The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-09 00:00:00

AMERICAN CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

(From the Anglo American Times.)
The Hon. Titoalas JENCKES, of Rhode Island,
appears to be progressing favourably with his Civil
Service Reform Bill. Upwards of 300 of Phila-
delphia's best citizens, headed by HORACE BINNEY,
have addressed a memorial to Congress, directing
attention to the Bill, and almost demanding legis-
lation on the subject. The address isa very powerful
resume of the reasons which have induced these citi-
zens thus earnestly to take the subject up, and it will
be difficult to evade this unanswerable appeal. We
have always admitted that corruption might lead to
the disruption of the Union, while contending that
it only can do so. If corruption broke down this
great Democratic experiment, government by the
people would be thrown back for ages, and the
argument would be unanswerable, that mankind
had not yet reached that point of civilization which
made it possible to base and maintain power on uni-
versal suffrage. Anything which tends to demoralize
the Republican system built up in the United
States has a direct interest for the human race, be-
cause it embodies the hitherto unsuccessful experi-
ment, the result of which mankind must abide for
centuries as final. Perhaps the most impor-
tant check corruption in the United States
could receive would be in this reform of the
Civil Service ; and men are not surprised to see
Mr. JENCKES drop all else in pursuit of it, with a
pertinacity and an enthusiasm which are good
auguries of success. lie realizes its immense import-
ance, and, havingto arouse himself. But when his biography is writ-
ten, those who then learn the history of his Bill
done so, it is natural for him thus
will know against what that gentleman had to
contend. It is not open opposition, which may
be met and foiled, acting more as an incen-
tive to increased exertion than a deterrent,
but it is the
apathy in all around which, like
a blight, kills. Here is a man who, seeing a poi-
son spreading through the body politic of which
he is a member, a canker eating to its heart, points it
out and asks aid to eradicate it, but all shake their
head and say-_why
make this fuss? it is the natural
condition, and must run its course ; while he sur-
veys it as a fire which might by action be easily sub-
dued, but being regarded with unconcern, whose un-
checked course must soon commit the city to flames.
A Republic for good government requires a virtu-
ous and intelligent people, and one that will insist
on the proper administration of their affairs. In-
deed, it is in this the difference exists between a
peop!e who rule and a people who are ruled. The
strongest incentive is given to an hereditary sove-
reign to administer the national affairs well, for he
and his children will have to abide the result. He
is taught to regard the nation as his estate, and he
takes the same interest in it that a landlord does in
his property. But no one can fix the responsibility
of electing men to power in a Republic, and the
gain or less by bad government is so small to each
individual in what they all actually
and immediately
see and feel, that their material interests have little
strength as a spring of action. As one of the adult
males who vote of the forty millions, a man feels
himself an insignificant atom, and this tends to in-
crease the apathy with which good citizens look on

the demoralizing struggle for the posts that gives
the zest to party warfare in the United States. To
use a homely illustration, the difference between an
Imperial rule and that of a Democratic Republic is
the difference between a great business in the hands
of an individual and another in the hands of a Joint
Stock Company, meaning of course the mere adminis-
tration. The individual may be trusted unless some
monomania seizes on him fairly to carry on his business
to the best of his ability ; but the Joint-Stock Com-
pany will not do so unless the shareholders watch
the management, for the great personal responsi-
bility rests with no one in particular. The directors
will help themselves as liberally as they dare, the
ernpoyr:s will cheat wherever they have the chance,
and the shareholders will find themselves helpless
victims unless they exercise a vigilant control ; but
when they do so, and put the right men into their
proper places, giving them there a hearty support,
the strength of the Joint-Stock Company must be
greater than that of the private firm. The address
of the Philadelphia citizens speaks without reserve
on the results of the demoralizing doctrine promul-
gated 30 years ago, " that the Public Offices were
spoils, to be divided among the victors in every poli-
tical contest." It forciblysays "that the evil has yearly
grown greater, until its gigantic proportions now
threaten to reduce our Public Service to chaos, and
to subvert our institutions at no distant period. It
may safely be affirmed that no civilized community
has a Public Service so costly and so incompetent as
our own." Political intrigue, penetrating every
fibre,renclersretrenchment impossible, and influences
are at work to stimulate a waste by which they
benefit. Powerful as are the reasons in a bad and
extravagant Administration, still they are the least
important arguments for the reform. The country
prospers, and in spite of a waste of strength may
Continue to do so, but it cannot afford to debase its
morality, to stimulate corruption, and to make its
political life a mere degrading scramble for place.
" It is notorious," continues this address, "that
almost all political movements are controlled by
mere aspirants for office, that nominations are se-
cured by corruption, and elections are carried by
fraud, and that which should be the dignified spec-
tacle of a great, free community exercising its highest
right, thus becomes a matter of bargain and sale,
in which the people are treated as the property of
a small class who devote their lives to the trickery
and knavery by which they rule. Our present system
tends inevitably to reward corruption and to de-
press merit. The public sense of morality is ra-
pidly dulled, the standard of political virtue con-
stantly lowered, and the reverence of the people
for their institutions correspondingly weakened."
Nor is this all, for the present system exercises a
most unfortunate influence on a large proportion
of citizens as they reach manhood. Enticed from
ordinary avocations by the allurenients of the race
for office, they deliberately embrace a political ca-
reer as a means of living without labour, and are
not only lost to the community as useful and re-
spectable citizens, but are depraved by vile and
corrupting influences.
" No institutions less strong than our own could have
endured so long this systematic maladministration and
pervading corruption, and oven our institutions cannot
resist for ever the disintegrating forces thus at work. If
Democratic Republicanism be not a mistake the people
must show themselves as competent to enforce the per-
formance of the routine functions of government as a
despotism can be. It is not in great crises that public vir-
tu, is most severely tested, but in resisting the insidious
corruption of prosperity. The one we have shown our-
selves able to meet iu the noblest spirit ; to the other we
are succumbing; and unless our fatal progress can be
checked, the hopes of rational liberty for mankind will be
arrested for centuries."

Like all such evil influences which become en-
grafted into a system, they are, in truth, beneficial
to no one. Men who live by them fight to the
death in their support, because they have been
rendered incompetent to earn their bread in other
ways, but had no such system existed there are
very few of these men who would not now have
been better off. What it does is by a few prizes,
as prominent and delusive as those of a lottery, to
attract recruits and swell the ranks of dangerous
and unscrupulous men, who hustle and scramble for
what they regard as plunder, but had they not been
thus allured they might, and probably would, in a
productive walk of life have become alike useful to
thermelves and to the nation. We maintain then
that it does not even benefit them, for when success-
ful in the pursuit, the wheel turns, and they are out
iu the cold rendered by the sudden transfer from
their cosy fireside, the less fitted to endure its
inclemency. The Government employes appear
to see that to give dignity and real value to their
posts they must be made permanent, promotion
being the reward of merit and good service. At a
recent meeting of the clerks, at Washington, a
committee of fifteen was elected to decide on the
terms of a memorial to Congress. The question
with them appears to have been an appeal for an
increase of one-fifth in their salaries ; but the com-
mittee has taken a wider range, and favour instead
a reorganization of the service on the plan proposed
by Mr. JENCKES. The great difficulty will be to re-
concile the opposition to regard aslasting the acts of
the party in power. As all the loaves and fishes are
in the hands of the Republicans, it might answer
the purpose of that party to make permanent the
incumbents of present posts. But how would this
suit the Democrats should they attain to.the power
two or four years hence? The truth is, that un-
less the citizens of the United States shake off their
apathy, and, in LINCOLN'S words, put their foot
down on this reform, it cannot be achieved, for
the hold of politicians on the Executive business of
the nation is too tight to be unloosed by an arm less
strong than that of Uncle SAM himself. But the
moment this is accomplished the politicians collapse
—just as the gold speculators collapsed in Wall-
street on the celebrated Friday in the face of the
Treasury sales. The little game was up—that was
all—the prizes are gone, and with them vanish into
thi❑ air the allurement to the politicians.

RAILWAY NEWS.—The West Wisconsin Railway
from Tomah on the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad,
through Jackson, Eau Clare, Dunn, and St. Croix coun-
ties, to Hudson, Wisconsin, and thence to St. Paul, is
making rapid progress, and is expected to be finished by
Jan. 1, 1871.—The South Pacific Railroad is completed to
Lebanon, Missouri.—The Houston and Texas Central
Railroad Company, which has extended its road four miles
from the coast into the interior of Texas to California,
has just signed a contract for the introduction of 500 Euro-
pean select labourers from Germany and Sweden to work
upon that road in further construction from Calvert to the
Rod River, and Kansas. The company had also bought
iron rails to lay the next 50 miles from Calvert and Brenham.
The consolidated road, to be known as the Lake Shore and
Wabash Railway Company, was to be consummated about
the 18th of October, and will embrace the following lines :
Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company;
Toledo, Wabash, and Western Railway Company ; Deca-
tur and East St. Louis Railway Company, making a route
of about 1,800 miles in length. The Decatur and East St.
Louis Railroad yet remains to be completed, the grading of
which is now under contract.—The Erie Railway Com-
pany are making good progress in laying the double track
on the road. The amount of road now operated between
New York and Buffalo, including sidings, is 522 miles, and
of this amount 231 miles have a second track laid. The
Susquehanna division, comprising 108 miles, is entirely
completed. The Eastern division has 88 miles laid, and
the work is now advancing on the Delaware division, and
35 miles have been finished. This portion of the road is
over the mountaius, and is an expensive and laborious job,
but when it is completed will render the road safe.
OBITUARY.—Moses M'Donald, formerly member
of Congress and Colleetor for Portland, died suddenly at
Saco, Maine, Oct. 18, in the 55th year of his age. He re-
presented the First District of Maine in the Thirty-second
and Thirty-third Congresses, and in 1857 was appointed
Collector for Portland and Falmouth, by President
Buchanan.—G. D. Morris, of the firm of Morris and Ker-
shaw, of Milwaukee, fell down stairs on October 20 and
broke his neck.—Ex-Governor Ritzier died at Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Oct. 16, in his 90th year.—
Mr. Isaac L. Cook was accidentally shot and killed at
the office of the Selma (Alabama) Times on Saturday.—
Hon. Frederick 11. Hastings, who represented the Twc:fth
Senatorial District of New York State in the Senate of
1864-5, died at his residence at Brainard's Bridge, Reuse-
liter County, on Friday, Oct. 15. Mr. Hastings was never
prominent in party movements, but owed his election to
personal character. From the poeition of Sena tor Hest •
inns on Committee, ho was charged with originating the
celebrated "Conspiracy Bill,"and became at one time the
object of intense hatred among working men. The charge
is said, however, to have been false. lie was distinguished
in the Senate for close fidelity to his official duties and
entire freedom from political trickery. The last four years
of his life he had spent as an invalid in absolute retire-
ment. He was 51 yeamof age.—Mr. John Y. Conover, a
prominent politician of New Jersey, died on Sunday, Oct.
16, at his lato residence at Long Branch, aged 76 years.