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vice Reform Associations the State Senate ordered an inquiry, which mercilessly laid bare the misdoings of the unfaithful stewards. In the cities of Brooklyn. Buffalo, and more recently, in Albany, the law has been loyally carried out by friendly authorities, and is bearing excellent fruit. In New York City it fell into the hands of Tammany Hall, and I need not describe the sport that band of political sharpers made of it. The decalogue itself would become a farce if left for enforcement to the devil. But the arch-enemy of Reform. David B. Hill, now rests under a monumental mountain of condemning votes; on the 1st of January next Roswell P. Flowers will cease to be Governor of the State, and Tammany rule will end in the city of New York. And then the Civil Service Law, revived by the voice of the people, will there also become a living and beneficent force.
Indeed, in the State of New York the Reform cause has recently won a triumph that is unique. The late constitutional convention proposed the embodiment in the State constitution of a clause making the introduction of the competitive merit system in the State and municipal service obligatory; the people have ratified the amendment, and thus in New York Civil Service Reform has obtained the sanction of a constitutional mandate.
But all these evidences of progress I regard as of less importance than the strength our cause has gained in public sentiment. Of this we had a vivid illustration when a year ago, upon the motion of Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, the Anti-Spoils League was set on foot for the purpose of opening communication and facilitating correspondence and, in case of need, concert of action with the friends of Civil Service Reform throughout the country, and when, in a short space of time, about 10,000 citizens sent in their adhesion, representing nearly every State and Territory of the Union, and, in them, the most enlightened and influential classes of society.
More encouraging still is the circumstance that now for the first time we welcome at our annual meeting not
