The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1872-09-13
CARL ::CHURZ.

| CAhL 0ChUhZ.
Senator Schurz is another re.
former who is stumping for Gree,
ley and the Democratic party. His
sincerity is shown by his mani
tested opinion that Greeley is to-
tally unfit for the office, and his
declaration that his nomination
dashed all his hopes of reform
from the Cincinnati Convention,
and by the fact that he actually
wrote Greeley, inquiring if he in
tended to cut loose from his bad
associates and try to reform the
government. Believing the nom
inee to be unfit, and abandoning
all hopes of reform, Mr.. Schurz at
length decided to go in for destroy
ing the Republican party. His
purpose is destruction. He has
not even a pretense of an expecta-
ton of reform. He has in this
abandoned all pretense Of fidelity
to the Republican party, and has
broken pledges to the Republicans
of Missouri, which real reform
er never would: for a real reform
er must necessarily be an honora-
BILE man. --.-.
Nor do the antecedents of Mr..
Schurz entitle him to the charac-
ter of an apostle of civil service
reform. He readily accepted and
profited by the theory and practice
which make the public offices the
rewards of party service. This is
the very source of decentralization
and prOfligacy in the government.
The place of Minister to Madrid
was given him not because of his
fitness, but in payment for party
work among the German voters.
While holding it, he acted as if
this service made him exempt from
the laws governing his compensa
ton, and from the necessity of
furnishing vouchers, or settling his
accounts with the State depart
ment. If the public disburse-
ments and accornts were as loose
as Minister Schurz made them in
his case, the civil service would
need a great deal of reforming.
He used the appointment merely
as means of drawing money. He
was but six months at his post.
He drew pay for thirteen months,
and while in this country he drew
on the Barings for gold, the same
as if he were abroad, which was
contrary to law, and which, at that
time, when the gold premium was
ranging among the hundreds, made
a very wide difference in his pay.
He drew this pay up to the day
he received his commission in the
army. And there has not been a
more glaring instance of govern
ment appointments conferred as a
reward for partisan service, with
out any regard to qualifications,
than that presented by Carl Schurz,
Major General of volunteers. In
this instance the evil was more
than mere pecuniary loss from in
capability in the civil service;
it was fearful peril Of the lives of
the soldiers and of the national
cause. And when Mr.. Schurz,
more adept in political intrigue than
in generaIship, had received the
Senatorship in Missouri, one of
his first official acts was to sign a
recommendation to Office which
wholly set aside the question of the
good of the civil service, and put it
upon the ground of party consider
alton, and of polite recognition
of q powerful voting element
namely, the German. Removals
and appointments for such consid-
erations as these have been the
whole source of the degradation
and profigacy of the civil service.
This is the very practice that Mr..
Schurz pretends to condemn the
Republican party for. The fact that
this model civil service reformer
uttered these purely partisan con-
siderations as those which should
govern appointments 10 Office, is
not palliated by the additional fact
that it was in behalf of his brother
in-Iaw that he wrote to President
Grant this recommendation, stating
his deliberrte conviction that tsthe
interests of the party demand this
recognition of the German ele-
ment.o
There can be no civil service re-
form when removals and appoint
ments are made from party inter-
ests and to give due recognition to
certain t'elements." Nor is this de-
moralization relieved by urging
these considerations in favor of
brother-in-law. If we take the
whole course of Mr.. Schurz in the
United States we shall look long
before we ind another for whom
the practice of using the public of
fees as bounties, which is the great
source of their degradation, has
been so stretched as for him. 1t is
according to his antecedents, how
ever inconsistent with his recent
professions, that aheilehonld now
work for the election of q man and
the restoration Of q party from
whom he knows reform of govern
ment to be impossible. These are
specimen Greeley Republican DEM
ocratic reformers. We might go
through the whole list aud we
should find nearly all of them of the
same sort.-Cincinnati Gazette.