The other evil is the organization of the official class into a body of political mercenaries governing the caucuses and dictating the nominations of their own party, and attempting to carry the elections of the people by undue influence and by immense corruption-funds systematically collected from the salaries or fees of office-holders. The official class in other countries, sometimes by its own weight, and sometimes in alliance with the army, has been able to rule the unorganized masses, even under universal suffrage. Here it has already grown into a gigantic power, capable of stifling the inspirations of a sound public opinion and of resisting an easy change of administration, until misgovernment becomes intolerable, and public spirit has been stung to the pitch of a civic revolution.

The first step in reform is the elevation of the standard by which the appointing power selects agents to execute official trusts. Next in importance is a conscientious fidelity in the exercise of the authority to hold to account and displace untrustworthy or incapable subordinates. The public interest in an honest, skilful performance of official trust must not be sacrificed to the usufruct of the incumbents.

After these immediate steps, which will insure the exhibition of better examples, we may wisely go on to the abolition of unnecessary offices; and, finally, to the patient, careful organization of a better civil service system under the tests, wherever practicable, of proved competency and fidelity.

While much may be accomplished by these methods, it might encourage delusive expectations if I withheld here the expres sion of my conviction that no reform of the civil service in this country will be complete and permanent until its chief magistrate is constitutionally disqualified for re-election; experience having repeatedly exposed the futility of self-imposed restrictions by candidates or incumbents. Through this solemnity only can he be effectually delivered from his greatest temptation to misuse the power and patronage with which the Executive is necessarily charged.

Educated in the belief that it is the first duty of a citizen of

Conclusion.

the Republic to take his fair allotment of care and trouble in public affairs, I have for forty years as a private citizen fulfilled that duty. Though occupied in an unusual degree during all that period with the concerns of government, I have never acquired the habit of official life. When, a year and a half ago, I entered upon my present trust, it was in order to consummate reforms to which I had already devoted several of the best years of my life. Knowing as I do, therefore, from fresh experience how great the difference is between gliding through an official routine and working out a reform of systems and policies, it is impossible for me to contemplate what needs to be done in the Federal administration without an anxious sense of the difficulties of the undertaking. If summoned by the suffrages of my countrymen to attempt this work, I shall endeavor, with God's help, to be the efficient instrument of their will.

LIV.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO THE SARATOGA

CONFERENCE.1

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES, As chief magistrate of the State of New York, it is my pleasing office to welcome you to this charming and fashionable resort, which is fast becoming the shrine of political, social, and scientific pilgrimages. Two great conventions, forming an essential share of the voluntary machinery by which the competitions of parties are carried on, and elective government over a continent is made possible, have recently held their sessions in this place; and to-day your Conference, connected with the Association for the Advancement of Social Science, brings to this same delightful retreat a class of men with very different objects, not less important, more comprehensive in their scope, and more permanent in their consequences. It brings here gentlemen distinguished for their learning, for their accomplishments, and for their benevolence. A conference of charities! What a noble rivalry is implied in these words. You are here, not to further your own interests, not even to promote the material well-being of those communities which you represent; but to consider what can best be done to cure the wounds and maladies of society. What has thus far been accomplished toward removing the evils of pauperism, crime, and insanity will be disclosed to you when the regular reports of the committees 1 Delivered in the Town Hall at Saratoga, Sept. 5, 1876.

charged with these subjects shall come before you. I will not anticipate them or trench upon their domain. My office is simply to express to you the earnest sympathy, the strong approval, and the spirit of co-operation of this great commonwealth, which I represent to-day.

In the past three centuries the progress of science has been something marvellous. In astronomy, geology, physics, and chemistry, and in all of those departments of science which in modern phrase are comprehended under the name of "biology," the achievements have been so vast that the earlier discoverers in science would have to go through a fresh novitiate to understand what are now ascertained facts. Kepler and Newton would scarcely comprehend the revelations of the modern instruments that have been employed to discover the interior constitution of the heavenly bodies. While they could merely watch and define the general movements and explore the surfaces of these bodies, it is given to us to discern their mysteries. Priestley, Lavoisier, and even Davy would have to go through new training to enable them to be called chemists. In other departments of science the achievements have been equally surprising.

By what means, by what methods, have these great results been accomplished? Was it by patient study, by diligent experiment, by researches persistently carried into the secret working-places of Nature? You will answer, it was not by these means alone. It was in a large degree by the application of scientific analysis and scientific methods to these inquiries. Now you propose, gentlemen, to extend the application of this method still farther, and to apply the same implements and modes of inquisition to the problems of human society. I congratulate you that, in doing it, you do it under the auspices of the Society for the Promotion of Social Science. I feel quite sure that you must derive instruction and aid—at least that you will absorb much that is interesting and that is valuable - from intercourse with the intelligent, cultivated gentlemen who belong to that Association. You assume that the complex

phenomena of society, its grand tides of movement, its successions of changes, growth and decay of populations, mortality, pauperism, crime, are capable of being analyzed, studied, and reduced to formulas. Now, gentlemen, it seems to me that no more interesting, no more important object of investigation could be presented to the human mind. I am quite sure that the application of the same philosophy which has achieved such grand results elsewhere will astonish you, will astonish every one, by the results which it will attain in this new department to which it will be applied. Even those most uncertain things that depend on the human will are capable of being studied, of being analyzed, of being classified, and their results stated.

Human life has been held forth in the sacred writings and in all ages as the most uncertain thing possible; and yet, if you will take a large number of individual lives and group them, you can compute within a fraction their average duration. In the great metropolis in which my home is, and its immediate suburbs, there are something like half a million of families. It would be scarcely probable that any one of those families should know what food they will have upon their table to-morrow; and yet every one goes to market without concern, without plan, even without purpose. They find everything they desire to supply their wants or gratify their tastes, and nothing of any importance is left at the end of the day. All over this continent, in every part of it, myriads of busy hands are preparing supplies for the great mart of traffic and centre of population. In the immediate vicinity the articles of heavy transport and small value are produced; far off, in the bluegrass region of Kentucky and Tennessee and on the broad savannas of Texas, is being prepared the beef which every day feeds this immense population. And in all these tens of thous ands of producers there is no concert, no plan. No man knows what his neighbors are to produce, no man knows who will buy the products of his industry; and yet all the results of their production are sent forward to the market. All are in demand, and all find every day an adequate sale.