The people demand reform in the administration of the Government and the
application of business principles to public affairs. As a means to this
end, civil-service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our citizens
have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees
who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from
the corrupting influence of those who promise and the vicious methods
of those who expect such rewards; and those who worthily seek public
employment have the right to insist that merit and competency shall be
recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of honest
political belief.

In the administration of a government pledged to do equal and exact
justice to all men there should be no pretext for anxiety touching the
protection of the freedmen in their rights or their security in the
enjoyment of their privileges under the Constitution and its amendments.
All discussion as to their fitness for the place accorded to them as
American citizens is idle and unprofitable except as it suggests the
necessity for their improvement. The fact that they are citizens
entitles them to all the rights due to that relation and charges them
with all its duties, obligations, and responsibilities.

These topics and the constant and ever-varying wants of an active
and enterprising population may well receive the attention and the
patriotic endeavor of all who make and execute the Federal law.
Our duties are practical and call for industrious application, an
intelligent perception of the claims of public office, and, above all,
a firm determination, by united action, to secure to all the people
of the land the full benefits of the best form of government ever
vouchsafed to man. And let us not trust to human effort alone, but humbly
acknowledging the power and goodness of Almighty God, who presides over