The Triumphant Life of Theodore Roosevelt edited by J. Martin Miller

CHAPTER VII
ROOSEVELT THE REFORMER
Appointed a Member of the Civil Service Commission—Views on the Subject—The
Merit System— The Fair Play Department — Head of the
New York Police— Civic Corruption—Blackmail—An Unequal Battle
—His Life Threatened—Becomes Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Military Preparedness.
After Mr. Roosevelt was defeated for the mayoralty of
New York in i8S6, he spent three years on his ranch in the
West, and when he was not following the excitement of chase
or attending to his calling as a ranchman, as told in the pre-
vious chapter, he was hard at work on some book or magazine
article. It was these contributions to the literature of the day
that brought his name before the American people.
In 1889, he was appointed a member of the Civil Service
Commission, by President Harrison. Mr. Roosevelt threw
himself into his work with his accustomed vigor and force,
and if any one doubts his position on the question of civil
service, let him read his essay on that subject, from which the
following is an extract:
AN IMPORTANT QUESTION
"No question of internal administration is so important to
the United States as the question of civil service reform,
because the spoils system, which can be supplanted only
through the agencies which have found expression in the act
creating the Civil Service Commission, has been for seventy
years the most potent of all the forces tending to bring about
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