We have attempted to include four representative orations on this
complex subject, from four of our most prominent public men. The
literature of the subject is unlimited. Mr. Morrill is a representative
advocate of the gold standard. In the same discussion Mr. Blaine offers
a compromise position. Senator Sherman is an international bimetallist
and a pronounced opponent of independent silver coinage. He has given
much attention--probably no one has given more--to financial questions
during a long public life. Senator Jones is recognized as one of the
ablest advocates and one of the deepest students of monetary problems
on the free silver side of the controversy. The extracts from these
speeches will indicate the merits of the long debate on silver
coinage,--the greatest question in our financial history in a quarter of
a century.


The reform of the Civil Service has been a subject of public attention
especially since 1867. The public service of the United States is
divided into three branches, the civil, military, and naval. By the
civil service we mean that which is neither military nor naval, and it
comprises all the offices by which the civil administration is carried
on. The struggle for Civil Service Reform has been an effort to
substitute what is known as the "Merit System" for what is known as the
"Spoils System"; to require that appointment to public office should
depend, not upon the applicant's having rendered a party service, but
upon his fitness to render a public service. It would seem that the
establishment in public practice of so obvious a principle should
require no contest or agitation; and that the civil service should ever
have been perverted and that a long struggle should be necessary to
reform it, are to be explained only in connection with a modern party
organization and a party machinery and usage which were entirely