Requisites to a Reform of the Civil Service. 101 



so planned that it would secure the elector from the present 

 necessity to support one of two candidates, dictated to him by 

 a clique of political managers, or to throw his vote away, and 

 give to him a free choioe of candidates from the whole body 

 of his fellow citizens ; that would give to every ballot a defin- 

 ite and an equal political value ; that would give to each con- 

 stituency its due proportion of political power; that would in- 

 sure to each claes of citizens and each public interest their just 

 share of representation in the government ; such a system 

 would cerfcp.inly guarantee a great improvement in the quality 

 of the civil service, in the manner already pointed out — by in- 

 creasing the conscious weight of every official's responsibility 

 to those who gave him their suffrages. It would accomplish 

 still more, in an indirect way, by putting an end to the trick- 

 ery and tyranny of the nominating caucus and convention ; by 

 insuring in many instances the election of a class of superior 

 men, who under present conditions are neither able nor willing 

 to take part in politics ; by diminishing the temptations to 

 bribery and other forms of corruption in elections ; by increas- 

 ing the elector's sense of the responsibility of citizenship, and 

 stimulating him to the acquirement and exercise of an intelli- 

 gent judgment in governmental affairs; and, finally, in gen- 

 eral terms, by improving the intellectual standard and elevat- 

 ing the moral tone of the whole body of the people. 



YII. Still another requisite is the infliction of the most 

 summary and condign punishment upon all who are found 

 guilty of corruption in securing, or of malfeasance in, office. 



It is not enough to provide every safeguard against the 

 appointment and election of bad men to office. In spite of 

 all that can be done to prevent it, there will be cases in which 

 men will work themselves into power by dishonest means ; in 

 which, likewise, persons fairly entitled will prove traitors to 

 the public interests they were chosen to protect. The pur- 

 chase of place by ambitious charlatans and unscrupulous dem- 



