Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-10-21
less our civilization shall ebb away all along

less our civilization shall ebb away all along
the line its advance.
3. The greatest peril ofthe reform will be
in Congress, where appropriations will be
needed, next winter, and not from the Presi-
dent or Executive department. where IL has
vindicated its merits. If you will allow me a
suggestion, it is that your influential journal
and all those in sympathy with it, unite in
creating public opinion in Congress which
will support as extended a reform as the Ex-
ecu,ive department will advise and is ready to
carry out. The want of a sterner public opin-
ion which Congress will regard is the only
peril and if you allow it to be fatal your re-
sponsibiity will not be small. can see no
surer means of securing defeat than by caus-
ing those who promote the only possible ad-
vance to be generally distrusted.
4. To your complaints about the undue in
reference of the federal officers with State
politics, have this to say: that you seem to
forget that President Grant was the first to
forbid federal officers holding State offices,
and that, if the public press and the people
will make it appear that further restrictions
upon such interference can be enforced, there
is, ID my opinion, every reason to believe that
such restrictions will find place in the rules
regulating the civil service.
5. Lastly, l am not satisfied with many
things that have been done and suffered but
l know enough Of them to comprehend thai
some of them are inevitable, that others were
the best that bad circumstances would allow
and that most of them are too generally mis-
conceived. This reform, like all others in
which have taken part or read of, has dis.
couragiug circumstances, but such are the
crises in which its friends must stand firmes,
and the most reasonable. The reform is max.
ing steady progress. More and more the patti
OF promotions is through merit. do not say
the condition is satisfactory, by any means
but it is growing better. The people are now
reconciled TO examinations. Solicitation ac
c0mplishes very little in those departments te
which examinations have been extended, ant
in due time their sphere will be enlarged AZ
they should. manual will be issued which
will make the dimensions OF the reform clear.
err and its methods more Ineligible. Had
more been at first attempted, with inexperi-
enced hands, and upon generation accus-
toned only to other methods, are you pre-
pared to say that great recoil would not
have thrown back the reform for genera.
ton? 1t requires some experience, as well
as. great philosophic insight and prudence, tt
determine the true proportions and methods
for reforming the vast system of the civil ser
vice Of an impetuous young nation of forty
millions And if you can tell us now what W.
can do and forbear to do, which we have not
promise you an attentive hearing. l do no
refer to general complaints or general clamo
for speedier and better results, to which any
one may give utterance, but to some specific
practical suggestions of better ways ant
methods, based on the constitution and tht
political and social forces we have to regard