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where and inevitably leads. But, no doubt, the American Republic is rich and powerful and virtuous enough to endure administrative abuses without disintegration of its essential fabric, or of the political character of its people. The Republic,—that is to say, the Republic as we know and have inherited it,—could not, however, long survive if the corruption of the spoils system were to extend far beyond mere administration, and were at last to dominate the town meeting and poison every primary political activity. This would be a supreme calamity. To resist it has in our generation been a great and supreme duty of every far sighted and patriotic American. For nearly thirty years, and in royal measure, Mr. Schurz has performed this duty. In 1871 he introduced and advocated in the Senate a bill to establish the competitive method of admission to the civil service. It is, however, during the last fifteen years that he has given the richest and fullest vigor of his facilities to the remedy of Civil Service Reform. On the one hand, he has seen the danger, to which a democratic republic is subject if, with industries most complicated, and seemingly full of destructive rivalries, and growing enormously rich, its politics and public life are corrupted at their source; but, on the other hand, he has seen—and no man more clearly—that, if all the other vast powers of our American Republic could work under the harness or a sound public life, the future beneficence of the Republic would be unlimited and truly glorious. It is to accomplish this thing, to deal with the fundamental conditions of our political life upon which must be solved all those lesser political questions with which American parties
