Litchfield enquirer., 1869-01-14
REVOLUTION IN OUR CIVIL SER
 aasq 9el aeea ni VICE. .eao. .laifanEaaa .l

ooA.uPoiOu IS aiWayS supposed to be found
 Tn the wholesale bestowal of office without regard to fitness or character. We hold up hands and eyes, in wonder and anger wh en we moralize on the manner in which public office was given away to base and hungry ellie nts, in the days of .Juvenal; we
 read with contempt and disgust of the public appointments flched and sold by Pompadour's waiting maid and Lauzun s
 lackey; we are ivirtuously shocked at the
 story of the military commissions bartered
 away by the mistress of the Duke of York;
 we laugh at the patronage of Father Cla- ret and the civil service controlled by Sis ter Patrocinio. Yet it may be doubted WAesAei Asse any service ever suffered more from downright corruption than the whole
 of our civil administration is injured by
 our present system of appointment If it
 IS not corruption, it is, to parody phrase or Mlrabeau's, corruption's cousin german. No evil maxim ever devised by a Machia
 vel or a Chesterfield did half the harm to
 community that has been inflicted upon
 us by the odious dogma which Andrew
 Jackson made principle of government
 that to the victors belong the spoils."
 Since Jackson's time system has prevail
 ed which has rendered efficiency and econ
 my m our civil service an absolute impos-
 slblilty. A place in the post-office or reve-
 nue departments of the United States is
 the recognized reward not of fitness. edu- cation, ability, honesty, fidelity to official duties, or any merits whatever which ought
 to De taken into a moments consideration
 Tn the bestowal of such a position; it is simply the payment of political services.
 The question, is not whether a man knows anything about the duties of the office he assumes; but only whether he has worked hard enough for the party coming into
 power. A trading politician gets, in fact. four years of civil service salary. perquis. ties and chances to make the best he can of.@ He has no motive whatever to induce him to become efficient in his own depart
 ment Such ambition would be idle; such labor would be thrown away. He knows that at the end of four years he will have to bundle and go. Somebody else then must have turn. a Each officialis in the position of schoolboy turned loose in an or chard, and told that he may stay there four hours, and then get out The schoolboy IS not likely to occupy much of the time in pruning, and watering, and digging. Quite as unlikely is the American office holder to spend any great part of his four years in to become master of the du- ties of an office which he did not acquire by virtue of any qualification, and could not retain by virtue of any capacity for the | work. When this is the system, what need of illustration to show the results? Enough to say that for cost, for waste, for ineffi- clency, for mismauagement,if flor actual cor rnption, the civil service of the United tions. \ ----5-. IT m
 A stout and resolute effort is lately being made to uproot and fling away this abomi- nable system MT. Jenckes, of Rhode Isl and has charged himself with the carrying of bill through the House of Represen- tatiyes, which has for it's object to reyolu
 tionize the basis and condition of our civil service. The two grand principles of the
 bill are: d appointment accordl lg to flt-
 ness; tenure of office during good behav-
 jour- No man to be stuck into the post
 office or the customs because he voted for
 Johnson, or to be dismissed from his situ-
 alton because he voted for Grant. MT.
 Jenckes proposes to create a new depart
 ment, of which the Vice President of the
 United States shall be the head, and of
 which the business shall be to prescribe the
 qualifications and provide for the examl- nation of all persons presenting themselves
 for admission into the civil service-ex-
 cept, of course, those high officials whose appointment is made by the President and requires the consent of the Senate. It IS hardly necessary to go into the details of
 the scheme, further perhaps than to men
 tion the fact that promotion as well as ad-
 mission may, when the Civil Service De
 partment think it necessary, be thrown
 open to competition The principle of the
 scheme seems to us unassailable. If any
 proposition on earth is selfevident, 1t 1s that qualification for this or that partlcu lar office ought to be mans knowledge O its duties and capacity to understand them
 Ia all European countries worth studylns
 or thinking of as examples, tenure .of clyl
 office depends on good behavior; ln mos : of them admission to civil office IS obta1n ed by competitive examination. In Eng land the latter system, after having had
 hard fight against the principle of patron age, has won many fields and IS wlnnln
 more. The Indian civil service-by far tn best of all British departments IS now o' ganized on this principle. Yet Engian l never needed such Q principle half so muc , as we do. In the first instance, she IS nc . plagued with the < ''rotation of office" pes . I)israeli goes out; Gladstone comes in: th
 Iwork of departments goes on meanwnl !. without interruption, and would. though twelve months ministerial interregnu
 were to intervene. The officials of eae
 department serve not Disraeli, not Gla d stone, but the public; and, so long as the n discharge their duties properly, they ha w nothing to fear from Whig or Tory. ct the next place, every chief of departme a sits in one or other House of Pariiamer n. and is liable to be called to account by t is House for an improper appointment, we it's it but that of penny-postman. when be man has to get up in the House of Co ce mons and defend, face to face with d Iauestioner or accuser, an appolntme m which he has made, and to hear the deba sc- on it, and satisfy the House that he I pp- done we'll, he is likely to be careful how of lexercises his patronage As matter in fact, English ministers have had in 5 or4 ,rd stances during as many years to cancel
 pointments made by them, because qu
 tioni put and debate provoked in ,d House of Commons brought out manlf 10. evidence of the unftness of the appol To- ment. This check we have not in the U in ted States. The cabinet officer is ne Is; put on his public explanation of this ssy that appointment The proposed civil m imn vice board and the principleI of comp me tive examination are, therefore, far m nls imperatively needed in this country t OI0 Enolapd .s$fssek k# es.45S4yse:fg1fs{