stagnant routine, but for a gradually higher level of
local political action.

II

STATE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM

The foregoing discussion of the means which may be taken to make
American local governments more alive to their responsibilities has been
confined to the department of legislation. The department of
administration is, however, almost equally important; and some attempt
must be made to associate with a reform of the local legislature a
reform of the local administration. The questions of administrative
efficiency and the best method of obtaining it demand special and
detailed consideration. In this case the conclusions reached will apply
as much to the central and municipal as they do to the state
administrations; but the whole matter of administrative efficiency can
be most conveniently discussed in relation to the proper organization of
a state government. The false ideas and practices which have caused so
much American administrative inefficiency originated in the states and
thence infected the central government. On the other hand, the reform of
these practices made its first conquests at Washington and thereafter
was languidly and indifferently taken over by many of the states. The
state politicians have never adopted it in good faith, because real
administrative efficiency would, by virtue of the means necessarily
taken to accomplish it, undermine the stability of the political
machine. The power of the machine can never be broken without a complete
reform of our local administrative systems; and the discussion of that
reform is more helpful in relation to the state than in relation to the
central government.

Civil service reform was the very first movement of the kind to make any
headway in American politics. Within a few years after the close of the
War it had waxed into an issue which the politicians could not ignore;
and while its first substantial triumph was postponed until late in the
seventies, it has, on the whole, been more completely accepted than any
important reforming idea. It has secured the energetic support of every
President during the last twenty-five years; it has received at all
events the verbal homage of the two national parties; and it can point
to affirmative legislation in the great majority of the states. It meets
at the present time with practically no open and influential opposition.
Nevertheless, the "merit system" has not met the expectations of its
most enthusiasti