forests and the minerals-is a subject of transcendent importance which should engage unremitting attention of the Nation, the States, and the people in earnest co-operation; that there should be a continuation and extension of forest policies adapted to secure the husbanding and renewal of diminishing timber supplies, the prevention of soil erosion, the protection of headwaters and the maintenance of the purity and navigability of streams; that laws should be enacted looking to the conservation of water resources for irrigation, water supply, power and navigation, and to the prevention of waste in the mining and extraction of coal, oil, gas and other minerals, with a view to their wise husbanding for the use of the people.*

Congress has been less enthusiastic for conservation than have been the active supporters and endorsers of the movement. Legislation to make effective the plans of the National Commission was urged by President Roosevelt and also by President Taft, but was refused by the legislative branch. Nevertheless something has been done by Congressional enactment, especially in the direction of forest protection. In 1891 the first law treating of the subject was passed. This provided" that the President of the United States may, from time to time, set apart and reserve in any state or territory having public land bearing forests, any part of the public

* United States Department of Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletin 340.

lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations, and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof."

Under the provisions of this law magnificent National forests, not surpassed in extent by any nation of Europe, save perhaps Russia, have been secured to the people forever. The general policy of the Government has been to withdraw from entry lands which are more valuable for timber than for purposes of agriculture. President Harrison withdrew 13,416,710 acres; President Cleveland, 25,686,320 acres; President McKinley, 7,050,089 acres; President Roosevelt, 148,346,925 acres; making a total of national forest area of 194,500,043 acres. Of the 149 national forests existing in May of 1909, 617,677,749 acres were in continental United States, 26,761,626 acres in Alaska, and 65,950 acres in Porto Rico. Most of the continental acreage was in the Far West, but there were portions in 22 States and Territories. As the first decade of the Twentieth century came to an end, the question of the reservation of extensive tracts of the Appalachian range and the White Mountains of New Hampshire was being agitated with every prospect of a favorable outcome.

Following the example of the National Government, more than 20

either by personal effort or by contributions of money. It is "the adoption, by legislation or executive action, of rules for improving the civil service of the State by prescribing the qualifications of candidates for public office and for the good behavior of public servants and their independence of external control."

It is hardly possible to exaggerate the evils which have grown up under what is called the " spoils system." In a republican form of government public policies may, of course, be changed by the electorate. If the people desire a different administration of the tariff, for instance, they may elect officers who are pledged to carry out their views, and these officers may greatly modify protective principles, or even reverse the policy of a preceding administration. the routine business of the custom houses must go on practically unchanged "forever," like Tennyson's brook. And it is highly desirable, if not absolutely necessary, that officers

But

(New York, 1910); Rudolf Cronau, Our Wasteful Nation: the Story of American Prodigality and the Abuse of Our National Resources (New York, 1908); William B. Bosley, Conservation and the Constitution in Yale Law Review, vol. xx. (New Haven, 1910); Andrew A. Bruce, The Conservation of our National Resources in University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. xxviii. (Philadelphia, 1908); George L. Knapp, The Other Side of Conservation in North American Review, vol. exci. (New York, 1910); W. J. McGee, The Cult of Conservation (Washington, 1908); Declaration of Principles, North American Conservation Conference (Washington, 1909); Smith Riley, Preservation and Utilization of the National Forests in Colorado Scientific Society Proceedings, vol. ix., (Denver, 1909).

who are appointed, not elected, should carry on public business undisturbed and uninterruptedly, from year to year. But that is just what, under the spoils system, they were not allowed to do.

In the first forty years of the history of the United States, the six Presidents made less than a hundred removals from office- and every one of these only for cause. But with the incoming of President Jackson in 1829 a revulsion, rising to a revolution, took place. Thousands of subordinates in the Government service were removed for no other reason than that their places were desired by those who had supported or helped to seat the new Administration.

A period of corruption and of deterioration of the public service set in, which was to continue for half a century and intrench itself so deeply and powerfully that only the assassination of a President (President Garfield) could arouse the Nation to a sense of its peril and bring about the overthrow of a system which was second only to slavery itself in its baleful influence on public morals.

This change was not effected without vigorous and prolonged struggle which characterized the half century. In 1835 a great debate took place in the United States Senate, participated in by Clay, Calhoun, Webster and others men who differed radically on many other great questions of the day and who were bitter rivals in personal ambition, but who were agreed

as to the nature and needs of the public service and as to the tendency of the evils that had fastened upon it. Clay denounced the new movement as "a detestable system drawn from the worst periods of the Roman republic "; and Webster epitomized the arguments of the three mighty intellectual giants in the memorable and weighty words: "The theory of our institutions is plain; it is, that government is an agency created for the good of the people, and that every person in office is the agent and servant of the people. Offices are created, not for the benefit of those who are to fill them, but for the public convenience."

But the lofty and patriotic view of these great statesmen was not allowed to go unchallenged. They were to see other policies prevail, the spirit of which was badly and unblushingly proclaimed by Senator Marcy of New York: "The politicians of the United States are not so fastidious as some gentlemen are as to disclosing the principles on which they act. They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victors belong the spoils."

Thus it came about that, after every election involving a change of administration, an almost complete change in the personnel of officeholders took place, from the consular service as well as foreign ambassadors to fourthclass postmaster-ships. No one was secure if some one in the opposite party wanted his place and the emoluments that went with it - and usually not one, but many, "were hungry and

thirsty" for it. Elections, save perhaps that of 1860, became more and more contests for spoils and less and less disputes about principles. Candidates would promise certain offices in return for support. Officeholders would not only work less efficiently, but less honestly, when insecure in their tenure of office. The prevailing tendency was to curry favor with those in power and to use every means, lawful or otherwise, to continue them in power and "hold their own jobs down."

It was a sordid, disgusting, corrupting state of affairs, difficult to realize in these cleaner days, whose effects ramified into many channels that could not have been foreseen and would not have been believed possible. One of the worst of its morally debasing aspects was the system of political assessments under which government employes were forced to pay a considerable fraction of their salaries into party funds, besides giving much of their time-time belonging to government service to active work for the party in power, in order to retain their places. It came to pass also that the time of the Presidents was so encroached upon by the pressure of office seekers that at least one-third of every working day was consumed by appointive details, and six-sevenths of the President's callers were of this pernicious class. It was a serious handicap to the transaction of public business. As President Lincoln once quaintly expressed it: "I wish I

could get time to attend to the Southern question. I think I know what is wanted, and believe I could do something toward quieting the rising discontent, but the office seekers demand all my time. I am like a man so busy letting rooms in one end of his house that he cannot stop to put out the fire that is burning in the other."

Perhaps the situation has never been better summed up than was done by Senator Oliver P. Morton in the early 70's:

"The countless minor offices of the United States are filled by a distinct class known as 'professional politicians.' These men live by politics, receiving place as reward for political work. Their control of public office is monopolistic. Mr. Brice estimates their number at two hundred thousand, but this is under-estimated.

The influence which the officeholders wield is altogether out of proportion to their numbers or to their intellectual attainments. But they possess this advantage over other classes they are unified and organized. They make the management of primaries and conventions the serious business of their lives, and acquire a skill and experience in wire-pulling' which ordinary citizens cannot hope to cope with. The politics of the country is in the hands of these men. # In this barter and sale of public place, the proper transaction of public business is lost sight of. Competency does not

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in the Federal service brought about by the achievements of the merit system." The change has been gradual, it is true, and is not yet fully accomplished; but it is a marvelous change, nevertheless, and it is now only a question of a comparatively short time when every government position, save those that are elective or confidential, will be rescued from the clutch of the spoilsman.

It was about the time that Senator Morton was uttering the words quoted above that the first active efforts were made in Congress to secure the enactment of reform laws; but not much of a practical nature was accomplished, until the assassination of President Garfield by a disappointed officeseeker awoke the Nation to a realization of the depths to which the spoils system had reduced public morals and the need for a return to better principles. This crime led directly to the passage in January of 1883 of a law entitled "An Act to Regulate and Improve the Civil Service of the United States.” The object of the law was to secure

bent. Other motives of a selfish or mercenary character control in both cases. Office brokerage is a shameless and conspicuous fact, as the newspapers and congressional debates daily attest. It is the great object of civil service reform to restore these offices to the people, and to overthrow the bastard aristocracy who have debased them."

The iniquities of the "spoils system" have been dwelt upon at some length in order to emphasize the almost complete reversal of conditions

ment offices for fitness, instead of on the basis of party services or fealty. The act was drawn on such broad lines that successive Presidents have been enabled to bring different classes of offices within its scope-hence the name "classified service," under which its workings are known.

By the provisions of the law, competitive and non-competitive examina