his successor. You will have to choose among the men urged upon you by certain powerful politicians. Undoubtedly you ought to appoint the man whom you believe to be the most fit. But you do not and can not. If you could or did appoint such men only, and that were the rule of your department and of the service, there would be no need of reform." And he could not deny it. There was no law to prevent his selection of the best man. Indeed, the law assumed that he would do it. The Constitution intended that he should do it. But when I reminded him that there were forces beyond the law that paralyzed the intention of the Constitution, and which would inevitably compel him to accept the choice of others, he said no more. It is easy to assert that the reform of the Civil Service is an executive reform. So it is. But the Executive alone cannot accomplish it. The abuses are now completely and aggressively organized, and the sturdiest President would quail before them. The President who should undertake, single-handed, to deal with the complication of administrative evils known as the Spoils System would find his party leaders in Congress and their retainers throughout the country arrayed against him; the proposal to disregard traditions and practices which are regarded as essential to the very existence and effectiveness of party organization would be stigmatized as treachery, and the President himself would be covered with odium as a traitor. The air would hum with denunciation. The measures he should favor, the appointments he might make, the recommendations of his secretaries, would be opposed and imperilled, and the success of his administration would be endangered. A President who should alone undertake thoroughly to reform the evil must feel it to be the vital and paramount issue, and must be willing to hazard everything for its success. He must have the absolute faith and the indomitable will of Luther. "Here stand I; I can no other." How can we expect a President whom this system elects to devote himself to its destruction? General Grant, elected by a spontaneous patriotic impulse, fresh from the regulated order of military life and new to politics and politicians, saw the reason and the necessity of reform. The hero of a victorious war, at the height of his popularity, his party in undisputed and seemingly indisputable supremacy, made the attempt. Congress, good-naturedly tolerating what it considered his whim of inexperience, granted money to try an experiment. The adverse pressure was tremendous. "I am used to pressure," said the soldier. So he was, but not to this pressure. He was driven by unknown and incalculable currents. He was enveloped in whirlwinds of sophistry, scorn, and incredulity. He who upon his own line had fought it out all summer to victory, upon a line absolutely new and unknown was naturally bewildered and dismayed. So Wellington had drawn the lines of victory on the Spanish Peninsula and had saved Europe at Waterloo.