Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/450

426 removal. The first order effectually to stop arbitrary removals was issued, not by President Cleveland, but by President McKinley.

To make the civil service law ridiculous to your constituents you told them that applicants for appointments as compositors or pressmen in the Government Printing Office were required to hop on one foot a distance of twelve feet, as part of their examination, and that they had to answer the question whether they were immune to the diseases endemic or epidemic in the Southern States. It was conclusively shown to you that the first test was imposed not on compositors and pressmen in the Printing Office, but only on applicants for places requiring physical strength and endurance, and then in connection with the familiar test of heart action, as it is also used in the Army and Navy; and that an answer to the second question is demanded only of applicants for places in the marine hospital service and a few similar positions at Southern ports.

To make the civil service law seem useless and even harmful to the public interest, you told your constituents that “not one item of proof has been produced to show that the service is better now than it was prior to the enactment of the civil service law, and that on the contrary the proof is all the other way.” You were confronted with the official testimony of two Presidents, one Republican and one Democratic, and of an array of heads of Departments and bureau chiefs, who had actual experience of its working, overwhelmingly proving the exceedingly beneficial effects of the law as to the increased efficiency of the service; and, in addition, with the striking fact, drawn from the records, that since 1883, when the civil service law was enacted, there has been an increase of 37 per cent. in the number, and of 43 per cent. in the salaries of the unclassified places, while in the number of