who were not strictly clerks and at the behest of one of the state officers who had opposed the comprehensive. bill, there was brought a suit attacking the constitutionality of the law. The case went directly to the Supreme Court of the state, its highest tribunal.

The attorney general had been a leader in the state officers' lobby against the comprehensive legislation and had aided in securing the hostile exemption amendment. However, he requested the Association to secure a friend of the law as special counsel to defend its constitutionality and this Association was fortunate in securing the services of Mr. Edgar A. Bancroft, eminent both as lawyer and civil service reform leader, as principal counsel in the case. Mr. Bancroft's "Reply for Defendant" should have a high place in the legal literature of this cause. The case was argued before the supreme court on December 18 last year. On February 23, this year, the court rendered its opinion and' declared the law constitutional. Four of the justices voted for it, and three against it. About two months later one of the four rendered a specially-concurring opinion, to the effect that the law could not apply to employes performing duties required by the constitution, expressly or by implication, of the elective officers above them, as distinguished from duties required by legislative enactment. While this is a little disquieting, the main fact which stands out is that the Illinois supreme court has declared the state law constitutional. The Court, in the course of its opinion. said of the law:

It is based on the principle that positions in the public. service are not the personal or political perquisites of any officer or party, and ought not to be divided, after a political campaign, as so much loot of actual warfare, but that competency, merit and fitness ought to be the standard for all appointments or promotions in the public service. That principle is not out of harmony with the general spirit, any specific provision or any implied doctrine of the constitution of Illinois.

The decision gave impetus to the Association's preprimary campaign, one object of which was to commit candidates for the General Assembly to work and vote. for bills to fill the gaps left in the civil service legislation

of 1911. In the month before the direct primaries held on April 9th we carried on correspondence with 1,053 candidates for nomination for public office, 741 of them for seats in the General Assembly. To the legislative candidates were sent letters giving the popular vote in their respective districts for comprehensive legislation, and a statement of principles, or pledge-form, addressed, not to the Association, but to the voters of the candidates' respective districts. This pledged its signer to work and vote at the sessions of the next General Assembly for extension of the civil service laws, as follows: (a) To statehouse clerks and watchmen, (b) to employes of the General Assembly, (c) to attorneys in appointive positions in the state service, (d) to the employes of the municipal court of Chicago, and (e) to the employes of the sanitary district of Chicago; also to work and vote against weakening or repealing the existing civil service. laws, and to give support to their enforcement in spirit and in letter.

Simultaneously this was sent to the press of the state and published widely in the news columns, stimulating candidates to take notice of it. Their replies and also details of the civil service records made in 1911 by legislators seeking renomination this year were included in reports submitted to the newspapers of every district a week prior to the primary elections. These details included not only voting records made on the fifteen house roll calls and nine senate roll calls on civil service, but also working records made in the lobbies, in committee and on the floor of the legislative halls. The reports rated the legislators on civil service "Excellent," "Good," "Fair," "Poor" and "Bad," according to the facts in each

case.

In the primaries of April 9 several conspicuous legislators were defeated for renomination directly and chiefly because of the Association's exposure of their bad civil service records. Of the candidates nominated at that time for the General Assembly, a majority gave promise by their records or pledges to voters, of working and voting for the civil service programme of 1913.

Many additional candidates for the legislature came

into the field by petition prior to the general election of November 5. In the pre-election campaign new letters and the pledge-form were sent to these new candidates and to those of the April nominees who had not been heard from or who had not made strong statements favorable to civil service legislation. In all there were 452 candidates for the General Assembly at the November election. A press statement that in this year's unusual competition for seats in the General Assembly, this work was being carried on by the Association, was published throughout the state and followed by editorials in many of the newspapers calling on the candidates to declare themselves on civil service. A few days before the election final reports on the responses and records were submitted to the public, through the press, to which we owe a vote of thanks.

The result of the two.campaigns is that a majority of the state legislators recently elected, as well as a majority of the hold-over senators, is favorable to civil service legislation. Of the 153 elected to the House, 102 are favorable, including sixty-nine who are very favorable. Of the 51 members of the Senate, elect and holdover, forty-two are favorable, including twenty-four who are very favorable. Moreover, the Democratic, Republican and Progressive party state platforms contain encouraging civil service planks.

This month a bill-drafting committee of lawyers in our forces has been appointed. This committee and its sub-committees on state, sanitary district and municipal court services, are at work preparing civil service bills to be submitted to the General Assembly when it convenes next January.

Correspondence with candidates for administrative office, as well as legislative, and attendant publicity work, were carried on by the Association in both the pre-primary and pre-election campaigns. Questionaires were sent to the candidates for governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor of public accounts, state treasurer and attorney-general. Besides appropriate questions. on the legislative programme, they were asked specific questions as to enforcement of the laws suggested by

the duties and opportunities of the respective offices sought.

For example the candidates for governor were asked if they would appoint as civil service commissioners only men of character, known to be in sympathy with the civil service law and qualified to enforce it honestly and efficiently; if they would safeguard the independence of civil service commissioners, despite political, partisan, factional or personal pressure; if they would make temporary appointments only when absolutely necessary; if they would stand against evasions as well as violations of the law, and if they would favor aggressive enforcement of the efficiency sections of the law. Hon. Edward F. Dunne, the Governor-elect,, signed with an unequivocal "Yes" his favorable answer to each question and returned the statement promptly with an appropriate letter. Since then he has given both. private and public assurances that he stands for "honest civil service." Mr. Brady, Auditor-elect, Mr. Ryan, Treasurer-elect, and Mr. Lucey, Attorney-general-elect, sent categorical replies giving unqualified assurances that they will work for the extension of the civil service laws and uphold and enforce them in letter and in spirit; Mr. Woods, Secretaryof-State-elect, sent a favorable letter; Mr. O'Hara, Lieutenant-Governor-elect, was not heard from.

In conclusion it should be stated that during the year the state civil service commission, under the presidency of Hon. Wm. B. Moulton, who was given a free hand by Gov. Charles S. Deneen, has done excellent work in so enforcing the law as to secure respect for it from the employes, the politicians and the public; particularly through demonstrating the practicability of competitive examinations for entrance, including tests of fitness for higher positions; by watchfulness under the sections of the law calling for efficiency investigations leading to elimination of useless positions; and by enforcement of the political activity rule.

The next year will be one of severe test for the law, because of the recent political turnover through which the Democratic party for the first time since 1896 has dis

placed the Republican party in control of the state government. But we believe it will stand the test.

Mr. H. J. Milligan submitted the report of the Civil Service Reform Association of Indiana:

The millennium has not reached Indiana yet; I do not know whether it will come by way of Chicago or not, if it does come. I do not think Satan is as active there as he is in some other parts of the country, but he is not entirely in restraint.

I do not think that the public men of Indiana who are in politics, care very much about civil service. I went with Mr. Swift to see Governor Marshall, who has been elected Vice-President; and while the Governor is a personal friend of mine, I having spent four years with him in college, I found that his knowledge of civil service was not on a par with his knowledge on many other highly important subjects; and I see nothing to indicate that any of the men who aspire to office in Indiana are very much concerned on this subject. But that the people of Indiana, as represented by their clubs and business associations, are very much interested in this subject, there is ample evidence. Even Mayor Shank-I don't know whether he is a household word in Wisconsin or not, I think he is in New York, because he was called to New York to instruct the people of New York how to break up the combinations in potato selling, etc.-but Lew Shank, Mayor of Indianapolis, has adopted civil service rules for admission to the fire and police department, and that too, of his own motion; that is to say, he was not compelled to do it by any statute. This act on his part however, was inspired very largely by those who were interested in a lower insurance rate in Indianapolis; and they could get that by a more efficient fire department, and they get a more efficient fire department by having firemen selected on the merit system. Now that is one indication that in spite of the fact that the leaders so-called, in politics, pay very little attention to the merit system, the people are vitally interested in it.

There has been another indication, that in Fort Wayne, Ind., a manufacturer has assumed the responsibility of having prepared a new law for the government