The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-08-15

DIR; Inc Ref0rmerS who have thus far
given me the honor of their attention, and who,
regret to see, have listened to me with an
apparent lack of enthusiasm amounting at
times almost to coldness, will perhaps not be
surprised to learn that L do not take so melan-
choly view of our Civil Service as themselves.
That-like any other system invented by hu-
man ingenuity and carried out by human per-
severance-it needs reform is upquestionable;
but that it needs reform more than any other
branch of public or private labor doth not yet
appear 1t is not perfection, but it is just as
near perfection as the Congregational churches
of New England. 1t is no more cumbrous, no
more costly, no more corrupt than the school
system of Massachusetts. 1t uses no more
worldly wisdom in attaining its ends than the
Rev. Edward Payson Hammond used in con-
Quoting bis revival in conducting his revival in
Newburyport. IT does not take the name of
the Lord our God in vain with any more force
or frequency than the American Popular Life
Insurance Company. No more sweeping
charges of extravaganza and incompetency are
brought against it than are brought against
the new Massachusetts, State Lunatic Asylum
on Dodge's Hill. 1t gets as large return for
money expended as the Essex Railroad 1t
yields to creditors as large a dividend as the
Northern Pacific or the Vermont Central, or
my own well beloved Eastern railroad to their
stockholders. venture to say that there are
at this moment as many clergymen and Sun.
day school teachers in or lodging the state
prisons OF New England as there are Federal
office holders under arrest The seventy thous-
and civil service employees of the Government
are just as intelligent, just as vrtuous, Just as
respectable, as any other seventy thousand
men selected from the same class over the
same area. Following the lead of the Irish.
man at the Chartist meeting who thought one
man was as good as another and a little better,
think the seventy thousand would average
higher good deal than seventy thousand men
taken at random outside. Wild, wide, ire
sponsible talk is absolutely worthless Decla-
nations upon our corruption are but cheap
and nasty form of virtue. Mulletts roof fell
in, but the Boston druggists shop blew up, and
the Ashtabula bridge went down, and Mill
River reservoir burst its bonds, and scores
were swept and blown and burned to swifter
death. 1t is all horrible, hateful, monstrous
mot to be told. But there are as many Gov.
ernment buildings that stand as there are
mandatory dams that hold fast. From pub
lie grounds to. private accounts the work of the
Government j. as we'll done as the work of
state governments or municipal governments,
or corporations or private citizens. We grum-
BILE and growl-as is proper-but when the
pinch comes our Civil Service does not lose in
comparison with that of other nations. Our
representatives abroad have sometimes dis
graced us, and the appointment of Mr.. WASH
burne was denounced by the reformers; but in
beleaguered Paris. in most delicate and critical
position, he bore himself with dignity, cour-
age and tact that elicted the gratitude of Ger
many and the admiration of France. If we
may believe the Reformers, Secretary Fish
was chosen by President Grant on the score of
grand dinner at his country house on the
Hudson; but he took US over the Spanish reefs
as ii he had been born sailing master; in the
Winslow negotiations with England he DID not
come out second-best; and the Earl de Grey
and Ripon could find only in the Romish
Church refuge from the reproaches of his coun-
trymen for the inferior part which he and his
associates acted in the settlement of the Ala
bama Claims So good reformer, so inteli-
gent an observer as President Seelye declares
that there was never time when this great
Government was so economically administered
as to-day, or when corrupt men in power were
So few or so mercilessly ferreted out and pun
ished By members of the ascendent party; and
Dr. Rankin, living in Washington for years,
reiterates and re-echoes his opinion. Mr.. L.
White of the New York Tribune says on April
10; During the last six years have had ex-
ceptional opportunities for knowing something
about the average character and ability of Gov
ernment officers aud clerks employed in the
departments here, and 1 am convinced that
as whole, they are honest, intelligent and
efficient. The monthly report of Chief Special
Agent Parker showed that sixty-two persons
had been detected in robbery and other viola
tions of the postal laws during the month of
May; but among the number were found en-
ployes of the New York Evangelist, The Book
keepers Magazine, Ballan g Co., and several
other prominent trims of New York and other
cities, detected in robbing valuable letters after
proper delivery from the Post Office, in a man-
n
Post Office Department. i have asked q
good many persons and have thus far failed
to lind single one who would admit that the
Federal officers of whom he had personal
knowledge fell below the standard of any other
class of men. There is no doubt great open
Polar Sea of corruption in the Civil Service,
but never saw any person who had actually
navigated his own boat into it. 1t is Realm
of Rhetoric, a mirage OF mystery. The office
holders of our personal neighborhood do not
wear Fraud upon their brows, but pay taxes
and 60 to church and repair their houses and
educate their children like other good citizens.
1t the subject were little less serious, il
would be amusing to see how the great flock of
crows dwindles under inspection into three
little blackbirds sitting on the fence Even
the horrors of the Custom House loom up into
vaster proportions before our imaginations than
before the Investigations. If there was sink
OF iniquity deeper and fouler than Washington,
it was the New York Custom House-a nation
al reproach, natlonal ulsgrace-creatlon 8
blot, creations blank! Undoubtedly wrongs
and evils are perpetrated and perpetuated
there. Wrong and evil are always concsn-
trated where humanity is concentrated.
Twelve hundred men in one corporation are
more fruitful of evil as we'll as of good than
twelve hundred men scattered among the hills.
Of definite knowledge about the actual work
ings OF the Custom House or of the Commits
sion appointed to investigate it, we outsiders
have SO little that we are little able to Judge.
We have only glimpses, differences, unassisted
reason and general knowledge TO guide. us.
The commission makes suggestions whose
practical value depends upon matters with
which most of us are entirely unfamiliar.
They suggest, for example, that the force be
nd tba Of sod