Requisites to a Reform of the Civil Service. 99 



to " set up the pins'' for his party, enjoys an income of ten 

 times as much. 



So, likewise in the states, salaries are often a very inade- 

 quate compensation for the service required. So recently as 

 five years ago, the constitutional salary of the governor of 

 "Wisconsin was twelve hundred and fifty dollars ; and it is 

 not long since the salary of the chief justice of the state was 

 but twenty-five hundred dollars, while certain officers of the 

 county government were receiving twice as much for services 

 of a much lower grade. 



It is not a sufficient answer to the objection, that a given 

 salary is not a sufficient compensation for the duties of the 

 office to say, as is usually said, " There are a plenty of com- 

 petent men willing to accept of the salary and perform the 

 service ;" for, as a rule, it is not true. Competent men, in the 

 fullest sense, willing to perform any sort of service for le;5S 

 than a fair living price, are not plenty. You may find here 

 and there one who will make the sacrifice for a short time, for 

 the purpose of accomplishing some worthy public object, or 

 for the gratification of a private taste, or from the hope that 

 the loss may be made up to him by some future advantage — 

 motives, of which the public should be too just and honorable 

 to take advantage. But such places are always liable to be 

 filled by ambitious persons not competent, or who, being intel- 

 lectually so, merely seek them for the illegitimate profits it is 

 supposed they may be made to yield. 



To state the whole case in the fewest words, in determining 

 the salary to be attached, to any office, the question should be, 

 not. For how small a sum is it possible to have the work done ? 

 but rather, What would be an adequate and liberal compensa- 

 tion for the quality of service demanded ? For the fixing a 

 compensation less than reasonable must have the effect to dis- 

 courage competent and honorable men from accepting public 

 office, and hence to open the door to incompetency and fraud, 

 greatly to the injury of the public service and the demoraliza- 

 tion of the community. 



