Before I touch on certain specifications I must premise that the influence of this journal on a Westerner, who read it in a receptive spirit, was probably more potent than on one living in the East. The arrogance of a higher civilization in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia than elsewhere in the United States, the term "wild and woolly West," applied to the region west of the Alleghany Mountains, is somewhat irritating to a Westerner. Yet it remains none the less true that, other things being equal, a man living in the environment of Boston or New York would have arrived more easily and more quickly at certain sound political views I shall proceed to specify than he would while living in Cleveland or Chicago. The gospel which Godkin preached was needed much more in the West than in the East; and his disciples in the western country had for him a high degree of reverence. In the biography of Godkin, allusion is made to the small pecuniary return for his work, but in thinking of him we never considered the money question. We supposed that he made a living; we knew from his articles that he was a gentleman, and saw much of good society, and there was not one of us who would not rather have been in his shoes than in those of the richest man in New York. We placed such trust in him--which his life shows to have been abundantly justified--that we should have lost all confidence in human nature had he ever been tempted by place or profit. And his influence was abiding. Presidents, statesmen, senators, congressmen rose and fell; political administrations changed; good, bad, and weak public men passed away; but Godkin preached to us every week a timely and cogent sermon. To return now to my personal experience. I owe wholly to _The Nation_ my conviction in favor of civil service reform; in fact, it was from these columns that I first came to understand the question. The arguments advanced were sane and strong, and especially intelligible to men in business, who, in the main, chose their employees on the ground of fitness, and who made it a rule to retain and advance competent and honest men in their employ. I think that on this subject the indirect influence of _The Nation_ was very great, in furnishing arguments to men like myself, who never lost an opportunity to restate them, and to editorial writers for the Western newspapers, who generally read _The Nation_ and who were apt to reproduce its line of reasoning. When I look back to 1869, the year in which I became a voter, and recall the strenuous opposition to civil service reform on the part of the politicians of both parties, and the indifference of the public, I confess that I am amazed at the progress which has been made. Such a reform is of course effected only by a number of contributing causes and some favoring circumstances, but I feel certain that it was accelerated by the constant and vigorous support of _The Nation_.