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tions in the national service placed under the civil service rules, which was 15,000 under President Arthur twelve years ago, has now risen to nearly 90,000, while the number of excepted places in the branches of the service covered is reduced to less than 800. That order provided for promotion examinations in all the departments. It put an end to the old controversies as to whether such positions as those of chiefs of division in the government departments, and of deputies of various sorts, could or should be entirely withdrawn from the reach of party politics, and it dispersed the charm by which certain places of a very ordinary sort were sought to be consecrated to the spoils idea by simply calling them “confidential.” That order condensed the large and somewhat confused aggregation of civil of civil service rules which in the course of time had accumulated, into a simple, clear and practical code. And—more than all this—that order established the general principle that it is the natural and normal status of persons serving under the executive departments of the national government to be under the civil service rules—in other words, that it shall not require a special edict to put them there, but that they shall be considered and treated as being there unless exempted by special edict.
What this is worth only those will fully appreciate who, during these long weary years of struggle, have witnessed the ingenuity displayed by the spoils politicians in conjuring up difficulties to every extension of the merit system, and the tricks and stratagems employed in changing the names and in mixing up the duties of various offices, and in other disreputable ways, to steal places already classified, from the realm of the merit system for the benefit of the spoilsmen. All this is now over in the national service; the merit system is unequivocally recognized as the general rule, and, I am sure, I am speaking the sentiment of every member of this League and of every sincere friend of good government in the country when I say that, had he never done anything else to advance it, the name of President Cleveland would for this order of May 6th alone for ever stand pre-eminent in the annals of the civil service reform movement.
Nor should we fail gratefully to remember the valuable services rendered by the National Civil Service Commission, which has proved itself conspicuously faithful, judicious, and
