I have a right, I think, to insist that those who volunteer or are invited to give advice as to appointments shall exercise consideration and fidelity. A high sense of duty and an ambition to improve the service should characterize all public officers. There are many ways in which the convenience and comfort of those who have business with our public officers may be promoted by a thoughtful and obliging officer, and I shall expect those whom I may appoint to justify their selection by a conspicuous efficiency in the discharge of their duties. Honorable party service will certainly not be esteemed by me a disqualification for public office; but it will in no case be allowed to serve as a shield for official negligence, incompetency, or delinquency. It is entirely creditable to seek public office by proper methods and with proper motives, and all applications will be treated with consideration; but I shall need, and the heads of departments will need, time for inquiry and deliberation. Persistent importunity will not, therefore, be the best support of an application for office. Heads of departments, bureaus, and all other public officers having any duty connected therewith, will be expected to enforce the Civil Service law fully and without evasion. Beyond this obvious duty I hope to do something more to advance the reform of the civil service. The ideal, or even my own ideal, I shall probably not attain. Retrospect will be a safer basis of judgment than promises. We shall not, however, I am sure, be able to put our civil service upon a non-partisan basis until we have secured an incumbency that fair minded men of the opposition will approve for impartiality and integrity. As the number of such in the civil list is increased removals from office will diminish.