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two classes do not number fifty. Examining boards are created at certain places, mostly in the large cities, before whom candi dates for place must appear for examination. By addressing these Boards, or the Commission at Washington, any applicant can find out the conditions on which he will be permitted to enter the contest and the manner of conducting the same. The examination embraces spelling, penmanship, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history and the principles of our government. The candidates are graded. All falling below an average of sixty-five for all the subjects fail. All securing an average of sixty-five or over are booked with the Commission for appointment. When a clerk is wanted in any place to which the law applies, the names of the four highest on the list are sent to the chief official, who selects one. And so with other vacancies. Examinations are held once a year, or oftener if necessary. The clerk accepted or selected is a probationer for six months. If then acceptable his appointment becomes complete. Promotions are provided for. There is no inquiry into the politics or religion of the applicant, but he must give certified assurance of his moral and physical character.

Though the system thus devised is new and somewhat crude it promises to develop into substantial reform. The Commission have made one report on its results, which is altogether favorable. It cannot be doubted that the reform has a substantial hold on the higher sentiment of the country and a secure lodgment in the better judgment of political parties. That it will go on in this country, as in England, till it becomes a substitute for a system both heartless and rotten is the conviction of its originators and friends. What monarchy ripened without example and against caste, a Republic should perfect beneath the rays of experience and amid the encouragement of a pronounced sentiment.

ARGUMENTS FOR.-Observe, the reform thus started does not bear on elective officials, nor on Cabinet officers, nor yet on a long line of minor appointees who may be called heads of the sub or smaller departments both at Washington and throughout the country. All these are as yet recognized as belonging to

the political 'side of civic administration. The reform is not so far on as to attempt to say where the line of separation shall be drawn between purely civil and purely political administration. Nor does the reform go to the bottom of the Civil Service. Where, say a Collector of Customs or a Postmaster has only a few clerks he is supposed to know sufficiently about the ability of each to judge of their fitness. The reform only begins when the clerks number fifty, and it applies to the great intermediate body of clerical employés or minor civic officials. Bearing these facts in mind, and remembering what room there is yet for the extension of the reform system, the arguments relied on by its friends are: (1) Public office is a trust to be managed on business and not on political principles. (2) It is the right of the people to have the worthiest citizens in the public service for the general welfare. (3) Personal merit is the highest claim upon office. (4) Party government and the salutary effect of party activity are purer and more efficient under a merit system of office. (5) A partisan system of appointments and removals enfeebles and debases government by parties. (6) Patronage in the hands of legislators usurps the executive function and increases the expense of administration. (7) Non-partisan and actual fitness for public place can only be ascertained by competent examination. (8) Competitive examination ends partisan coercion and official favoritism, and, as has been proved, gives the best public servants. (9) Such methods leave to parties their true function and use. (10) The new system has raised the ambition and increased the self-respect of civic officials. (11) Open competition is as fatal to bureauocracy as it is to patronage, nepotism and spoils. (12) The merit system raises the character of the entire subordinate service, tends to economic administration, invigorates patriotism, heightens the standard of statesmanship and causes political leaders to look for support to better sentiments and a higher intelligence. (13) It is a standing rebuke to imbecility and indolence. (14) It is a return to the constitutional methods of the early Presidents and statesmen (15) It is as practical in a Republic as under any other form of government. (16) Elections would turn only on questions of

pure men and pure measures, and not on the ability of politicians to secure places for themselves or their friends.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST.-(1) Party ascendency would be jeopardized if public patronage were not turned to its account. (2) Party success at the polls means preference for its men and measures, which carries by implication the right to partisan distribution of the spoils. (3) Administration can only do the will of the majority effectively through its political friends. . (4) A line cannot be drawn between purely civic and purely political administration. (5) Patronage is an inducement for parties to exist and continue in active work. (6) The holder of political place should contribute to keeping his place. (7) Political activity is proper, and there is always a necessity for men trained in politics and political methods, who cannot be had if the inducement of patronage is removed. (8) Civil Service tends to bureauocracy; that is, to a class of officials who would grow indifferent and insolent if their places were permanent.

POLYGAMY.

AM

OLYGAMY presents an intricate problem.

There is almost a solid moral and political sentiment against it, but the problem is of such a nature as to escape this and still avoid solution. The truth is there is yet a great deal to be learned about it. After one dwells upon it long enough to begin to see that it has ingenious, if not plausible, religious support, his wits are taxed to the uttermost to know whether a direct and heroic remedy is easy or possible. It is or is not polygamy; that is, it is or is not a crime amenable to law and removable by statute, just as it is or is not an essential part of a religion-Mormonism. The moment it chooses to sit under the panoply of Mormonism, or use it for an ægis, it boldly claims the exemption from interference accorded to other religions under Article I. of the Amendments to the Constitution, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

HISTORY OF MORMONISM.—According to Mormon belief, the Lord appeared to Joseph Smith, then fourteen, at Manchester, New York, in 1820. Seven years later an angel delivered to him certain metal plates on which were engraved in Egyptian characters the Book of Mormon. Two transparent stones were with the plates, by whose help Smith translated the characters into English. The book professed to be an inspired record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of America. Its style is that of the Old Testament Chronicles. In 1829, John the Baptist, and, shortly after, Peter, James and John appeared to Smith and a follower, Oliver Cawdrey, and consecrated them to the priesthoods of Aaron and Melchizedek. The church was

first organized at Seneca, N. Y., 1830. The next year the church was removed to Missouri. They called themselves Latter-Day Saints. Driven from place to place in Missouri, they were finally expelled from the State in 1838, and took refuge in Illinois, where they founded the town of Commerce. Here also they were the frequent victims of mob violence, and their town of Nauvoo was raided, resulting in the killing of Smith and his brother. Brigham Young, Smith's successor as Prophet, resolved to lead the community, which all the while throve amid persecution, into a new Canaan west of the great desert and in the recesses of the Rocky Mountains. In 1846 the Mormon migrants were at Council Bluff, where in compliance with a call of the Federal government they sent a battalion of 500 men to the Mexican war. In the spring of 1847, Young with 143 converts started for the new Canaan, to be followed later by a train of 700 wagons and the main body of pioneers. The journey of 1,000 miles, through a country as little known and as hostile as the Arabian desert was to the Jews under Moses, was made with success. They pitched their camp at the mouth of the cañon where Salt Lake City now stands. The new Canaan was anything but a land of promise. Lieutenant Sherman with a band of surveyors nearly perished on the shores of Salt Lake in 1850 for want of water. The Latter Day Saints were, in their imagination, the Israelites of old. They had fled from Egyptian persecution, crossed a trackless desert, met with miraculous preservations. In their Canaan, to the south, was Lake Utah, their Sea of Galilee. Flowing north was their Jordan, which emptied into the Great Salt Lake, their Dead Sea. The site selected for their new Zion was Jerusalem surrounded by mountains. The Indians were Philistines. They were hardy, industrious, frugal and enthusiastic. Cut off from outward food supply, they planted for themselves and fed rather than fought the Indians. They built, redeemed the soil by irrigation, and throve.

By 1857 they were a little independent State, though within a Territory organized as early as 1850. False knowledge of the situation drew the ire of the Federal government. An army

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