Now, the point of order was probably ill taken anyhow. The existing law was and had been for ten years that the salary was $2000. But, in any event, had there been a single Congressman alert to the situation and willing to make a fight he could have stopped the whole movement by at once making a similar point of order against the President’s private secretary, against the First Assistant Postmaster-General, the Assistant Secretary of State, and all the others involved. The House would of course have refused to cut down the salaries of all of these officials, and a resolute man, willing to insist that they should all go or none, could have saved the salary of the secretary of the Civil Service Commission. There were plenty of men who would have done this if it had been pointed out to them; but no one did so, and Mr. Breckinridge’s point of order was sustained, and the salary of the secretary reduced by $400. When it got over to the Senate, however, the Civil Service reformers had allies who needed but little coaching. In the first place, the sub-committee of the Committee on Appropriations, composed of Messrs. Teller, Cockrell, and Allison, to which the Civil Service Commission section of the Appropriation bill was referred, restored the salary to $2000; but Senator Gorman succeeded in carrying, by a bare majority, the Appropriations Committee against it, and it was reported to the full Senate still at $1600. The minute it got into the full Senate, however, Senator Lodge had a fair chance at it, and it was known that he would receive ample support. All that he had to do was to show clearly the absolute folly of the provision thus put in by Mr. Breckinridge, and kept in by Mr. Gorman, and to make it evident that he intended to fight it resolutely. The opposition collapsed at once; the salary was put back at $2000, and the bill became a law in that form.