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 officer is now compelled to admit—and the more conscientious he is, the more emphatically he will admit it—that those branches of the public service in which the civil service rules, and especially the competitive principle, are most strictly enforced, the work to be done is most attentively attended to and most satisfactorily performed. And although it has been asserted by the detractors of the merit system—and with an appearance of truth—that competitive examinations cannot test a candidate's integrity of character, many years' s experience has proved beyond question that among the public servants who entered the service upon competitive examination, the number of cases of official dishonesty has been infinitesimally small compared with the number of such cases among those who obtained their places by mere political influence or favoritism.

We have in this respect just now a most instructive object-lesson. You have heard of the Bristow report on the scandals in the Post-Office Department, and of President Roosevelt's memorandum accompanying the publication of that report. If you have not read these documents, I advise you to do so without delay. You will find that the President did a most meritorious thing in ordering an investigation of certain branches of that department, in seeing to it that this investigation be thorough, and in publishing the results of it. You will also be struck with the fact that of all the public servants who were, in consequence of that investigation, indicted for fraud or other malfeasance, not one had come into the service by regular competitive examination. Only one had gone through a competition, not for entrance, but for promotion. All of them had originally obtained their appointments by political influence or personal favor. And it is to be noted as peculiarly significant that in several cases the positions to which they have been appointed, were excepted from the competitive rule on the ground so solemnly insisted upon by the patronage monger, that they were places of a confidential or fiduciary character requiring a peculiar degree of integrity and trustworthiness, of which no competitive examination could furnish