d the Senate a tie, which gives the casting
vote to the Republican V.P.? Oh, how good it is to win and to be on the
strong side!"

When the new Congress organized, Randall ceased to be Speaker and became
leader of the minority, while J. Warren Keifer, of Ohio, took his place,
with a small Republican majority behind him. In the Senate the
predictions of Mrs. Blaine were fulfilled, although the accident which
made a President of Arthur left the Senate without a Vice-President. In
the even division of the Senate, the two independent members controlled
the whole. Judge David Davis, transferred "from the Supreme Bench to the
Fence," became the presiding officer, and generally voted with the
Republicans, though elected as a Democrat. Mahone, of Virginia, an
Irishman and an ex-Confederate, called himself a "Readjuster," and voted
with the Administration. These two men made it possible to carry party
measures through Congress.

Shortly after Congress met in 1881, Arthur reorganized his Cabinet,
allowing the friends of Garfield to resign and putting his own Stalwart
friends in their places. The new Secretary of State, Frelinghuysen, took
up Blaine's policies and mangled them. He adhered to the general view of
an American canal, as Blaine had done. He pushed the influence of the
United States in Europe as far as he could, keeping Lowell, in England,
busy in behalf of Irish-Americans whose lust for Home Rule got them into
trouble with the British police. But he dropped the South American
policy, recalled the invitations to the Pan-American Congress, and kept
hands off the Chilean war. Blaine protested in vain against this
humiliating reversal.

The decision of Arthur to take counsel from the Stalwarts aroused fears
among others of the party that his would be the administration of a
spoilsman. His first message, however, somewhat allayed these fears, for
it dwelt at length upon the unsatisfactory status of the civil service,
and the need for a merit system that should govern removals and
appointments. He promised his support to measures even more
thoroughgoing than the reformers had asked, and, in January, 1883,
signed the "magna carta" of civil service reform.

The use of public offices for party purposes had been regarded as a
scandal by independents of both parties for four administrations. The
long list of breaches of trust, revealed in the seventies, had made
reformers feel that incompetence and spoils endangered the life