The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-01-22
evening State SonrnaL
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

| ttFih SEhf IjE hEEohM.
We are in favor of thorough radica
Civil Service Reform. We are no new con
verts to its support. For many years tn
corruptions and abuses of the Civil Service
its miserable prostitution to personal ends
and its wretched incompetency, have beel
sufficiently obvious to every one practical
ly familiar with its workings. We k,,ot
that the great body of our capable men
who would have adorned its ranks, hav,
been shut out from it. We are aware tina
the public business has been, and still is
in many departments, far behind the stan
dard of well organized private establish
ments. With the same clerical force, ;
| good business man would undertake to dc
twice as much work, as is done by some
| heads of bureaus, and would not then over
work his assistants. If the rules of well
conducted business establishments were
observed and strictly enforced, there woulc
be no lack of competent persons to fill the
places, and the government work would be
done promptly. 70.
1t is notorious also, that many persons in
the public service are fast ivers, devoting
the means earned to gambling aud dissipa-
ton; that their influence is corrupting, and
their example such as to bring the govern
ment into disrepute. Frauds and embez-
elements are the natural results. The
Civil Service will never be safe and efficient
till higher tests of qualification are applied,
till the influences and indictments are
such as to draw the best youth of the land
into the public service, and to keep them
in the path of improvement while they re-
main there. And how is this to be done !?
1t is upon the mode of reaching the desired
result that we differ from the Civil Service
Commission. That Commission saws.
" throw down the bars and let in every
man who proves himself competent to abide
the test of rigid examination as to his
scholastic attainments. Abolish partizan
distinctions in making appointments"
The Republican and the Democrat,
the believer in State rights, and
the devoted lover Of the Union, the
soldiers who fought to save the country,
and the men who fomented tho rebellion.
but avoided its dangers, and are still at
heart malignant and bitter towards the
government, all these are to be placed upon
one footing. From the three highest names
on the list, one is to be taken. This plan
should be condemned even on non-partisan
grounds, because it na,roscs too much the
circle Of choice. O,T plan aoould be to es-
tablish high minimum, Of qualifications
No one TO be appointed aoho falls beloao ii,
but giring JuH choice among all soho pass
the minimum. We are not partisans in
any such sense that we would allow at
tachment to an organization to bias our
upon question of right. We
are intense partisans in one sense. We be-
lleye that the continued dominance of the
Republican party is essential to the safety
and honor of the country. The issues in
volved in its ascendency, as we have had
occasion to show before, are not adminis-
tratiye merely. They are questions of
fundamental rights. If the principles of
the Republican party can be safely ignored,
and the opposition admitted to
power, then the late war was
carnival of murder, and all it
achieved hideous crime against hu-
manity. That party exists to-day to
carry out the mighty revolution, of which
the war was part, to its beneficent ulti-
mates. Let it retire from the contest let
it cease to be powerfully aggressive epen,
and we have yielded all that was at issue in
the great struggle which has convulsed the
country during the last twenty-five years.
To deny this is to shut our eyes to stern
realities, and ignore facts, that are only
waiting opportunity, to announce them
selves with dangerous emphasissTS The
doctrine of sovereign people of the
United Satestas opposed to that of fedora |
ton of equal Sovereign States as the ulti-
mate source of power is the fundamental
truth, committed to the keeping of the Re-
publican party. TO reconstruct the gorer,s-
me't, and administer II upon this principle,
is i,S mission. This idea runs with vigor-
GUS consequences through all its acts,
from the breaking out of the civil war to
this moment. This is the conclusion, to
which the logic of events has brought us.
To abandon it is to confound all proper
distinctions between men, and to repudiate
the sacred debt, which country owes to
its defenders. 1t is to heap dishonor upon
our most illustrious statesmen, and blacken
with disgrace the fame of our glorious and
heroic dead. /
And this most vital and precious truth,
the very core and nucleus of the National, |
as contrasted with the Sectional Idea, can
only be preserved by maintaining the or
ganisation Of a party savedy bound by
ats dntecedents, its conrictions, and its pub
hc pledges to protect it. And again, party
ascendency is secured by certain well re-
cognized methods. Among these, the per-
sonal influence of men in public stations is
most powerful and telling. No party can
exist long which ignores the views of its
appointeeS, upon questions vital To the