President Harrison appointed Theodore Roosevelt a member of the United States Civil Service Commission May 13, 1889. While in the New York Legislature much of his efforts had been directed to the improvement of the public service. He was one of the most noted advocates in the country of the merit system, and his enmity to the spoilsman had won him objurgations of press and party on numberless occasions. To his new duties he brought enthusiastic faith in the righteousness and the expediency of a civil-service system, and he at once embarked on a campaign for establishing its permanency and for its extension, which again made him the butt of almost daily attacks. In Congress and in the ranks of the leaders of his party hundreds of opponents sprang up to attack him, but he held to his way and eventually won to his own way of thinking many public men. Though always determined and aggressive, Mr. Roosevelt is a man of great tact, and to this no less than to the resolute assurance of his methods was due the success of his efforts for the extension of the civil service in the national service. He served for six years, two of them under President Harrison’s successor, Mr. Cleveland. In that time the number of persons who were made subject to the civil-service law was increased from 12,000 to nearly 40,000, and the still further great increase made by the orders of President Cleveland in the late years of his first administration was largely due to Mr. Roosevelt’s efforts. He was not a member of the commission when they were promulgated, but they had been considered by the commission and were favorably regarded by the President almost a year before they were made law by the President’s order. In the years he then spent in Washington Mr. Roosevelt made many strong friends. In the commission he was loved and respected by every one, from his fellow commissioners to the laborers. He declined to be president of the commission, though the place was offered him more than once, but he was the acknowledged force and head of its work. When the great extensions afterward made by the President were first proposed to Mr. Cleveland he suggested that it would be better to codify the rules of the commission before taking such action. This was done, though it took some time, and shortly after it had been accomplished the chief examiner of the commission, Mr. Webster, died, which again put affairs in such shape that it was regarded as inexpedient to add greatly to the duties of the commission at that time.