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that they have a most undesirable effect upon those who do not take the trouble to discriminate? Do we not know that most people judge others rather by their faults than by their virtues, rather by their failures than their successes?
There are ten commandments. A man will be less praised for observing nine, than he will be blamed and discredited for breaking one. Nor has he any right to complain of this. The observance of the nine commandments is a simple duty, the performance of which should be regarded as a matter of course. By the breach of one he forfeits his virtue, and lays himself open to the suspicion of being capable of breaking more of them. So it is with the government in its administration of the civil service law. One conspicuous dereliction in its enforcement going unpunished will cause a widespread belief that there may be many similar derelictions not so conspicuous, and that the whole system is a hypocritical farce. And such a suspicion is especially dangerous and deplorable in view of the fact that the permanency and the extension of the merit system depend very largely upon the popular belief in the honesty of its advocates and the trustworthiness of its enforcement.
Equally deplorable in its spirit, as well as in its effect is the manner in which the reform of the Consular service has been treated. You will remember how the rushing rapidity with which, at the beginning of President Cleveland's second administration, Consular officers were removed and new men put in their places, was at the time resented by public opinion, and how severely it was denounced by this League. In all parts of the country not only civil service reformers, but almost the whole business community, through its representive commercial organization, joined in the demand that the Consular service should be taken out of politics, that Consular offices should cease to be treated as the spoil of party warfare, or to be used as the mere reward of partisan activity, that capable and efficient Consular officers should be kept in their places without regard to their party standing, and that vacancies in that branch of the service should be filled only upon proof of the specific fitness of the candidates for the duties to be performed. President Cleveland's administration, recognizing this demand as just, made an effort, no doubt an honest one, to comply with it. Mr. Olney, as Secretary of State, proposed, and President
