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efficient, and the loyal enforcement of the law in the several Government departments, especially that of the Post Office, which has resolutely sought to rescue the country Postmaster from the reach of spoils politics, and that of Agriculture, which has carried the domain of the competitive rule to the very top of its organization.
It is not only in the national service that we find evidence of gratifying progress. The establishment and maintenance of the merit system in the various State and municipal governments is next in importance. The complete expulsion of the spoils spirit from the national service can hardly be expected so long as that spirit is kept alive and fostered in the services of our states and municipalities. As you are aware the constitution of the State of New York contains a clause making the introduction of the competitive merit system in the service of the State and municipalities obligatory. That the genius of the spoils politicians in New York—for there are such in that community—should at once have applied itself to the task of circumventing that constitutional provision, you will readily believe without the production of affidavits. But there are judges in Israel, and the Court of Appeals, the highest tribunal in the State of New York has construed the civil service section of the constitution according to its meaning and intent, holding that the constitutional provision is self-executing and that while the existing civil service statutes may be used so far as they go in enforcing it, the courts would be obliged even in the absence of such statutes to pronounce all appointments made without competitive examinations to positions for which competitive examinations are practicable, to be illegal. This decision has been practically enforced by the competent authorities refusing pay to persons who had, according to the Court of Appeals, been illegally appointed. The spoilsmen, finding this to be serious business, for their favorites for whom they attempted to steal places dislike as much to serve for nothing as their patrons are loath to pay salaries out of their own pockets, have now conceived a new plan of campaign, of which I shall speak later.
In the mean time Mr. Morton, the Governor of New York, mindful of his constitutional obligations, and having learned from practical experience the value of the merit system, instructed the State Civil Service Commission to prepare for his
