Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-07-05

JED l1hIb,
Member of the Liberal Republican Ma
tonal Committee for Vermont.
|
RBFOR.u OF THE CIVIL SET
vice.
Six or seven years ago Mr.. Jenckcs, of
Rhode Island, began the effective agitation
in favor of reform of the civil service. The
evils of the existing system had long been
seen they had often been exposed, and
were seriously pondered by the most
thoughtful people. There was not, how
ever, and is not now, any objection to the
theory of the present system of appoint
ment. The difficulty is in what is proved
by experience TO be its necessary operation.
If the appointing power would take care
always to select honest and fit officers,
nothing more could be asked, except that
they should be retained so long as the hon
esty and efficiency remained. But the
practice under all parties had become what
everybody familiar with the facts knows it
to he. Good sense and experience sugges-
ted the remedy, and it was what Mr.. Jenckes
proposed. 1t was true that any kind of
Independent examination might be very
imperfect, but it could not possibly be so
absurd as the existing practice; and how
ever politicians might theorize about it,
the experience of other countries in its ia
vor was conclusive.
So he urged his plan. Both parties, in
Congress and elsewhere, snored dt it with
scorn and rage. 1t was silly, cumbrous,
unconstitutional, impracticable, visionary,
absurd, hostile to the genius of our institu
tons, productive of an aristocracy, fatal to
the ascendency ofany administration party,
and proposal to run the government by
board of brok en-down school masters. No
serious question of executive administra-
ton was oven treated in Congress with so
| little intelligence or reason. The debates
upon the subject are laughable; they are
humiiating to read. They all turn on two
points. One is that man is not necessari
| ly Il good inspector of snuff because he
| knows Greek, and the other that Senators
and Representatiy es probably know quite
as well as n squad of college professors who
ought to have the post-oflices. Whether it
was the Democratic Judge Woodward, of
Pennsylvania, or the Republican Peters of
Maine, this was the burden of the song.
President Grant differed. He constantly
made the most urgent suggestions to Com
gress to do something to arrest the evil, and
in the last moment of the last Congress a
clause was attached to a Miscellaneous appro-
priation bill authorizing him to take action
| upon the subject. Under that authority he
promptly acted. lie sent special message
to Congress in December, communicating
the rules that he had adopted and asking
Congress TO strengthen his hands. Both
parties in Congress sneered as usual, aud
after series of speeches as ludicrously
feeble as they were contemptuous of the eff
fort, an appropriation of twenty-five thou
sand dollars was made to enable the Pres-
don't TO pay the expenses of his hobby.
Those who hold with the Sage of Chappa-
qua that, as the way TO resume specie pay
ments is to resume, so the way to reform
the civil service is to reform il, may think
that this Is an eXtravagant sum to pay for
putting measures of reform in operation.
Those who think upon the subject, howev-
err, will be of another opinion. Unless the
President knows personally every body in
the country, or knows those who recon-
mend others for appointment, or believes
that Senators and Representatives will al.
ways recommend proper persons for APP
pointment, he must establish some meth
DDS Of ascertaining fitness, and that cannot
be done without expense.
The President has lost no time In putting
the system in operation. Examining
hnardq hnyn hanu npnointa1 N aach nf tha
great departments. They have completed
arrangements for the examinations in
Washington and in the New York Gus.
om-house, which will serve as a mode! fol
other ports. And while he has been acting
in perfect good faith upon the subject
there has been on all sides loud adhesion
to the work. The Cincinnati Convention
the actual leaders of which were the most
notorious political brokers in the country
passed resolution which evaded the prac-
teal point of reform by declaring that its
root was single term for the President
The Republican Convention expressed it.
self unequivocally, demanding laws which
should remove the evil of patronage. And
Mr.. Hendricks, in the Indiana Democratic
Convention, declared that radical reform
was essential.
Thus all the conventions obey what they
believe to be the wish of the people that til,
present practice should be changed. Blu
, that any of the working politicians" o
any party really wish it, we do not believe
/, What kind of civil service reform do Gen
/ eral John Cochrane, Mr.. John Morrissey
Mr.. Oakley Hall, Mr.. Kinsella, and tn,
, Tammany Ring which supports Mr.. Gree
ley in New York, really desire? 1t is
mere joke to ask what reform of the kline
, the Democratic party, the great bulwark o
+; the spoils system, wishes. 1t is notorious
D also that Republicans like Senator Carpen
ter and Generals Butler and Logan ar
: wholly hostile to any change. The onl,
people who sincerely desire 1t are a small
Q number in each party. of the Cincinnati
Q men, Mr.. Schurz for instance. OF the Dem
= ocrats there are probably some. OF tn
@ Republicans there are many, such as tn
= President, Senator Edmunds, Mr.. Shella
: barger, Mr.. Garfield, Mr.. Perry, Mr.. vii
a lard and others.
J. While, therefore, much of the chorus TO