5.  Explain what is meant by the “merit system” in the civil service.  Review the rise of the spoils system.

6.  Why is the public service of increasing importance?  Give some of its new problems.

7.  Describe the Australian ballot and the abuses against which it is directed.

8.  What are the elements of direct government?  Sketch their progress in the United States.

9.  Trace the history of popular election of Senators.

10.  Explain the direct primary.  Commission government.  The city manager plan.

11.  How does modern reform involve government action?  On what theory is it justified?

12.  Enumerate five lines of recent economic reform.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE NEW POLITICAL DEMOCRACY

=Women in Public Affairs.=—­The social legislation enacted in response to the spirit of reform vitally affected women in the home and in industry and was promoted by their organizations.  Where they did not lead, they were affiliated with movements for social improvement.  No cause escaped their attention; no year passed without widening the range of their interests.  They served on committees that inquired into the problems of the day; they appeared before legislative assemblies to advocate remedies for the evils they discovered.  By 1912 they were a force to be reckoned with in national politics.  In nine states complete and equal suffrage had been established, and a widespread campaign for a national suffrage amendment was in full swing.  On every hand lay evidences that their sphere had been broadened to include public affairs.  This was the culmination of forces that had long been operating.

=A New Emphasis in History.=—­A movement so deeply affecting important interests could not fail to find a place in time in the written record of human progress.  History often began as a chronicle of kings and queens, knights and ladies, written partly to amuse and partly to instruct the classes that appeared in its pages.  With the growth of commerce, parliaments, and international relations, politics and diplomacy were added to such chronicles of royal and princely doings.  After the rise of democracy, industry, and organized labor, the transactions of everyday life were deemed worthy of a place in the pages of history.  In each case history was rewritten and the past rediscovered in the light of the new age.  So it will be with the rise and growth of women’s political power.  The history of their labor, their education, their status in society, their influence on the course of events will be explored and given its place in the general record.