tem and the "jackpot." He pointed out that the two great strongholds of the spoils system as it survives in the State are, first, some thirty departments of the state government, and, second, two thousand "jobs" under the government of Cook County-Chicago's county. The Secretary of our Associations introduced a resolution recommending that the Conference declare comprehensive and adequate civil service legislation fundamental to the regeneration of the public life of the State.

The majority of the members of the Conference were looking to the initiative and referendum as the panacea of political ills. The resolutions committee, however, after considering seventy-six proposals for good government, recommended three. These were, first, the initiative and referendum; second, a corrupt practices act, and, third, comprehensive civil service legislation. These resolutions were unanimously adopted. Thus the demand for civil service legislation was linked with the progressive movement-the movement for good government.

The Conference appointed a Committee of Seven to lead in a state-wide campaign for these three propositions. Our Associations co-operated with this committee as to the civil service proposition. After careful deliberations it was decided to have the civil service question submitted to the voters of the State. The petitions to the end were circulated and over 133.000 signatures were secured, 23,000 in excess of the number required by law.

In passing I should say that some of the work of circulating the petitions was done by and under the direction of Mrs. A. W. Bryant, Chairman of the Civil Service Committee of the Illinois Federation of Womens' Clubs. These Clubs, in our state, have civil service committees and it was, in part, through them that the Massachusetts Woman's Auxiliary had a successful part in our Illinois campaign, as has been told to you this morning. I should also say that good work was also done in circulating petitions by a woman who became a member of our Chicago Association and who is not only a Bachelor of Science but also the wife of a police sergeant. She was moved to her zealous endeavors by having seen the

benefits of the merit system in her own home experi

ences.

The political campaign consisted of two stages, the first ending with the direct primary of Sept. 15, the second with the election Nov. 8. It was a struggle over the election of members of the State Legislature and over the great elective offices of Cook County. In the State campaign was involved the decision on the civil service question of public policy.

Our problem was to make the public see that civil service reform is essential to good government. It meant bringing home to the present generation in Illinois the worth of the historic cause of civil service reform. the language of a newspaper editorial, it involved sending the spoils system, like a goat, nightly into the wilderness loaded with our sins.

In

We had to educate the public and to impress the politician.

Civil service speakers were provided for good government meetings in all sections of the State. Automobiles carrying speakers and literature visited country. towns from the Wisconsin to the Kentucky border.

Statements based on investigations showing typical abuses under the spoils system were sent to the entire press of the State. The human-interest element in our true stories of the hardships and injustice suffered by employee victims of this system stirred public sympathy.

Forms of pledges committing their signers to work and vote for the enactment of comprehensive and adequate civil service laws for the State and for Cook County were sent to all candidates for the legislature. In the primaries there were 725 such candidates. About 60 per cent of them signed. Many candidates for the Cook County offices like that of treasurer signed a form drawn by the Chicago Association, pledging themselves, if elected, to cost-figure their offices and install a "home-made" merit civil service pending the enactment of appropriate legislation. Reports on the stands taken by all these candidates were issued by the Associations and published extensively in the daily press of the State.

Many signers of the pledges, as well as many who refused to sign, were eliminated at the primary election.

But the net result is that in the next General Assembly of Illinois over 50 per cent. of the house and a majority of the newly elected senators will be signers of our pledge. In addition to that pledge, 23 out of the 26 newly elected senators and III out of 153 members of the new house are bound by pledges to abide by the popular vote on the little-ballot question.

This agitation was recognized in the party conventions, and both parties declared in favor of comprehensive State and Cook County civil service laws.

But after all, the greatest result of the campaign was the state-wide vote on the little ballot. The proposition for comprehensive civil service legislation carried every county in the State except one, and that one is in a legislative district comprising five counties which returned. a majority of 3,420. The proposition carried Cook County by a majority of 110,786. It carried the downstate counties by a majority of 179,758. It carried the State by a majority of 290,544.

Mr. Charles G. Morris submitted the report from the Connecticut Civil Service Reform Association:

Bringing a statement of the things which we hope to see established, to a convention of civil service reformers is like bringing coals to Newcastle. We are all worshippers of the god of better things, variable in form but constant in purpose. In fact, I have sometimes thought that the civil service reformer's coat of arms should be a "Billiken rampant over silk hats couchant, gules."

Our Connecticut Association has wide boundaries and restricted activities. Except during legislative sessions the New Haven civil service situation has been the only bone for our contentions and for nearly a year we have had an honest mayor and civil service board to soothe our minds. The local Camp of Spanish War Veterans has also put itself on record as opposed to veteran preferences. The city of Norwich has just approved a new charter containing provisions for the adoption of the merit system and will apply to the legislature for authority to put it into effect. The rest of the state is a region of hope and promise, but we are not quite sure

of the proper translation of the language of the promise. It may be like the song of the lone blue-bird on a mild late winter day who promises either an early spring or, as our forbears called it, "a spell of weather," and it is a pure guess which is promised. Our new governor, however, was a charter member of the old New Haven Civil Service Reform Association organized December 9, 1881, was one of the committee on its constitution and was active in its work at the time when it gave the Pendleton bill such help as it could. He is rather a lone bluebird, though, for he is a Democrat and the legislature is Republican in both branches. We know how well he can sing, but we don't know how hard we may have to blow on our fingers to warm them before the legislative session has translated the promise.

Mr. Harry J. Milligan submitted the report from the Indiana Civil Service Reform Association:

I do not know that it is worth while for me to come forward to say that Indiana has no comprehensive civil service law. I will not say there are wise men in Indiana now; certain it is, however, sixty years ago there were, because the constitution of Indiana framed then provides that the legislature shall meet only once in two years, and that it shall remain in session only sixty days. We esteem that a very wise constitutional provision. They do things differently in New York; there is something doing in Albany twelve months in every year, I think to the sorrow of New York. It is difficult to get laws passed in Indiana and that is the object, doubtless, of those wise men who made our constitution. The Indiana legislature assembles during the next thirty days. Mr. Swift and I went to see the Governor last week and had a talk with him on the subject of his advocating some civil service law. He expressed himself as in hearty accord with "the merit system;" he did not say, and I do not think he had considered the subject enough to say, what he would do. We have been thinking since what we would ask him to do; for certain reasons, the details of which we have not time to discuss now, and probably they would not interest you, we hesitate to ask him to advocate a law to apply to the state institutions; we do

feel very keenly that a law is needed applying to counties, but there are many difficulties encountered in framing county laws, some of them of a technical character. I will not stop to discuss them. We shall certainly ask him to advocate a law applicable to cities of a certain class. I am glad of the opportunity to say that we feel very much encouraged, indeed very much surprised in Indiana. that any president of the United States in the year 1910 should take such an advanced position as President Taft has taken. We have talked of it as something that would occur in the future, possibly in the millenium of civil service, when the postmaster of Indianapolis, for instance, would be chosen as a reward for faithful service, from the postmasters of the state or from the men in the postoffice in Indianapolis. The last postmaster but one in Indianapolis, the predecessor of the present one, is a personal friend of mine, a most excellent man, highly successful in business; he drew from the government $6,000 a year as postmaster, and I think he admitted that he gave little time to the postoffice, that he dropped in on the way down to his other business and probably stopped half an hour at the postoffice. He was paid $6,000 by the Government for services rendered to Senator So-and-So, it has always been so and always will be so under the present system, and the same is true of the collectors. They are paid by the United States for services rendered to a party chieftain. If we can have the postmasters and the collectors and possibly some subordinates under the district attorney, put in the classified service, selected for their qualifications and kept in office upon their merits, we have immensely improved the public service and I think the solution of the civil service problem as applied to cities and counties will come through such advances by the United States Government. We need a civil service law in Indiana applicable to the larger cities and counties. Whether we shall get it soon, no one knows.

Mr. William Reynolds submitted the report from the Maryland Civil Service Reform Association:

The reason why scarcely anything I have to report this morning will be found among the records kept by the secretary of our Association is that under existing