erstand that if our consular service is to be an effective
help to American commerce, and a credit to the American name, it must
not be subject to periodical partisan lootings, and our consuls must not
be appointed by way of favor to some influential politician, but upon
a methodical ascertainment of their qualifications for the consular
business; then to be promoted according to merit, and also to be
salaried as befits respectable agents and representatives of a great
nation. With this understanding, every Good Government Club, every
Municipal League, every Chamber of Commerce or Board of Trade must be
an active Civil Service Reform Association. But more than this. Every
intelligent and unprejudiced citizen, when he candidly inquires into the
developments which have brought about the present state of things, will
understand that of the evils which have so alarmingly demoralized our
political life, and so sadly lowered this Republic in the respect of the
world, many, if not most, had their origin, and find their sustenance,
in that practice which treats the public offices as the plunder of
victorious parties; that as, with the increase of our population, the
growth of our wealth, and the multiplication of our public interests,
the functions of government expand and become more complicated, those
evils will grow and eventually destroy the very vitality of our free
institutions, unless their prolific source be stopped; that this force
can be effectually stopped not by mere occasional spasms of indignant
virtue, but only by a systematic, thorough, and permanent reform. Every
patriotic citizen understanding this must be a Civil Service reformer.

You may ask how far this understanding has penetrated our population.
President Cleveland answers this question in his recent message. Listen
to what he says: "The advantages to the public service of an adherence
to the principles of Civil Service Reform are constantly more apparent,
and nothing is so encouraging to those in official life who honestly
desire good government, as the increasing appreciation by our people of
these advantages. A vast majority of the voters of the land are ready to
insist that the time and attention of those they select to perform for
them important public duties should not be distracted by doling out
minor offices, and they are growing to be unanimous in regarding party
organization as something that should be used in establishing party
principles inste