Page:The Democracy of the Merit System p12.jpg

 the Presidents who ordered those extensions, did so from patriotic motives. But even if partisan considerations had at times intruded into their action, the practical result would, after all, have been only the enlargement of a system which ministers to the public interest without in the end giving either party any advantage at all. Nor should the Republican spoilsmen forget that, had not President Cleveland made the extensions they complain of, President McKinley would have been in honor and duty bound to make them himself—for according to the pledge of the Republican party and his own, he has not only to enforce the civil service law honestly and thoroughly, but to extend it wherever practicable. And that these extensions have been practicable, is proved by the fact of their successful operation. He will soon have to go beyond them, according to the Republican platform, wherever further practicability appears.

True to his honor as a gentleman, to his vows as a Republican, and to his duty as President of the United States, Mr. McKinley stoutly held his ground against the fierce foray which was set on foot to overwhelm him. It may be said that to resist pressure, especially pressure from party friends aiming at a wrongful object, is the first and most obvious duty of the head of the State, and that its simple performance does not call for extraordinary praise. But when faithfully performed against unusual urgency, as it was in this instance, it deserves a tribute of gratitude, and this tribute should be heartily paid to President McKinley by every true friend of good government.

The first onset has been repulsed, but the fight is not finished. The clamor of the place-seekers still resounds with lusty vociferation. In three Republican State conventions resolutions have been adopted hostile to the merit system. An association has been organized to agitate for the repeal of the civil service law, and Republican members of the Senate of the United States and of the House of Representatives are loudly threatening to bring the matter to an issue at the present session of Congress. Two of them, Representative Grosvenor of Ohio, and Senator Gallinger of New Hampshire, have already been designated by one of the spoilsmen's organs as the anti-civil service reform candidates for the presidency and the vice-presidency. It seems that the rapid progress of the