CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. (CIVIL-SEEVIOE REFORM.) 



171 



quired to have personal acquaintance with the 

 character, the mental abilities, the fitness in 

 general of his appointees. To require or ex- 

 pect any such knowledge now is quite ridicu- 

 lous indeed, with a Treasury Department alone 

 that has more than 3,000 employes, and single 

 subordinate offices outside of Washington that 

 have nearly twice as many employes as the 

 whole Government had ninety years ago. 



" The doctrine of old was a better doctrine 

 than that we have lately practiced. It taught 

 that the power and duty of making removals 

 were vested in the President alone. It may be 

 the theory now, but it is not wholly acknowl- 

 edged to be such by the Tenure-of-Office Act, 

 and in practice it is certainly not the law. 

 Fidelity and efficiency were the measures of 

 tenure, as capacity and character were the 

 tests for appointment. 



"Here are some figures which have been 

 made familiar during the discussion of this 

 question. Washington made only nine remov- 

 als, and all for cause ; John Adams only nine, 

 and none, it would seem, by reason of political 

 cause ; Jefferson only thirty-nine, and none of 

 them, as he declared, for political reasons; 

 Madison only five; Monroe only nine; John 

 Quincy Adams only two, and all for cause. 

 In general, the Government was very honestly 

 and admirably administered. 



"There has been a constant an;l a steady 

 growth of the idea that offices might be used 

 to strengthen candidates and to reward active 

 workers. The doctrine that 'to the victors 

 belong the spoils' became (though it always 

 provoked a smile) the practical rule of the 

 country. The evils of the existing system can 

 not be denied by any man, whatever his posi- 

 tion, with regard to any of the pending meas- 

 ures for civil-service reform. They are ob- 

 vious, more clearly obvious to members of 

 Congress than to anybody else. They are 

 obvious in the suffering and humiliation of the 

 employes. The condition of the majority of 

 them is pitiable. They are under a sort of 

 degradation that we have no right to impose 

 upon our friends and neighbors and fellow- 

 citizens. They are only partially secured in 

 their positions by their character and by the 

 good work they may do. How well we know 

 that they do not depend upon those things to 

 maintain them in place; that they are con- 

 stantly coming to members of Congress and 

 applying to influential friends everywhere to 

 strengthen what they call their 'influence,' till 

 the word 'influence' has become a cant term, 

 a slang term among them. ' Who is your in- 

 fluence?' is the phrase. 'I have none. My 

 influence is dead.' Or, 'My influence was in 

 Congress ten or fifteen years ago, and he is not 

 in political life now, or he has no influence 

 himself ' ; ' I must get some influence,' etc., 

 etc. These are the every-day phrases among 

 the employes ; and whenever a new chief of 

 a bureau comes in, not to say a now Cabinet 

 officer or a new President, there is a hurrying 



and a scurrying among all the terrified flock to 

 strengthen themselves in position ; not by the 

 good record they may have or the good char- 

 acter they may have maintained, but by the 

 recommendations of political friends. By this 

 system the inefficient are kept in longer than 

 they would be otherwise. These are facts so 

 well known that I ought to ask pardon for re- 

 peating them. 



" The man who is less efficient than his fel- 

 lows, conscious that he has less of character or 

 of ability, or of both, than they, is the man 

 who is almost certain to have the largest pile 

 of papers in support of his position. And 

 thereby it becomes exceedingly difficult to re- 

 move him. More persons are needed for the 

 same labor than there would be under some 

 ideal system, I do not say what. We can 

 imagine that if they were appointed purely for 

 efficiency and character and maintained for 

 that, fewer persons I do not pretend to say 

 how many, because no man knows; the esti- 

 mates are quite at random ; some say a quarter 

 less, some say a half would do the work 

 equally well. 



" Moreover, there is unnecessary expense. 

 The salaries must be kept higher in accordance 

 with obvious laws of economy, because people 

 will not enter into an uncertain service for the 

 price they would be willing to take if they 

 were guaranteed long continuance, or life ser- 

 vice. A young man who comes here for one, 

 two, three, four, or five years, is very hungry 

 indeed to get his ten, twelve, or fourteen hun- 

 dred dollars a year. If he had any guarantee 

 of long service, or of service during good be- 

 havior (and absolutely no minute longer than 

 that), there would be in abundance young men 

 of capacity willing to come here and begin at 

 six, seven, eight, or nine hundred dollars a 

 year, trusting to a well-graded system for pro- 

 motion to nine, ten, eleven, or twelve hundred 

 dollars, as they continued in the service. Our 

 present system is therefore, in that sense, 

 wasteful and extravagant. 



" There is another matter upon which I need 

 not dwell in this audience, and that is the tor- 

 ment of the legislative branch. Senators know 

 this well. I am happy to say I know a little 

 less of it than some of my neighbors; but 

 those who represent large States, especially if 

 they are within easy reach of Washington, de- 

 serve our commiseration and should every 

 Sunday, in the old fashion of New England, 

 ask for the prayers of the congregation. Their 

 desks are piled with letters, from scores upon 

 scores, and their constituents sometimes stand' 

 in their corridors in the same proportions. 

 How large a share and how painful a share of 

 our troubles and anxieties are due to this mat- 

 ter of office-seeking, we all know too well. 

 We are all under the necessity of hearing in- 

 numerable applications for office, of reading 

 and preparing papers that will sustain them, of 

 calling in person, and perhaps repeatedly, to 

 enforce applications, of writing innumerable 



