e
entanglements of European politics, and more united and peaceful at home
than at any time within the memory of living men, the moment is most
auspicious for remedying that abuse in our political system whose
nature, proportions, and perils the whole country begins clearly to
discern. The will and the power to apply the remedy will be a test of
the sagacity and the energy of the people. The reform of which I have
spoken is essentially the people's reform. With the instinct of robbers
who run with the crowd and lustily cry "Stop thief!" those who would
make the public service the monopoly of a few favorites denounce the
determination to open that service to the whole people as a plan to
establish an aristocracy. The huge ogre of patronage, gnawing at the
character, the honor, and the life of the country, grimly sneers that
the people cannot help themselves and that nothing can be done. But much
greater things have been done. Slavery was the Giant Despair of many
good men of the last generation, but slavery was overthrown. If
the Spoils System, a monster only less threatening than slavery, be
unconquerable, it is because the country has lost its convictions,
its courage, and its common-sense. "I expect," said the Yankee as he
surveyed a stout antagonist, "I expect that you 're pretty ugly, but I
cal'late I 'm a darned sight uglier." I know that patronage is strong,
but I believe that the American people are very much stronger.

CARL SCHURZ,

OF NEW YORK. (BORN 1829.)

THE NECESSITY AND PROGRESS OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

An Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the National Civil Service
Reform League at Chicago, Ill., December 12, 1894.

What Civil Service reform demands, is simply that the business part of
the Government shall be carried on in a sound, business-like manner.
This seems so obviously reasonable that among people of common-sense
there should be no two opinions about it. And the condition of things
to be reformed is so obviously unreasonable, so flagrantly absurd
and vicious, that we should not believe it could possibly exist among
sensible people, had we not become accustomed to its existence among
ourselves. In truth, we can hardly bring the whole exorbitance of that
viciousness and absurdity home to our own minds unless we contemplate it
as reflected in the mirror of a simile.

Imagine, then, a bank, the stockholders of which, many in number, are
divided into two factions--let us call