The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1869-12-30
Ohf Uribul,f.
WITH SUPPLEMENT.
B9-Editorial and Local on Second and Third Pages
Retrenchment at Washington.

What the country needs now is thor.
ough examination of the machinery OF
the public service What is unnecessary
and extravagent must be cut off. There
must be thorough dealing with corrup-
tion But that is not all. ANY system
for carrying ON the public business of the
country is expensive and if the systems
in use have failed in any respect to COM
pass the end designed, or are not the best
adapted thereto, they must be changed
or perfected, fer the best is the cheapest
in the long rum We want a truly eco
nomical administration of affairs IN the
various departments of the public ser
vice, and to have that we must elevate
the standard of our public officials. We
must have intelligent, efficient, and hon
est public agents. Here is the problem for
Congress to solve To contriye to give us
some plan by which we shall get a body
of faithful and conscientious, as well as
capable and experienced, public servants,
or something as near that mark as possi-
bic. Fancy our having through such an
agency our taxes, for instance, faithfully
assessed and collected, and then our ex-
penses reduced to the minimum. Almost
Utopian in the light of our experience of
public matters! Yet our private busi-
ness establishments secure this In the
main. Unhappily, there are abundant
instances where they fail but there is an
encoura ging number OF cases where they
succeed. If a merchant in any extensive
business should prefer to entrust the con-
duct of his affairs to clerks not bred to
business habits, s,-picked up anywhere,
without experience. and without interest
in the success of the house, scantIly paid,
and not sure of retention even 1t faithful,
rather to higher and more costly or
der of assistants, how soon would the ex-
pertinent set him right upon the question
of economy?
Yet the government, in its civil depart
ments, pursues just this course; and
Congress is now called on to retrench by
paying the puplic employees still more
scantitly, and by rendering their contln,
uance in office still more precarlous, and
there to stop. 1t is certain that we will
never have an honest, faithful, Intelligent,
and. therefore, truly economical, admin
istration of the public service by perse-
vering in this policy. We do not now
commit ourselves to any of the plans be-
fore Congress for the reorganization Of
the departments, or for retrenchment n
them, but we insist upon 1t that some
thing must be done towards elevating the
standard and tone of the public service
and, to that end, towards classifying the
more responsible positions SO as to give
them, among other advantages, that of
a professional esprit du corps. We need
a better order of public officials, and per
haps fewer of them Security of posi-
ton during good behavior, and reasonable
provision in old age or incapacity for fur
ther work, are necessary elements, it
seems e, us, in any plan of official reform
promising the least hope of success, and
in this we are sustained by view of the
practice of the most successful organlza-
tions to carry on extensive affairs. every
where, in private life.- Chicago Post.