New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-04-11
1" w T4CINEIESr


The hobby Of the two or three influential
persons who nominated themselves apostles of
Civil Service Reform during President Grants
Administration was Rules. They had Com
mission appointed, and the Commission met
and met and considered ways and means and
methods and machinery, and invented
competitive examinations, and prepared
examination papers containing confusing
conundrums and bewildering queries, and toiled
aud labOred earnestly and long over what they
intended should be System" 1t was all
well enough i'll its way. The politicians who
had no more idea of initiating reform that
would deprive them of their patronage than
they had OF playing football with hand
grenades, looked calmly on and made no OBJ
lection while the refOrmers par excellence
amused themselves. The dcluslon of the re-
formers was that reform was to be a
revelation instead of growth; that, the ma
chincry having been all perfected and adjusted,
it was to be wound up and put in operation,
and presto, ineiliciency and dishonesty were to
90 fying out of the service like chat,
and industry, ability, and integrity come
in at once to fill their places. The
President and the managing politicians
humored them in their notions and encouraged
them in their laboTs. But it somehow always
fell out when the machinery seemed ready to
be put in operation that there was pin want
ing or screw loose somewhere, so that the
performance had to he postponed. One after
another the Commissioners got tired and dis
cOuraged and gave it up, and finally President
Grant formally declared the whole thing a
failure.
The TRIBUNE, always stOutly advocating a
thorough reform of the service, could see
nothing that offered encouragement in the
complex and impractcablc machinery proposed,
and it had no faith in the sincerity of the pol
iticians who pretended TO be anxious for a
reform which was to cut off their patronage and
restrict their influence. THE TRIBUNE main
tanned from the outset that the reform sought
for was not to be brought about by rules or ma
chincry; that 1t could not be lcgslated into
existence by Congress or invented and set
going by commission but that it was a
matter which depended solely on the DISPOSE
ton of the Executive. President Grant might
have given us n reform of the service at any
time he felt disposed. The trouble was he
hadn't the disposition. He allowed the members
of the Commission to divert themselves with
discussions and invent rules, but that he him.
self had no idea of putting their reform or any
reform indeed in practice was sufficiently shown
by his treatment of the Cabinet officers, Bris-
tow and Jewell who did undertake something
in that line Because TIE TRIBUNE did not
always speak reverently of the labors Of the
Commission wrought ont with such sad sincerity,
it was charged quite often with lack of earn
estness in behalf OF reform. The simple truth
was, as little later appeared, that the hypo-
critical politicians who at heart were opposed
to while they pretended 10 favor it were using
the Commission to make the whole business
seem ridiculous farce. THE TRIBUNE in
sisted that reform in the civil service lay in
the hands Of the appointing power and no.
where else chat so soon as you have a Presi-
dent imbuod with the idea that he is the Ex-
ecutiye officer and not merely the Dispenser Of