Litchfield enquirer., 1873-10-23

In letter to the Springfield Republi- Ian vindicating his course in regard to Civil Service Reform, NIT. D. B. Eaton points out the true source of danger, and the duty of the press in regard to it:
 The greatest peril of the reform will be in Congress, where appropriations will be needed, next winter, and not from the president or ex- ecutive department, where it has vindicated it's merits. If you will allow me 8 suggestion, it is that your influential journal and all those in sympathy with it. unite in creating public opin- ion in Congress which will support as extended a reform as the executive denartment will ad- wise and is ready to carry out. The want of sterner public opinion which Congress will re- gard is the only peril; and if you allow it to be fatal your responsibility will not be small I can see no surer means of securing defeat than by causing those who promote the only possible advance to be generally distrusted.
 In criticising our administration for making objectionable appointments, we are apt to forget that under the present system the real power of appointment is with our Congressmen. It is they who build up local support for themselves out of this power, as Butler has done in Massachusetts. It is they who sheer most bitterly at the presidents plan of reform, and who have compelled him to break his own rules in their favor.
 Our belief is that while all the cabinet and higher appointments must be politi- cal. the clerkships in the executive de- partments and custom houses should be appointed and promoted for their fitness for their duty, not for political reasons. Whether that fitness can be best ascer- tained by competitive examination, or in some other method, is question the de- partments would soon settle for them selves if let alone by politicians outside. Postmasters, and other local officers, are best nominated by the people of their i'm mediate vicinity in public caucuses. Mis- takes would be sometimes made by such caucuses, but their appointments would on the whole be much less objectionable than those our Congressmen usually vouchsafe us.
 There has been considerable comment recently on the decline of Methodism in cities. In an article on that subject in the last Christian Advocate (Methodist), from the pen of Dr. Hatfield, we find the following given among other reasons for that decline:
 Methodism during all her history has been most successful among the respecta- ble middle classes, who thrive by honest industry. Her substantial growth in cit ies has been among mechanics and trades men, not among the merchant princes or in fashionable circles. And it is just this medium class that has fallen under the haleful influence of modern infidelity Foreigners by birth, or the children of foreigners, they crowd the native-born population out of large sections of our cities. Few American boys now learn any mechanical business, and the retail trade in dry goods and groceries seems fast passing into the hands of Irishmen and Germans. Some of this class are Roman ists, others are Jews; while others still are unbelievers in the Gospel, and bitterly hostile to Christianity.
 The class of unbelievers above referred to are doubtless mainly of German de- scent. An article in the October Atlantic takes much the same view of the .'anti- christian tendency in the German charac- ter.', Christianity" says the latter writ CT, ..is losing among the German popu- lation of America faster perhaps than among any other class of people in the vorld.'