Two years more of private life, devoted to his home, where his greatest happiness was always found, to his ranch, to reading and writing books, and then came an active part in the campaign of 1888, resulting in the election of President Harrison, who made him civil-service commissioner in the spring of 1889. He was in his thirty-first year. Civil-service reform as a practical question was then in its initial stages. The law establishing it, limited in extent and forced through by a few leaders of both parties in the Senate, was only six years old. The promoters of the reform, strong in quality, but weak in numbers, had compelled a reluctant acceptance of the law by exercising a balance-of-power vote in certain States and districts. It had few earnest supporters in Congress, some lukewarm friends, and many strong opponents. All the active politicians were practically against it. Mr. Conkling had said that when Dr. Johnson told Boswell "that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel" he was ignorant of the possibilities of the word "reform," and this witticism met with a large response. Civil-service reform, meaning the establishment of a classified service and the removal of routine administrative offices from politics, had not reached the masses of the people at all. The average voter knew and cared nothing about it. When six years later Roosevelt resigned from the commission the great body of the people knew well what civil-service reform meant, large bodies of voters cared a great deal about it, and it was established and spreading its control. We have had many excellent men who have done good work in the Civil Service Commission, although that work is neither adventurous nor exciting and rarely attracts public attention, but no one has ever forgotten that Theodore Roosevelt was once civil-service commissioner.