, and in each it has bitter enemies. On each side we find a great crowd of poli, ticians who are far more in favor of Civil Service Reform when they are in the opposition than when they are in power. What they loudly censure when in opposition, they do themselves with alacrity when the spoils fall to them. Neither party can therefore be called a Reform party. But neither would like to be looked upon as the opponent of Reform. There are politicians enough in each burning to repeal the Civil Service Law, and periodically such attempts are made in Congress, as well as attempts merely to disturb its operation, or to filch a few places from its domain. But these attempts grow grad, ually weaker, the prospect of a repeal of the Law becomes more and more hopeless, the politicians recognize more and more the necessity of submitting to the increasing force of public sentiment; and the political parties, after having plunged and kicked like unbroken mustangs, will soon pull quietly in the Reform harness, public opinion holding the reins.

The present Congress, some partisan efforts in the contrary direction notwithstanding, has already done. something substantial for the Reform in giving to the United States Civil Service Commission, so far obliged to go begging to the several Departments for help, its own clerical force, which has greatly increased its working capacity, and is reported to be a model of organization, discipline and efficiency.

In reviewing the course of the present Administration I shall begin with its shortcomings, and then pass to the services it has rendered to our cause. While the so-called Presidential offices as well as the postoffices filled by the action of the Postmaster-General are not covered by the Civil Service Law, yet it was naturally assumed that an

Administration aspiring to the title of a Reform Administration would, with regard to those places, do what in 1888 the Republican platform pledged the party and its candidate to do when it said "that the spirit and purpose of Reform should be observed in all executive appointments." This could mean only that all the offices filled by executive appointment should cease to be party spoils, and that the non-political service should be given the character of a non-partisan service. How President Harrison failed to redeem that clear and emphatic pledge was at the time set forth by my lamented predecessor, George William Curtis-blessed be his memory-in words to which I have nothing to add.

But it was hoped that President Cleveland, who owed his elevation largely to the popular belief that he stood high above the ordinary politician's aspirations and practices, and who therefore enjoyed the advantage of an unusually independent position, would abstain from changes in the service not required by the public interest, or at least follow in a larger number of cases the great example set by himself at the beginning of his first administration when he reäppointed Mr. Pearson as postmaster of New York, irrespective of his party standing, merely in recognition of his fidelity and efficiency in the management of his office. This hope has so far not been fulfilled. The interference of members of Congress with the appointing power has been largely tolerated, and President Cleveland, like his predecessor, has been exposed to sharp animadversions as to the reasons for which favors in the way of appointments were granted or withheld.

It must not be overlooked, however, that, excepting the headlong overturning of the consular service, the changes have, on the whole, been less rapid than under the preceding Administration. The President's adherence to the four-years rule has had the beneficial effect of mitigating the scandals of the clean sweep, and of familiarizing politicians with the experience of seeing in federal office men not in political harmony with the party in power. It has also, as before remarked, had

the merit of furnishing a most striking demonstration of the inherent absurdity and viciousness of the fouryears rule itself by this very observance of it.

The same may be said of the application of that rule by the Postmaster-General to the fourth-class postmasters. But the result of this proceeding, if further adhered to, will after all be to put, before the close of the Presidential term, all the offices concerned into the hands of the party in power, and to leave so far to the service an essentially partisan character. It will have been a clean sweep-shamefaced and executed with evidences of a troubled conscience, but for all that a provocation to the party next coming into power to respond with another clean sweep in the opposite interest, and so on, ad infinitum, until we get a President who immortalizes himself by boldly breaking the vicious. succession. We certainly do not fail to appreciate the fact that the President as well as the Postmaster-General, by doing as much as they did, have incurred the bitter hostility of the disappointed spoils-seekers and their friends. But that hostility would hardly have been more bitter or dangerous had the disappointment been greater. At the same cost of popularity and the same peril, the President and the Postmaster-General might have gone one step farther in order to leave to their successors as a great example and precedent a service not strictly partisan and not provoking another clean sweep as a retaliatory measure. But the end of this Administration is not yet, and there are reasons for hoping that its second half will be the most productive of good.

As to the observance of the Civil Service Law in the several Departments of the national Government, the Treasury Department under Mr. Carlisle has, I regret to say, won an unenviable distinction. Beginning with an act of gross nepotism, his management has not only furnished the strongest proof of the necessity of putting the chiefs of division under the Civil Service Rules, so as to protect those places, in the manifest interest of the service, against the encroachments of spoils politics, but in the matter of removals, reductions and promo

tions shifts have been resorted to which, without perhaps violating the letter of the law, have run counter to its spirit in a manner but too well calculated to impair among the subordinates that reliance upon fidelity and efficiency for continuance in office and for promotion which is indispensable to uphold the morale of the force, and which prevails everywhere else in the classified service. In this respect the Treasury Department under Mr. Carlisle has conspicuously fallen below the standard maintained by his predecessors since the enactment of the Civil Service Law.

In other Departments a very gratifying progress is to be observed-notably in the Indian-school service of the Interior Department, whose superintendent, Mr. Hailmann, has recognized in the Civil Service Law the best friend of his endeavors; in the Agricultural Department under Secretary Morton, where the Civil Service Reform spirit has made perceptible advances; in the Navy Department, where Secretary Herbert, without being bound by the Civil Service Law, has faithfully maintained the non-partisan labor system introduced by his predecessor Mr. Tracy; and especially in the Post Office Department, which has been conducted by the Postmaster-General, Mr. Bissell, as to the observance of the Law, in a manner entitled to the highest credit. While he subjected himself to criticism by too great leniency with postmasters who at the moment of the passage of their offices under the Civil Service Rules filled the places under them with partisan favorites in the old spoils fashion, not even the most captious censor will find fault with his treatment of the classified service under him. He has made every person in that service feel the most confident assurance that in the truest sense of the term merit is the only title to appointment, security of tenure, and promotion. He has introduced a most valuable practice in requiring charges to be filed against accused persons, and giving them a chance to be heard. He has made in his Department not merely the letter but the spirit of the Law a living reality. Also outside of the scope of the Civil Service Law he has vigorously sought

to enforce that spirit by a Department order warning postmasters to occupy themselves with their official business and not with politics-an order which, as he himself says, has not only cleared away existing misconceptions, but also "produced a most favorable and permanent improvement in the efficiency of the service, which is daily evinced in many ways." And now he has in his official report, in language of singular clearness and energy, demonstrated the absolute necessity, from the business point of view, of taking the whole Post Office Departmentompletel y out of politics, and warmly recommended the enactment of a law withdrawing the appointments to the fourth-class postoffices, now numbering over 66,000, altogether from partisan influence. The value of this brave utterance, which does great honor to Mr. Bissell, cannot be overestimated. Whether his recommendation be immediately carried out or not, its influence will not die, and in the course of time, perhaps before long, it will surely find its realization.

On the whole, it must in justice be said that, its shortcomings notwithstanding, President Cleveland's second Administration has materially advanced the Reform cause. The President not only, when entering upon his office, invited Mr. Roosevelt, whose ability, zeal, watchfulness and fearless energy have long been of conspicuous value in that position, to remain a member of the Civil Service Commission, but he has further strengthened the Commission by filling a welcome vacancy in it by the appointment of Mr. Procter, a Civil Service Reformer of tried earnestness and judgment.

He has by recent orders extended the operation of the Civil Service Rules over several thousands of public servants who, until then, had stood outside of them. By the same orders he has effectually shut off many of the facilities which formerly existed for evading and circumventing the Law. Further enlargements are soon to follow. He has done these things in the second year of his term, while formerly it seemed to be the Presidential custom to order such extensions only in the expiring hours by way of last will and testament. And beyond this, he has caused