An audience of fully seven hundred people greeted Mr. Roosevelt in Sanders Theatre last evening. By far the larger part of this number were students. In the audience were Bishop Lawrence, Mr. Richard Henry Dana, and several members of the Faculty.

L. A. Frothingham L. S., president of the Civil Service Reform Club, after briefly explaining the origin and purposes of the club, introduced Mr. Roosevelt.

Mr. Roosevelt was warmly received. He said that he did not feel it necessary to try to enlist the sympathies of Harvard men in civil service reform. Every Harvard man, by instinct and training, believes in decent politics, and civil service reform is but another name for decency in a certain part of politics.

After referring with gratification to the vote of New York by which stringent provisions for civil service reform will be incorporated in the constitution, he told how he had come himself to take up the cause. He emphasized the fact that he had not approached it from the theoretical standpoint of a collegian, but from the practical standpoint of a member of the New York legislature. Several times during his address Mr. Roosevelt insisted earnestly on the practicability of such a reform. "Decent politics are practicable in this country," were his words.

There are, he explained, two main arguments for civil service reform. The first is the material advantage gained by the improvement in the government service; the second is the more ethical advantage of an elevation of public methods and standards. He illustrated the first advantage by reference to the postal system. When we simply wish that letters should be delivered with speed and accuracy, it is obviously absurd to insist that a man should have certain views on tariff or finance. In the second place he pointed out that the offices, given out by political leaders to their henchmen, really formed a vast corruption fund, - that the offices were given to the most prominent henchmen, while the less prominent might receive a percentage of the salary.

What must be the result on politics? A class of men is created who know that they must tend to politics, or lose their job. Such men become the mercenaries of corrupt political leaders. Against them are arrayed decent men, but these decent men cannot have any such organization as do the mercenaries. Organized corruption has good chances of winning against unorganized decency. The only way to break up this organization of corruption is by taking away from the political leaders the offices by which they pay themselves.

Mr. Roosevelt told a number of anecdotes. He explained how Senator Gorman had made false statements about the Civil Service Commission, and, when cornered, had simply replied by calling the commission impertinent. He illustrated the way in which public offices will be used for private interest by stating that Breckenridge, in the late contest over his nomination, had nearly secured victory by his office-bribery.

The speaker closed with an appeal, that Harvard men should remember that they had special duties as well as special privileges, that they should not only be good men but also manly men, that they should not let those who stand for evil have all the virile qualities, but should stand shoulder to shoulder with all men who believe in right, and make their blows against evil count.

The appeal was eloquent in its earnestness and brought out a storm of applause.