ervice. Some want to have us
wait until the civil service has been already improved, but the
purchase of the telegraph lines would inevitably carry with it the
improvement of the civil service.

The country would insist upon it. The acquisition of the telegraph lines
by the nation would convert more people to civil-service reform in one
day than all the speeches which have ever been delivered on the subject
would win to this good cause in a year.[11]

[11] The total number of positions that must now be filled
from the classified civil-service lists is 85,100, out of a
total of a little more than 200,000 positions in the national
service, aside from the army and navy.

The plan advocated in this paper includes the civil-service act as one
of its essential terms, for without it we run the risk of having, for a
time at least, boss-ownership instead of public ownership of the
telegraph. The recent extension of the civil-service act to 30,000 new
positions, argues well for the future of this great reform.[12] That
such an order should have come from President Cleveland, who has not
been noted for his absence of partisan feeling, indicates that the
election of a man of thorough independence would probably complete the
transformation of our service. Even without that, the work will be done
by the piece, each president ordering a section into line at the end of
his term when the delay of justice can no longer aid his own political
purposes, but may, on the contrary, strengthen his successor. Or he may
act before the end of his term and from less selfish motives; the main
thing for the nation is that he act.

[12] ARENA, Dec. 1895, pp. 51-2.

19. The public ownership of the telegraph will remove one of the
antagonisms that weaken the cohesion of society and retard the
development of civilization.[13]

[13] See Part VIII, ARENA, August, 1896.

20. It will be a step toward cooeperation and partnership, away from
private monopoly, usurpations, and taxation without representation.[14]

[14] See Parts VIII and IX, ARENA, Aug. and Sept. 1896.

* * * * *

Let us now see what the defendants have to say; that means the Western
Union, for, as Mr. Bell said to the Senate Committee on Post offices and
Post roads, May 20th, 1896:

The only persons who have ever put in an appearance in opposition
to this measure, have been