" he wrote, "to renew again my
recommendation that all the local officers throughout the country,
including collectors of internal revenue, collectors of customs,
postmasters of all four classes, immigration commissioners, and marshals
should be by law carried into the classified service, the necessity for
confirmation by the Senate be removed, and the President and the others,
whose time is now taken up in distributing this patronage, under the
custom that has prevailed since the beginning of the Government in
accordance with the recommendation of the senators and congressmen of
the majority party, should be relieved from this burden. I am confident
that such a change would greatly reduce the cost of administering the
government and that it would add greatly to its efficiency. It would
take away the power to use the patronage of the government for political
purposes."

President Taft took an advance position also in his advocacy of the
substitution of the appeal to reason for the appeal to force in the
settlement of all international difficulties. The treaties of
arbitration which were agreed upon during the summer of 1911 between
Secretary Knox and the representatives of Great Britain and France
illustrate the general type of treaty which the President hoped would be
negotiated with other nations. Heretofore, the treaties to which the
United States has been a party have accepted as suitable for arbitration
all questions save those which concerned "vital interests and national
honor." It was a great step forward, therefore, when the agreement was
reached between the powers that all disputes that are justiciable and
cannot be settled by diplomacy are to be submitted to arbitration.

In case of a difference on whether the dispute were justiciable or not,
it was to be submitted to a commission of inquiry for decision. If the
commission found it was justiciable the question in dispute must be
submitted to arbitration. Should the commission find it was not
justiciable there would still exist the possibility of war. But either
nation has the power to delay the findings a year during which time
diplomatic action may be resumed. The arguments against the ratification
of these facts in the Senate were based on the plea that they provided
for compulsory arbitration and thus tended to deprive the Senate of its
constitutional prerogative. The wording was so greatly modified in the
Senate that the form of treaty which was finally