them could get offices. This made the politicians unpopular with
the hungry office-seekers whom they deprived of their food at the
public trough.

The Commission had to struggle, however, not only to keep unfit
candidates out of office, but to keep in office those who
discharged their duty honestly and zealously. After every
election there came a rush of Congressmen and others, to turn out
the tried and trusty employees and to put in their own
applicants. Such an overturn was of course detrimental to the
service; first, because it substituted greenhorns for trained
employees, and next, because it introduced the haphazard of
politicians' whims for a just scheme of promotion and retention
in office. Roosevelt lamented bitterly over the injustice and he
denounced the waste. Many cases of grievous hardship came to his
notice. Widows, whose only means of support for themselves and
their little children was their salary, were thrown upon the
street in order that rapacious politicians might secure places
for their henchmen. Roosevelt might plead, but the politician
remained obdurate. What was the tragic lot of a widow and
starving children compared with keeping promises with greedy
"heelers"? Roosevelt saw that there was no redress except through
the extension of the classified service. This he urged at all
times, and ten years later, when he was himself President, he
added more than fifty thousand offices to the list of those which
the spoilsmen could not clutch.

He served six years as Civil Service Commissioner, being
reappointed in 1892 by President Cleveland. The overturn in
parties which made Cleveland President for the second time,