SILAS W. BURT, HORACE E. DEMING, Executive Committee. F. W. WHITRIDGE. GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM, EVERETT P. WHEELER. At a meeting of the Executive Committee, held immediately after the adjournment of the Annual Meeting, Mr. Wheeler was unanimously re-elected Chairman, and Mr. Potts, Secretary and Treasurer. Mr. George McAneny, Jr., was elected Asssistant Secretary. The several standing Committees were reconstituted as follows: Committee on Civil-Service Examinations. C. W. WATSON, Chairman, ALFRED BISHOP MASON, A. R. MACDONOUGH, CHARLES B. STOVER. At the committee meeting in December Mr. Eaton's resignation as a member of the Committee on Affiliated Societies was accepted and Mr. McAneny elected to fill the vacancy. Messrs, Watson and Mason were added to the Committee on Legislation during the preparation of the amendatory bills introduced in the State legislature. Twelve years ago the present Secretary of the Association entered upon the performance of the duties of his position, under the sympathetic supervision of Mr. Curtis, who had been called to the Presidency six months earlier. A year ago, at our Annual Meeting, Mr. Curtis was with us for the last time. The Secretary cannot withhold an expression of the void which the departure of our great leader has left in our ranks and in his own life, but at the same time feels that it is but just to suggest that which it is impossible to express, the supreme value to him of that intimate friendship and communion which these many years of untroubled intercourse have afforded. A poet has said that in writing his greatest poem he did better than he could. The ability to inspire others to do this was one of the chief qualities of Mr. Curtis, and if the present writer has contributed something toward the progress of the great movement of the age toward administrative reform, it is in no small part because he was an instrument upon which a great musician played. Civil Service Reform, in its relation to the federal government, may be said to have advanced materially through the year. In Congress three important measures have been under consideration Mr. Lodge's bill for the inclusion of fourth-class postmasters under civil-service rules; Mr. Hoar's, affecting in a similar way the first, second, and third-class post-masters, and Mr. Andrew's bill for the extension of the reformed system to cover the labor service. Exhaustive reports have been presented and published on the Lodge and Andrews bills, the latter in particular being replete with sound argument and establishing conclusively the wisdom and practicability of a general registration and employment of government laborers on the plan in force in Boston and in the navy-yards. The discussion of these measures and the wide distribution of the reports in question, in which the association has materially aided, has served an excellent educational purpose. During the year, through the act of President Harrison, 7,924 positions have been added to the classified service, besides its natural growth. Of these, 7,610 are connected with the 548 free delivery offices classified on January 5, and 314 with the Weather Bureau. The total growth of the classified service during President Harrison's administration, amounted to 16,117 places-8,690 placed under the rules by executive act and 7,427 representing the natural growth-bringing the entire number of places now classified to 43,447. The rules voluntarily established in the navy-yards by ExSecretary Tracy, affecting some 7,000 additional employees, have been continued, with marked success. They have been strongly approved, moreover, by Secretary Herbert in several public. utterances, and faithfully maintained by his orders. During the two months prior to the election of last November, the Assistant Secretary of the Association made a careful investigation of the practical effect of the new order at the local yard and was enabled to make a most satisfactory report. An idea of the change brought about may be gathered from the following comparative figures: In 1884, the number of men employed at he yard was, on September 1, 1,070; October 1, 1185, and November 1, 1291; in 1888, on September 1, 1444; October 1, 2,023, and November 1, 2,499. During 1892, the normal total of employees had been 2,200. On September 1, there were 2,242 at work, September 9, 2,118; October 1, 2,076, and October 26, ten days before the election, 2,058. At no time during this period, or since the institution of the new rules, had any departure from the order of merit or precedence appeared in the records of appointments at the yard. The result of the reform, Commandant Erben assured us, has been a reduction in the relative cost of the work accomplished of twenty-five per cent. Before the change of administration, Secretary Tracy sent to President Harrison a request that this system, so successfully tried, be made permanent. President Harrison did not act, however, and the recommendation is now pending business on the desk of President Cleveland. The Civil-Service Reform Association of Brooklyn, to whose efforts the original action of Secretary Tracy was largely due, has fittingly elected to take the initiative in now requesting the President to permanently secure the reform in the manner suggested. The work of the Federal Civil-Service Commission has been carried on with a degree of success remarkable, in view of the limited funds given by Congress for its support. The appropriation of a sufficient sum for the purposes of the Commission is more than ever an urgent necessity. Notwithstanding the limited facilities of the Commission, the majority of the free delivery office, classified in January, have already been provided with eligible lists, formed by local Boards of Examiners, and this, moreover, without interference with the general work at Washington. The standard of examinations, and of all things else pertaining to the selection of employees by the Commission has never been higher than at present, and it may be said that in the national classified service, there is now a satisfactory exhibit of the system conceived and advocated by Mr. Curtis and the Association, twenty years ago. To Mr. Roosevelt, more than to any one man, the recent advancement of Civil-Service Reform is due; and to him the Association and all friends of good government are alike indebted. It is gratifying to note a recent statement that President Cleveland has refused to accept the resignation tendered by Mr. Roosevelt on the change of administration. In touching on the work of the Federal Commission, the prosecution of persons guilty of political assessment during the recent campaign must be noted with commendation. Though the offenders were naturally of the party in power, and of the same party as the majority in the Civil-Service Commission, each case was pushed as vigorously as conditions in the Department of Justice allowed, and an abundance of evidence in relation to each placed in the hands of the Attorney General. Their subsequent prosecution, however, progressed slowly. A letter addressed by this Association to President Harrison, under date of December 27, requested that he give such instructions to the Attorney-General as might insure prompɩ attention to the matter. The response quoted the officer in question to the effect that the cases placed before him had been referred to the local district attorneys. Little report of further action than this has been received and the cases form an important detail in the "unfinished business" left to the new administration in the Department of Justice. In New York State the record of the year, judged from the stand-point of the civil-service reformer, may hardly be accepted as satisfactory. The efficiency of the state system has been somewhat impaired by the removal of a large number of positions of importance from the competitive to either the exempted or noncompetitive schedules, almost all through positive executive act. During 1892, 29 positions, hitherto competitive, were exempted, the 50 positions under the Dairy Commission removed from the |