could never catch him. 18. _It will be a step toward civil-service reform._ Every increase of public business brings us nearer to thorough civil-service reform, because it enhances the importance of that reform, impresses the need of it more strongly upon the people, and deepens their sentiment in its favor. This has been the experience of European cities and states. A good reason why they are ahead of us in civil-service management, is because they are ahead of us in the public ownership of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, etc. In the case of the telegraph there are special reasons to expect that government control would carry with it an extension of the civil-service principle. In the opinion of Mr. Rosewater the postal telegraph "would be an entering wedge for the greatest possible success of the civil service." He says: It would bring into the postal service a large number of skilled operatives whose services could not be easily dispensed with. They would be divided in politics like every other class of citizens, their experience and trustworthiness would be of great moment, and their trustworthiness would be increased by the knowledge that they could not be displaced by partisan politics. This has been the experience in Great Britain, and would be the same here. Once get the postal service under government control and the civil-service act, and you would soon be able to place all departments of the government under the same system, and a large share of the public nuisance incident to office-holding would be done away with, leaving the officers free to inquire into and learn their duties to their office and to the public.[10] [10] _The Voice_, Aug. 29, 1895, pp. 1, 8. Prof. Ely says: One of the strongest arguments in favor of a postal telegraph, is that such a telegraph would carry with it an improvement in our civil service. It would increase the number of offices in which civil-service rules would be applied, even according to existing law, and it would be an irresistible argument in favor of the extension and elevation of the civil service. Some want to have us wait until the civil service has been already improved, but the purchase of the telegraph lines would inevitably carry with it the improvement of the civil service. The country would insist upon it. The acquisition of the telegraph lines by the nation would convert more people to civil-service reform in one day than all the speeches which have ever been delivered on the subject would win to this good cause in a year.[11] [11] The total number of positions that must now be filled from the classified civil-service lists is 85,100, out of a total of a little more than 200,000 positions in the national service, aside from the army and navy.