Civil Service Reform 201 



of the majority of the Foreign Affairs Committee. 

 Instead of wasting efforts by a diffuse support of 

 eight or ten bills, it would be well to bend every 

 energy to securing the passage of the Consular bill ; 

 and to do this it is necessary to arouse not only the 

 Civil Service Reform Associations, but the Boards 

 of Trade throughout the country, and to make the 

 Congressmen and Senators feel individually the pres- 

 sure from those of their constituents who are re- 

 solved no longer to tolerate the peculiarly gross 

 manifestation of the spoils system which now ob- 

 tains in the consular service, with its attendant dis- 

 credit to the national honor abroad. 



People . sometimes grow a little downhearted 

 about the reform. When they feel in this mood 

 it would be well for them to reflect on what has 

 actually been gained in the past six years. By the 

 inclusion of the railway mail service, the smaller 

 free-delivery offices, the Indian School service, the 

 Internal Revenue service, and other less important 

 branches, the extent of the public service which is 

 under the protection of the law has been more than 

 doubled, and there are now nearly fifty thousand 

 employees of the Federal Government who have 

 been withdrawn from the degrading influences that 

 rule under the spoils system. This of itself is a 

 great success and a great advance, though, of course, 

 it ought only to spur us on to renewed effort. In 

 the fall of 1894 the people of the State of New 

 York, by a popular vote, put into their constitution 

 a provision providing for a merit system in the af- 



