poses, and Mongolian men, held to perform servile labor contracts, and demand such modification of the treaty with the Chinese empire, or such legislation within constitutional limitations, as shall prevent further importation or immigration of the Mongolian race.

Reform is necessary, and can never be effected but by making it the controlling issue of the elections, and lifting it above the two false issues with which the office-holding class and the party in power seek to smother it: 1. The false issue with which they would enkindle sectarian strife in respect to the public schools, of which the establishment and support belongs exclusively to the several states, and which the democratic party has cherished from their foundation, and is resolved to maintain, without prejudice or preference for any class, sect, or creed, and without largesses from the treasury to any.

2. The false issue by which they seek to light anew the dying embers of sectional hate between kindred peoples once estranged, but now reunited in one indivisible republic and a common destiny.

Reform is necessary in the civil service. Experience proves that efficient, economical conduct of the governmental business is not possible if its civil service be subject to change at every election, be a prize fought for at the ballot-box, be a brief reward of party zeal, instead of posts of honor assigned for proved competency, and held for fidelity in the public employ; that the dispensing of patronage should neither be a tax upon the time of all our public men, nor the instrument of their ambition. Here, again, promises, falsified in the performance, attest that the party in power can work out no practical or salutary reform.

Reform is necessary, even more, in the higher grades of the public service. President, Vice-President, judges, senators, representatives, cabinet officers-these, and all others in authority-are the people's servants. Their offices are not a private perquisite; they are a public trust. When the annals of this republic show the disgrace and censure of a Vice-President; a late speaker of the House of Representatives marketing his rulings as a presiding officer; three senators profiting secretly by their votes as law-makers; five chairmen of the leading committees of the late House of Representatives exposed in jobbery; a late secretary of the treasury forcing balances in the public accounts; a late attorney-general misappropriating public funds; a secretary of the navy enriched, or enriching friends, by percentages levied off the profits of contractors with his department; an ambassador to England concerned in a dishonorable speculation; the President's private secretary barely escaping conviction upon trial for guilty complicity in frauds upon the revenue; a secretary of war impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors-the demonstration is complete, that the first step in reform must be the people's choice of honest

men from another party, lest the disease of one political organization infect the body politic, and lest by making no change of men or parties we get no change of measures and no real reform.

All these abuses, wrongs, and crimes-the product of sixteen years' ascendency of the republican party-create a necessity for reform, confessed by the republicans themselves; but their reformers are voted down in convention and displaced from the cabinet. The party's mass of honest voters is powerless to resist the eighty thousand office-holders, its leaders and guides.

Reform can only be had by a peaceful civic revolution. We demand a change of system, a change of administration, a change of parties, that we may have a change of measures and of men.

Resolved, That this convention, representing the democratic party of the United States, do cordially indorse the action of the present House of Representatives, in reducing and curtailing the expenses of the federal government, in cutting down salaries and extravagant appropriations, and in abolishing useless offices and places not required by the public necessities; and we shall trust to the firmness of the democratic members of the House that no committee of conference and no misinterpretation of the rules will be allowed to defeat these wholesome measures of economy demanded by the country.

Resolved, That the soldiers and sailors of the republic, and the widows and orphans of those who have fallen in battle, have a just claim upon the care, protection, and gratitude of their fellow-citizens.

CHAPTER XXI.

HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION.

1877-1881.

THE PRESIDENT'S CONCILIATORY POLICY.

The inaugural address of President Hayes indicated his desire for a more cordial union and a better state of feeling among the sections of the country. He had foreshadowed his views on reconciliation in his letter accepting the nomination. The most prominent feature of the opening of the administration was the President's disposition to conciliate the disaffected feeling in the south, and accomplish by mild means what force and coercive legislation had failed to do. He selected as postmaster-general a former confederate officer, David M. Key, of Tennessee, and made Carl Schurz, a leader of the liberal republicans in 1872, secretary of the interior. Very early in his administration he removed the government troops from Louisiana and the other states, and left those commonwealths to govern themselves without federal interference. He made a tour of the southern states soon afterwards, during which he made several conciliatory speeches, calling those who had engaged in the rebellion "gallant soldiers" and "brothers." The speeches attracted much attention, but they did not accomplish the results that many had reason to expect. The hostility of the democratic party to the count of the electoral commission was not allayed, and the feeling in the south was not restored to a condition much more desirable to the republicans than that which it had been during the exciting days of the electoral count. But the democracy of the south, under the leadership of men like

Hill, Gordon, and Stephens, declaring that there had been enough of civil war, showed an earnest desire for a peaceful settlement sooner than the democrats of the border and northern states. The early conservative policy of Mr. Hayes did not extend throughout his administration. In his message to Congress, December, 1878, he recommended measures. which showed that his mind had undergone a change on the question of conciliation.

THE STALWARTS.

The moderation of Mr. Hayes's administration prevented him at first from receiving the cordial support of the republicans and from meeting the solid opposition of the democrats. His early withdrawal of the federal troops from the south, at the suggestion of the "visiting statesmen," and the consequent overthrow of the Packard, or republican, government in Louisiana, increased the opposition of many radical republicans, who accused the President of "slopping over." Those republicans who believed the executive had carried reconciliation too far, called themselves "stalwarts." The supporters of the administration constituted one wing of the republican party, and the "stalwarts" the other. Conspicuous among the opponents of the President's conciliatory policy were Senators Conkling, Logan, and the younger Cameron. These leaders, because of the conservative tendencies of the administration, formed the design of bringing General Grant again to the presidency. This purpose was followed till its defeat at the Chicago convention, in 1880.

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

An attempt was early made to revive and extend some of the regulations of the civil service reform, partially established in the previous administration. Several orders were issued, and strict obedience claimed, and, by them, considerable flut

tering among office-holders was caused; but they were, after a time, construed into nothing of any force, and were gradually relaxed, if not abandoned.

Congress met in extra session, October 15, 1877, in pursuForty-fifth Congress,ance of a proclamation of the PresiExtra Session. dent, issued on the 5th of the preceding May. The forty-fourth Congress had adjourned without making the usual appropriations for the support of the army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1878. With the object of urging these appropriations, the extra session was called. Bills and resolutions were offered in each house, but no important public act was passed, each measure of national interest being continued into the regular session. Congress adjourned December 3, 1877.

Congress met December 3, 1877, the day on which the Forty-fifth Congress, extra session closed. The republicans First Session. Shad a majority in the Senate, and the democrats in the House. Information had reached the President that " rifle clubs," an advance on the "white league" and the "ku-klux," were intimidating negro voters in the south. He made this subject a leading feature of his message to Congress, and took a position thereon that showed an abandonment of his earlier policy. The change in his attitude on this and succeeding occasions brought together the fast separating wings of the republican party.

SILVER REMONETIZATION.

Mr. Bland, in the House, November 5, introduced a bill for the free coinage of the standard silver dollar, and to restore its legal-tender character. It was passed by both houses, after being amended so as to invite European nations in a conference to adopt a common ratio of legal-tender as between gold and silver, for the purpose of establishing internationally the use of bi-metallic money. The bill was