For many years America practised, and indeed legally sanctioned, the habit of literary piracy. Foreign authors were distinctly refused any protection in the United States for the fruit of their intellectual labours. A foreigner might make a hat, and no one could steal it. He might cultivate a crop of potatoes, and no one could take them from him without paying for them. But let him write a book, and any one could reprint it, and sell it, and make a fortune out of it, without being compelled to give the unhappy author a penny. American authors felt the shame of this state of things,--and the disorder, too, for it demoralized the book-trade and brought a mass of stolen goods into cheap competition with those which had paid an honest royalty to their makers. A Copyright League was formed which included all the well-known writers of America. After years of hard work this league secured the passage of an international copyright law which gave the same protection to the foreigner as to the American author, providing only, under the protective tariff system, that his book must be printed and manufactured in the United States. But the most striking and important example of this kind of work is that of the Civil Service Reform Association, which was organized in 1877. Here a few words of explanation are necessary. In the early history of the United States the number of civil offices under the national government was comparatively small, and the appointments were generally made for ability and fitness. But as the country grew, the number of offices increased with tremendous rapidity. By 1830 the so-called 'Spoils System' which regarded them as prizes of political war, to be distributed by the successful party in each election for the reward and encouragement of its adherents, became a fixed idea in the public mind. The post-offices, the custom-houses, all departments of the civil service, were treated as rich treasuries of patronage, and used first by the Democrats and then by the Republicans, to consolidate and perpetuate partisan power. It was not a question of financial corruption, of bribery with money. It was worse. It was a question of the disorder and impurity of the national housekeeping, of the debauchment and degradation of the daily business of the State. Notoriously unfit persons were appointed to responsible positions. The tenure of office was brief and insecure. Every presidential election threatened to make a clean sweep of the hundreds of thousands of people who were doing the necessary routine work of the nation. Federal office-holders were practically compelled to contribute to campaign expenses, and to work and fight, like a host of mercenaries, for the success of the party which kept them in place. Confusion and inefficiency prevailed everywhere.