This of itself was good work.
Even better work was making the law efficient and genuine where it applied.

As was inevitable in the introduction of such a system, there was at first only partial success in its application.

For instance, it applied to the ordinary employees in the big custom-houses and post-offices, but not to the heads of these offices.

A number of the heads of the offices were slippery politicians of a low moral grade, themselves appointed under the spoils system, and anxious, directly or indirectly, to break down the merit system and to pay their own political debts by appointing their henchmen and supporters to the positions under them.

Occasionally these men acted with open and naked brutality.