had been passed to
tie President Johnson's hands, the offenders remained in office over a
year. The fight disciplined the President and the machine in about equal
proportions. The President became more amenable and the machine less
arbitrary.

President Garfield attempted the impossible feat of obliging both the
politicians and the reformers. He was persuaded to make nominations to
federal offices in New York without consulting either of the senators
from that State, Conkling and Platt. Conkling appealed to the Senate
to reject the New York appointees sent in by the President. The Senate
failed to sustain him. Conkling and his colleague Platt resigned from
the Senate and appealed to the New York legislature, which also refused
to sustain them.

While this absurd farce was going on, a more serious ferment was
brewing. On July 2, 1881, President Garfield was assassinated by a
disappointed office-seeker named Guiteau. The attention of the people
was suddenly turned from the ridiculous diversion of the Conkling
incident to the tragedy and its cause. They saw the chief office in
their gift a mere pawn in the game of place-seekers, the time and energy
of their President wasted in bickerings with congressmen over petty
appointments, and the machinery of their Government dominated by the
machinery of the party for ignoble or selfish ends.

At last the advocates of reform found their opportunity. In 1883 the
Civil Service Act was passed, taking from the President about 14,000
appointments. Since then nearly every President, towards the end of his
term, especially his second term, has added to the numbers, until
nearly two-thirds of the federal offices are now filled by examination.
President Cleveland during his second term made sweeping additions.
President Roosevelt found about 100,000 in the classified service and
left 200,000. President Taft, before his retirement, placed in the
classified service assistant postmasters and clerks in first and
second-class postoffices, about 42,000 rural delivery carriers, and over
20,000 skilled workers in the navy yards.

The appointing power of the President, however, still remains the
principal point of his contact with the machine. He has, of course,
other means of showing partizan favors. Tariff laws, laws regulating
interstate commerce, reciprocity treaties, "pork barrels," pensions,
financial policies, are all pregnant with political possibilities.

The second official unit in