nsive he was.

Now the day had come for the first of their finals. Hanlon never worried
about exams, for he had always been near the top of his class. Now,
especially, since he was already graduated and a Senior Lieutenant, he
could have taken things easily. But pride in his scholarship made him
anxious as always to do his best.

Their first examination was History, one of Hanlon's pet subjects, for
he loved this story of Mankind, his ups and downs and gradual growth.

When the examination papers were handed out and he noted the first
question he smiled. If only they were all that easy.

_"Give briefly a resume of the events leading up to the formation
of the Inter-Stellar Corps."_

Hanlon uncapped his writo, and began:

"In the middle of the Twentieth Century the various governments of Earth
were all tending toward either a totalitarian or a welfare-form state.
More and more power became vested in the Executive branch; more and more
citizens were either working directly for government, or were supported
by relief funds. Business was, to an increasingly greater extent,
stifled by over-control. Public debts became a staggering load, and
workers had less and less of their income available for living needs.

"When atomic energy was first released by the United States, in the form
of a bomb during a war, the military took complete control of it.
Neither private nor industrial scientists or technicians were allowed to
experiment with possibilities of getting power directly from atomic
fission.

"In 1958 a young man named Travis Burkett was elected to the United
States Congress from California. During his four terms as member of the
Lower House he became increasingly well-known as possessor of one of the
finest minds in public life. In 1966 he was advanced to the Senate, and
soon became its leading member.

"In 1976 (prophetic year) he ran for President on the simple platform of
'give the country back to the people'. His ideas and views so fired the
minds and hopes of the citizens of America, regimented and ground down
by the cancerous growth of bureaucracy, that even most of the
bureaucrats and reliefers joined to elect him by one of the greatest
pluralities ever polled.

"During his two terms of office, with the help of a Cabinet of men who
believed as he did, he fulfilled his promises. The tremendous power of
the Executive was gradually returned to the Legislative, where it
belonged. Unnecessary, over