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 the destiny of nations, and who has at all times been
revealed in our country's history, let us invoke His aid and His