172 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM.) 



letters in reference to the matter ; of re-en- 

 forcing the support that an employ^ has; or 

 of seeking to restore those who are discharged 

 in times of reduction or for an alleged or a 

 real falling below the standard, or discharged, 

 perhaps, to give place to a protege of some 

 more favored or more ardent politician. 



"We listen to the appeals of the utterly des- 

 titute. The widow comes here whose husband 

 has been a long time a clerk or public servant 

 somewhere, and it is impossible not to sympa- 

 thize, it is impossible not to say that it would 

 be reasonable, if she were well qualified, that 

 she should have a clerkship. She has a de- 

 pendent family; she has, perhaps, dependent 

 relatives. You know there are scattered about 

 these departments many who are the children 

 of men well known in the public service of the 

 United States, and among whose honors it was 

 that they went out of that service penniless, 

 whose misfortune it was that they left depend- 

 ent relatives. No man can say, ' I will close my 

 eyes and shut my ears to these appeals.' He 

 can not do it. He may put himself upon the 

 cold ground that 'it is my duty to be studying 

 public measures, to be reading and thinking 

 about and preparing for the great measures 

 that concern the whole country ' ; but he comes 

 up from his breakfast-table and finds his room 

 full of cases that he must at least hear. 



" Nor is this a matter that embarrasses one 

 party alone. I have known gentlemen yes, I 

 see one now in the chamber, not a member of 

 my own party, whom I have heard cry out 

 against the burden, the painful labor that 

 pained and oppressed him, and, in the vexation 

 of the moment, declare that he would leave 

 this hall, and go back to his farm and his 

 happy home. There is something wrong about 

 all this. This Government is not running a 

 great charitable establishment ; and yet, if it is 

 to employ people in subordinate positions, you 

 will say that equitably nobody has a better 

 claim than a widow, or daughter, or sister, or 

 brother of some old-time public servant, whose 

 family for many years has been accustomed to 

 the service of the United States, knows what 

 it is, and can discharge the duties well; or 

 than the dependent relative of some faithful 

 soldier. 



' There , must be some relief. I said there 

 will be. I say there can be one easily found, 

 theoretically. Every man here, whether op- 

 posed to civil-service reform, in the ordinary 

 language, or in favor of it, sees that he can de- 

 vise some plan by which these things can be 

 very much bettered. Well, practically there 

 has been, in a limited area in this country, a 

 vast improvement, and that area can be ex- 

 tended. I forbear to illustrate by the example 

 of Great Britain, chiefly because many of the 

 circumstances there are quite different. The 

 ancient history of the civil service is different ; 

 the relations of executive and legislative power 

 are different. They have an avowed life-term ; 

 they have pensions ; they have a right of pen- 



sion that grows with the years of service, anal- 

 ogous to what the army calls the 'old fogy 

 ration.' There are various provisions there 

 for which our public sentiment is not ripe, I 

 am sure. 



"Now, the bill before us does not attempt 

 to reach the whole possible field of civil-service 

 reform. Say there are a hundred acres over 

 which you may imagine that it could spread. 

 We know we have established it well in one 

 or two or three of the hundred acres, and we 

 know perfectly well that there are ten or fif- 

 teen acres quite analogous in conditions in 

 which it can be equally well established ; and 

 these are about the proportions of what the 

 present bill proposes to do. It makes no ex- 

 periment ; there is not a thing to be done here 

 in this bill that has not been done, that is not 

 being done every month, in the post-office and 

 custom-house at New York, and to a limited 

 extent in other places. 



" The bill contains within itself a power of 

 indefinite extension according to the judgment 

 of the commissioners or the chief executive offi- 

 cer. Now, do not let us indulge in any ideal 

 views on this subject ideal in the direction of 

 optimism or otherwise. You hear some of the 

 ardent and enthusiastic friends of this measure, 

 just as you will hear in all cases of change or 

 reform, believing that all the evils of the civil 

 service will vanish the moment you shall have 

 put an iron framework of some description upon 

 the statute-book. That is not to be so. There 

 are to be evils, there are to be misfortunes, 

 there are to be, if you choose, weaknesses and 

 corruptions, no matter what system you may 

 adopt. But I protest a great deal more vigor- 

 ously against an extreme denunciation of the 

 existing system of the country. It has become 

 the fashion and I take the opportunity to say 

 it here it has become the fashion, very largely 

 among a class of men who have, or claim for 

 themselves, and may to some extent be admitted 

 to have, a culture superior to the average the 

 literary, the dilettante fashion to speak of the 

 whole public service of this country as corrupt. 

 I have read, and you all have lately, and you 

 will read frequently, in articles by these gentle- 

 men contributed to the journals and the re- 

 views, and in their speeches and letters, con- 

 stant reference to the ruinous condition of this 

 country and to the corrupt state of the whole 

 public service, to the degradation of politics. 

 These men will say, and visitors from other na- 

 tions will hear them and go home and write, 

 that gentlemen here can not enter into political 

 affairs, and that if such and such things were 

 different the hien of culture and education and 

 standing in the community, the gentlemen ol 

 America, would go into politics. They have 

 no right to this language. The gentleman, the 

 true gentleman, sir, if he sees that his country 

 needs the reform he alleges, if he believes 

 that its politics are in the low, mean, and cor- 

 rupt condition often described, will charge into 

 the middle of the fray ; he will put himself into 



