The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-07
SATURDAY, MAY Z, 1870.
1HE CIVIL SERVICE Bill.

THE Civil Service bill, which Mr. Jenckes has
labored so long and so industriously to per-
feet, has met with a cold reception in the
House of Representatives. After being sub
jected to series of attacks from its enemies,
and after O number of amendments had been
offered, it was unanimously recommitted, on
motion of its author, SO that further efforts
might be made to render it acceptable. For
practical governmental purposes, the present
system of selecting and dismissing employees
is about the worst that human ingenuity
could devise. It facilitates the appoint
ment of hosts of incompetent and dishonest
men, and the discharge of thousands of
useful and conscientious officers. These
evils would be obviated to large extent by
the passage of the Civil Service BILL but it is
questionable, on the other hand, whether it
would not have a tendency to create per-
manent offce-holding class. In spite of the
defects of the present system, many people
would be 10th to surrender the free-and-easy
opportunities it affords to turn any existing
incumbent out of Office, and to put anybody
who can muster, by hook or crook strong
array of influence, into position which he is
totally disqualified to fill. One of the
greatest distinctions between a monarchy
and a republic, after all, arises
from the facilities afforded in the former to
limited aristocratic classes to monopolize
official appointments, and the free manner in
which all offices, from the highest to the
lowest, are thrown open in the latter, alike to
the incompetent and the competent, the poor
and the rich, the powerful and the weak.
When we begin to prescribe fixed standard
of qualifications and to create boards of ex-
aminers, it is difficult to tell whore to stop,
for if clerks and collectors are to be cate
chised in regard to their characters and
requirements, why should Presidential candi-
dates and Congressman be suffered to
escape sim liar Investigations The Chinese
have carried the principle of competitive ex-
aminations to ridiculous excess, making lite
rary merit and scholastic attainments the only
sure aids to ambition, and yet it is doubtful
whether, on the whole, they are as we'll
served officially as America. Our hap-hazard
system gives Office to thousands of uude-
serving men, but it facilitates the entrance
into official life Of thousands Of other men re-
markably we'll adapted to the public service,
whose merits would never gain recogniti on
under q restrictive and competitive system,
and it secures perpetual infusion of active
new blood in every department of the Govern.
ment, thus preventing the old fogyism and
stagnation that frequently prevail in the
official circles of other countries. When to these
objections to radical change are added those
arising from the aversion of politicians to a
surrender of patronage, we do not wonder
at the hostility displayed to the Civil Ser.
vice bill Before it can become law it mus
evidently be modified so as to be nearly
destitute of meaning and efficacy, and the
best that can be hoped now is that sligh
check may be imposed on incompetent and
dishonest off hunters.