Page:The Democracy of the Merit System p32.jpg

 beneficial effects by the enlightened public opinion of the country. As I pointed out in my last annual address, not one of President McKinley's predecessors has, since the enactment of the civil service law, failed to distinguish his administration by large and important extensions of the domain of the merit system. It would be doing injustice to his motives as well as to his powers to fear that in his achievements President McKinley might remain behind the best of them. He has signalized the very beginning of his administration by an advance of exceeding importance. And now, considering that wellnigh the whole clerical part of the governmental machinery was already under the merit system when he took office, and need only be protected against the wily attempts of spoils politics to invade it, we may hope that President McKinley may recognize it as his part of the great work, to carry the reform beyond those limits. There is good reason for believing that the necessities of the consular service have already engaged his care; and whoever undertakes seriously the task of putting that, as well as any other, branch of the government service upon a footing of thorough efficiency, will soon recognize that the first requirement is its absolute emancipation from the influence of the patronage mongers.

There is a force working for civil service reform which is now far more effective than ever before. It is the character of the opposition to it. As the number of good citizens favoring our cause increased and grew into a majority, the opposition became numerically weaker but far more desperate and vociferous. And the more it becomes desperate and vociferous, the more recklessly it discloses its true nature and its aims. Civil service reform is now gaining in the esteem and friendship of the people, not only by the recognition of its correct principles and in good results, but also “for the enemies it has made.” The very shamelessness with which certain Republican politicians now clamor for the repudiation of their platform pledge to enforce and extend the civil service law—a pledge of which Mr. McKinley in the House of Representatives once said that “if the Republican party is pledged to one thing more than another it is the maintenance of the civil service law, and its enlargement and further application in the service”—the very vehemence with