CHAPTER V 



Fighting the Spoils Hunters and Rascals 



THE years of Roosevelt's early political life were those of the 

 origin of legalized Civil Service Reform in the United States. 

 It is generally recognized that the assassination of President 

 Garfield w^as a direct outcome of the moss-grown spoils system that 

 had so long prevailed. This dire event hastened the reform, and in 

 1883 a Civil Service Act w^as passed which provided for a board of 

 commissioners and for the appointment to office by examination of 

 candidates. The power of appointment was in a measure taken out of 

 the President's hands, the law giving the first chance for an office to 

 those who best stood the test of examination. 



President Harrison, after taking his seat in 1889, appointed the 

 dauntless young New York reformer on the Civil Service Commission, 

 and made him chairman of that body. The President had good reason 

 for this act. In 1884 Roosevelt had succeeded in securing the passage 

 of a Civil Service Reform, law for New York, and his work in this 

 direction had made him the logical head of the difficult Federal reform. 



No better selection could have been made. Roosevelt was a man 

 capable of a vast amount of work, and saw that in this new field there 

 was a call for his utmost energy. The law had been w^idely evaded or 

 ignored, the spoils system was fighting hard for its control of the 

 perquisites, and only a fighter ready to hit square from the shoulder 

 was fitted to enter the contest. 



The law had its loopholes, as all such laws are almost sure to have, 

 and its enemies took the utmost advantage of this. The new head of 

 the commission saw^ that he had heroic work before him, and that he 

 would have bitter opposition to meet both In and out of Congress. 

 But no condition of that kind ever stopped Theodore Roosevelt. While 

 it may not be fair to say that he dearly loved a fight, no one can say 

 that the prospect of a fight ever had any terror for him. For six years 



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