the principal postoffices the smaller ones surrounding them, so as to make them mere branch offices, and to place all persons employed therein under the Civil Service Rules. This order, if acted upon with courage and energy, will bring forth inestimable benefit. It will give the people better service by localizing its direction according to local wants. It will immensely simplify the system of accounting which now has to deal with over 70,000 individual postmasters, a great many of whom, as they are at present selected, will never learn how to make a correct report—and thus lead to better business methods, prompter returns and greater economy. It will draw many thousands of postoffices, from top to bottom, under the protection and control of the Civil Service Law. And this involves to our member of Congress a blessing of incalculable value.
The postoffices scattered by thousands all over the land have done more than anything else to keep alive the spoils idea among our people. More than anything else they have been the prizes fought for in national contests by local politicians. More than anything else they have served to demoralize the popular mind with the notion that a change of party in power must mean a partisan change in all the offices, and thus to turn our party contests into scrambles for plunder. It is no exaggeration to say that the postoffice used as party spoil has been the bane of American politics. It has especially been the curse of the member of Congress, hounding, tormenting and degrading him every day of his
