94: Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 



appointed to positions above him and directly in what ought 

 to be the line of his own promotion. That sach a course of 

 injustice — injustice to both the individual and the govern- 

 ment — must be highly injurious to the public service is plain- 

 ly manifest. Something has been done towards remedying 

 the evil by the civil service commission. It has at least done 

 good service in calling public attention to the principle, and 

 in securing lor it some degree of practical recognition. 



It may also be well to inquire whether there could not be 

 adopted yet other methods of rewarding services of extraor- 

 dinary merit. In the military service, we have brevets, boun- 

 ties, pensions, etc. Is there any good reason why correspond- 

 ing rewards should not be provided for specially meritorious 

 services in civil departments of the government ? 



IV. There should be an increase in the legal or constitu- 

 tional term of many offices. 

 This would — 



1. Encourage able and good men to accept office who now 

 stand aloof because they are unwilling to break up present 

 business relations tor the questionable advantage of a very 

 brief term of public service. 



2. Discourage mere adventurers and worthless politicians in 

 the same proportion, smce it would have the effect to make 

 all conscientious and intelligent voters more scrupulous and 

 exacting. 



8. By diminishing the frequency of elections, tend to cure 

 the present thirst for political excitement and the mania for 

 political office, now become a most prominent evil of the times. 



4. As a consequence, correct that absurd practice of frequent 

 rotation^ which is based on the false theory that office is a 

 perquisite of citizenship, a thing for the individual, and not 

 for the government and the common good of the whole people 

 to be affected by it. 



This requisite to a reform of the civil service deserves there- 



i 



