New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-04-22

of previous Administrations, and was tiine-
honored 1t was no system that was at 1auit,
but the party that put forward and supporter
and the President who appointed lncompeteh'S
and thieves 1t was dishonest to lay over upon
the system the laundering Of the Executive
and the corruption OF the party; 1t was mort
dishonest to promise reform, and never Keep
or intend to keep the word Of promise even
to the ear. Do we speak too confidently ID
the charge too sweeping Remember for a
moment that it was in answer to popuia'
clamor that this pinchbeck reform was set on
foot, and that while party presses ana parry
orators made much capital out OF 1t III Dehaii
of the Administration, the men nearest .no
President and most influential III tho party
Senators Morton and Carpenter, Gen. Dutici,
and others, ieered the whole thing, ana treateu
it as humbug and sham-a demagogues trlch
too shallow even for them to use. Remehoei
too that all this time the appointments ihos'
compIained of were those made by tho Presl-
dent from his own family or his personal
friends and associates; appointments 'h"'
could be changed without new system OF
new rules and that in spite OF system OF ruio'
these were among the first appointments IT,
newed in Gen. Grants second term; ana theh
remember that notwithstanding the President
commended this reform in his messages, the
men in Congress who laughed most loudly at
if rs nonsense continued to be most infiuen-
tial with his administration. Do we need TO
add hereto the fact that Mr.. George VIM
Curtis, having been amused for year OF TWO
with the idea that he was incubating REFORM
and having been used accordingly with greaL
success to rescue Presidential chestnuts, was
discovered to be an unpleasant person VINO
believed in it, and forced to resign to save
his own self-respect-the squeezed orange
thrown out Is there any fact in the history
of this deusiOn that can be held 10 cohIro-
vert the charge that it was conceived Ill
dishonest purpose and born of demagoguery;
that it has been trick from the beginning
And now, as though it were not entirely
nlayed ont and its utter hollOwness demon
strated, it is proposed TO amend what Is called
the system by permitting the President 10
exercise his discretion and to appoint friends
of his administration. What child'S play!
Nay, rather, what brazen assurance IN keeping
up game already exposed. The PRESIDENT
already has all that power and discretion. lie
is not bound by the rules at all; has not been.
WHY bother with rules to govern his future
action when he, and they who with such snow
of seriousness make them, know they have no
more weight or force than so much blank
paper? The only safe way is to wait Till ap-
pointments are made and then make or alter
the rules to fit the appointments.
But the proposed change in the rules SHOWS
how little the President and his advisers COM
prehend the true scope of Civil Service Re
form. The very marrow of it lies in the fea-
ture recommended to be eliminated. The
great curse Of the existing system of appoint
ments Is not so much in its giving us incom-
petent and dishonest officials; that is bad
enough and mischievous enough; but the ulti-
mate good sense aud honesty of the people
might be relied on to correct that IN degree
by frequent changes. The lurking devil in
the system is that it corrupts the popular sense
and debases all standards of official purity, by
breeding a race of time-serving, oflce-seeklng,
lazy and thieying politicians. 1t Is this fea-
ture of 1.-THE spOils to the victors"-that
makes men bitter and INSCRIPTIONS partisans
in the hope of office that seduces young men
into politics as a trade, who might other
wise be employed honorably to themselves
and proftably to the community; that makes
men lie and cheat and stuff ballot-boxes and
falsify returns to keep their party in office,
so that they may live in idleness or worse
than ldleness at the public expense, squaDder-
ing their lives in the pernicious designations,
the mad excitcments, the passion and whlrl
and ntOxicatiOn of political contests. 1t is
not so much that it gives us bad lot OF
offce-holders; but it makes bad and rabid
lot of Ofiice-seekers IL is this that makes
Tom MuIphys and Hank Smiths for us, and
harnesses such men as Roscoe Conkling TO
their support that fills the streets with torch
light professions of young men and boys be-
fore a Presidential election. inflames their
passions, excites them with the hOpeIOf Office
and maddens them with drink, and then, cleo
ton being over, sets them loose Ill poverty
or crime 1t is this that keeps decent men,
who want no office, but only good government,
away from the polls, away from caucus and
convention, and leaves the Offices to be fought
for by the bad gangs whom the system has
engendered and keeps alive. The great ben
eft to be derived from the system of competi-
tive examinations was more in its setting
I'D q test before which the ranks of the great
army of office-seekers would be thinned, than
in any special advantage of fitness to be gained
in the appointees. 1t was hoped that it would
drive thousands Of incompetents, whose only
claim is party service, to some honest Occu-
patton by establishing an invariable rule
which would be bar to their political aspira-
tons. But that feature of it has proved .
dismal failure, and now it is seriously pro-
posed to keep up the illusion of q system and
reform without even that filmsy guise of an
intention and meaning in it.
The>falsehood and pretense by which Presi
dent Grant's reelection was carried are being