They know every little twist and turn, no matter how intricate, in the politics of their several wards, and when election day comes the ordinary citizen who has merely the interest that all good men, all decent citizens, should have in political life, finds himself as helpless before these men as if he were a solitary volunteer in the presence of a band of drilled mercenaries on a field of battle.

There are a couple of hundred thousand Federal offices, not to speak of State and municipal offices.

The men who fill these offices, and the men who wish to fill them, within and without the dominant party for the time being, make a regular army, whose interest it is that the system of bread-and-butter politics shall continue.

Against their concrete interest we have merely the generally unorganized sentiment of the community in favor of putting things on a decent basis.

The large number of men who believe vaguely in good are pitted against the smaller but still larger number of men whose interest it often becomes to act very concretely and actively for evil; and it is small wonder that the struggle is doubtful.
During my six years' service as Commissioner the field of the merit system was extended at the expense of the spoils system so as to include several times the number of offices that had originally been included.
Generally this was done by the introduction of competitive entrance examinations; sometimes, as in the Navy-Yards, by a system of registration.