New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-01-26
THE LATE CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

THE LATE CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.
Mr.. Kellogg of Connecticut has had his
Committee on the Civil Service together, and
a discussion of the late great Reform, some
what in tho nature of a post norton, has
begun. There seems to be, however, a dispO-
sition to conceal the fact of death and to treat
the body as though, after all the beating and
wounding it has received it was still alive.
We fail to see the need of 1T. Why dis
cuss it longer7 Hasn't this thing been car
ried far enough7 We commend to Mr.. Kel
logg's Committee, as indeed to the Admins
tration and the party, the example OF the
tippler who had broken off drinking great
many times with comparatively small success.
Caught after one of his periodical reforms
with an "eye-opener" at his lips, and accosted
with See here, thought you'd sworn Off
drinking" he set down his empty glass,
and wiping his mouth with the air of phi
lospher he replied with great deliberatiOn and
precision: "No Sir. I've taken up drinking
land sworn off lying" The Civil Service
Reform-nO one prOnOunces 1T now without
his tongue in his cheek-has been the Oc-
casiOn for more lying of what is called at
the West "the tallest kind" than was ever
done upon any other subject in the same
length of time Since the party in power was
first driven, by the force of public opinion
which President Grants weak appointments
had in some sense created, to commit itself in
favor of reform in the Civil Service, 1t
has hardly once in any of its resolutions or
by the mouth of any of its public men, except
of the Buffers and LOgans who oppose it
openly told the square honest truth about it.
Doubtless there were people who for long
time believed the prOtestatiOns of the party
leaders that they we've in earnest in attempt
ing to reform the Civil Service. Many be-
lieved that when President Grant set aside
the rules which Commission had been put
tering over for months, in order to give a
friend or relative some office for which he had
no qualification beyond the capacity for
signing a payroll, there was really a good
reason for it, and the interests of the service
demanded that such an exception should be
made. When the President, after making
amendments for which his best friends
could offer no excuse, came solemnly
to Congress in his annual messages,
and asked additional legislation - as
though the whole matter was not in his
own hands, considerable number of people
in various parts of the country were simple
enough to believe that it showed that the
President was determined to carry the reform
through. 1t did not occur to them perhaps
that the President himself is the source of all
these appointments, the unfitness of which
occasioned general complaint, and that If ne
had the mind to do it, there was no need OF
Commission or Rules or legislation to give the
country fit men in Office
And 80 the nonsense ran. President Grant
making very bad appointments, the people cry
ing out against them and for reform, he ask
ing Congress to legislate restrictions upon
him to prevent his making them, and then
when system of rules was adopted, coOlly
setting them aside whenever it suited his
pleasure. And all the time he kept saying in
his messages that more legislation was needed
| to make the reform a success, and his hunkies
were quoting it as evidence of his sincerity.
That anybody could be fooled in this way was
almost a miracle of RIGHTEOUSNESS. Here was
| a party in absolute and unquestioned power in
| all departments of government, protesting
| all the time and everywhere that it favored q
reform in the matter of appointments, and
| here was their President making all the ap-
pontments, and most of them very bad ones,
| protesting that he too desired reform above
| all things, and between them affairs were 60
| ing from bad to worse continually.
There came q time when the Chairman OF
the Civil Service Board, who believed in the
reform himself and thought the President and
the party did, saw dimly that it was only a
cbeap means of humbugging the people, and
withdrew. When man who is so innocent
and unsophstcated as to praise the United
States Senate for vindicating" Mr.. Matt
Carpenter against charges made upon respon-
sible authority which it never dared look into,
and the truth of which can be substantiated
by abundant and irrefragable testimony-when
such man sees through o political dodge and
condemns it, it is about time for its authors
to abandon it as too transparent and
f1imsy for further use. Everybody now
understands the position of the party and
the Administration upon this subject. MIR.
Logan says the success of the party is endan
gered by further experiments with it |; such
leading statesmen as Carpenter and Butler
flout it, as they have from the beginning, and
Mr.. George Gorham, the Secretary of the
Senate, has once demolished it in q pamphlet.
The remains are getting to be an offense. Mr..
Kellogg's Committee has but one duty to
perform, and that is to remove the body. The
feet of those who have carried out several
. | .;,.;I.r cnrnsas ara at the door waiting for