life.

In the Presidential campaign of 1888, Roosevelt was on the firing
line again, fighting for the Republican candidate, Benjamin
Harrison. When Mr. Harrison was elected, he would have liked to
put the young campaigner into the State Department. But Mr.
Blaine, who became Secretary of State, did not care to have his
plain-spoken opponent and critic under him. So the President
offered Roosevelt the post of Civil Service Commissioner.

The spoils system had become habitual and traditional in American
public life by sixty years of practice. It had received its first
high sanction in the cynical words of a New York politician, "To
the victor belong the spoils." Politicians looked upon it as a
normal accompaniment of their activities. The public looked upon
it with indifference. But finally a group of irrepressible
reformers succeeded in getting the camel's nose under the flap of
the tent. A law was passed establishing a Commission which was to
introduce the merit system. But even then neither the politicians
nor the public, nor the Commission itself, took the matter very
seriously. The Commission was in the habit of carrying on its
functions perfunctorily and unobtrusively. But nothing could be
perfunctory where Roosevelt was. He would never permit things to
be done--or left undone unobtrusively, when what was needed was
to obtrude the matter forcibly on the public mind. He was a
profound believer in the value of publicity.

When Roosevelt became Commissioner things began swiftly to
happen. He had two firm convictions: that laws were made to be
enforced, in the letter and in the spirit; and that the only