98 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



in order to meet the argument based on experience and steadi- 

 ness by any considerable extension of the one term, they sub- 

 ject the country to the liability of serious injury from the pro- 

 longation of a most faulty administration. But granting, for 

 the sake of the argument, the full force of the arguments 

 urged by the advocates of the one-term proposition, let us see, 

 in the third place, whether there cannot be found remedies for 

 them less open to the serious objections above alluded to. 

 The following suggest themselves at once : 



1. The proposed general increase in the term of most ofifi.- 

 ces, as a means of correcting the present tendency of the whole 

 people to make politics a trade ; thus, in a great measure res- 

 cuing them from the dangers of political corruption. 



2. The cutting down of the presidential patronage, by pro- 

 viding suitable conditions on which many of the appoint- 

 ments shall of necessity be made, — a work already commenced 

 by the civil service commission under the inspiration and sup- 

 port of the present chief magistrate, — and, possibly, by trans- 

 ferring the right of choice, in some other cases, from the pres- 

 ident to the people themselves. 



3. The choice of our presidents by a direct free vote of the 

 people, or by some other method worthy to succeed the pres- 

 ent fraud-engendering electoral-college system. 



I confidently believe that, if these several remedies were 

 applied, the evils now attending the re-eligibility of the presi- 

 dent would be so nearly cured that the heroic and very ques- 

 tionable measures proposed by the limitationists would cease 

 to be urged. 



y. A fifth requisite is the re-adjustment of salaries on the 

 basis of equity and public policy. At present, there is a 

 great, and often very unjust, inequality. The head of an im- 

 portant bureau or department perhaps receives less compensa- 

 tion than a second class insurance or dry goods clerk, while 

 the collector of a port, with but little to do personally, except 



