CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (OIVIL-SEKVICE KEFOEM.) 



167 





offices which they hold, and that the good faith 

 of those who take from them a portion of the 

 salary is pledged to their retention in their 

 positions ? 



"I have said before upon the floor of the 

 Senate that this whole system demoralizes 

 everybody who is engaged in it. It demoralizes 

 the clerks who are appointed. That is inevi- 

 table. It demoralizes those who make the ap- 

 pointment. That also is inevitable. And it 

 demoralizes Senators and -Representatives, who, 

 by the exercise of their power as Senators and 

 Representatives, exert pressure upon the ap- 

 pointing power. 



" I am disposed to speak with due modera- 

 tion and with respect for every gentleman who 

 sits in this chamber. I certainly desire, in a 

 statement like this, not to make personal re- 

 flections upon anybody; but I say that this 

 system, permeating the whole civil service of 

 the country, demoralizes everybody connected 

 with it, the clerks, the appointing power, and 

 those who, by their official position and their 

 relation* to the executive administration of the 

 Government, have the influence necessary to 

 put these clerks in office. 



" Mr. President, how can you expect purity, 

 economy, efficiency to be found anywhere in 

 the service of the Government if the report 

 made by this committee to the Senate has even 

 the semblance of truth ? If the civil service 

 of the country is to be filled up with super- 

 fluous persons, if salaries are to be increased 

 in order that assessments may be paid, if mem- 

 bers of Congress having friends or partisan 

 supporters are to be able to make places for 

 them in public employment, how can you ex- 

 pect Senators and Representatives to be eco- 

 nomical and careful in the administration of 

 the public money ? 



" Mr. President, it was these methods of ad- 

 ministration, it was these acts of the Repub- 

 lican party, which made it possible for the 

 Democratic party, and other men who prized 

 their country higher than they did their party, 

 to elect in Ohio a Democratic ticket by eight- 

 een to twenty thousand majority, and elect 

 sixteen out of the twenty-one members of 

 Congress assigned to that State. 



" Under the impulse of this election in Ohio, 

 upon these facts and influences which I have 

 stated as being- of great importance there, it 

 became possible for the Democratic party and 

 its allies, whom I have described, to elect a 

 Democratic Governor in New York, in Massa- 

 chusetts, in Kansas, in Michigan, and various 

 other States in which there has been none but 

 a Republican Governor for many years past. 

 The same influences enable us, having acces- 

 sions to onr ranks from Iowa and Wisconsin 

 and Michigan and Pennsylvania, to have at the 

 beginning of the next session of Congress an 

 aggregate of perhaps sixty or more Democratic 

 majority in the House of Representatives. 



"I beg the Democratic party throughout 

 the country not to mistake this result of last 



fall as a purely Democratic triumph. It was 

 achieved by the Democratic party with the 

 assistance of men of all parties upon whom 

 their love of country sat heavier than their 

 love of party. It was a protest made by an 

 awakened people, who were indignant at the 

 wrongs which had been practiced upon them. 

 It was a tentative stretching out of that same 

 people to find instrumentalities by which those 

 wrongs could be righted. 



u The people demanded economy, and the 

 Republican party gave them extravagance. 

 The people demanded a reduction of taxation, 

 and the Republican party gave them an in- 

 crease of expenditure. The people demanded 

 purity of administration, and the Republican 

 party reveled in profligacy ; and when the Re- 

 publican party came to put themselves on trial 

 before that same people, the people gave them 

 a day of calamity. 



" I beg that my colleagues on this side of the 

 chamber may remember, I desire that our party 

 associates throughout the country shall remem- 

 ber, that the people will continue to us their 

 confidence and increase it, that they will con- 

 tinue to us power and increase it, just in the 

 proportion that we honestly and fairly and 

 promptly answer to the demands which the 

 people have made, and which were thus re- 

 sponded to by the Republican party. They 

 asked revenue reform, and they received none. 

 They asked civil- service reform, and they ob- 

 tained none. They asked that the civil ser- 

 vice of this Government should not, either as 

 to its men or its expenditures, be made the 

 basis upon which political contests were to be 

 carried on, and they received for answer that 

 that was an old fashion and a good method of 

 political warfare. I beg gentlemen upon this 

 side of the chamber to remember that, if they 

 desire to escape the fate which now seems to 

 be impending upon their adversaries, they must 

 avoid the example which those adversaries have 

 set them, 



"Mr. President, the bill which I have the 

 honor to advocate to-day, and which is re- 

 ported by a committee of the Senate, is the 

 commencement, in my humble judgment, of 

 an attempt to answer to one of the demands 

 which the people have authoritatively made. 

 I speak advisedly. It is the commencement of 

 an attempt to organize a system which shall 

 respond to one of the demands which the peo- 

 ple have made. 



"I suppose the most enthusiastic supporter 

 of this bill will not pretend that it is perfect. 

 I suppose he will not pretend that upon the 

 adoption of this bill a system will immediately 

 spring into life which will perfect and purify 

 the civil service of the Government. But it is 

 the commencement of an attempt to lay the 

 foundations of a system which, if it shall an- 

 swer in any reasonable degree the expectation 

 of those who by experience and faithful study 

 have framed it, it will in the end correct the 

 abuses to which I have alluded, and which have 



