The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1877-05-03
THE NEXT BATTLE.

Exit the carpet Dagger: enter the OF
fee beggar. Six weeks OF Hayes have
sufficed for the Southern question which
has kept the country in such turmoil
for twelve years. But he has heSt to
deal with an evil which has cursed the
land for fifty years. 1t has been grow
ing ever since Andrew Jackson began
to reward his friend and punish his foes.
With every year it has intrenchod itself
more strongly in our party organization,
in our political habits, and even in our
laws. A political Hercules in honesty
can not hope to cleanse these Augean
stables in day. Can the civil service
be really reformed? That is the ques-
ton which, above all others, will test
| the qualities OF President Hayes and
his advisers.
It will be forced into prominence at
once, by his adversaries if not by his
friends. The angry men who are ours
ing because ''the President has sold
out his party" viii presently find it con-
venient to seek some other point Of
attack than the Presidents Southern
policy. Nursing every feeling of wrath
because of 'sthe abandonment of South
ern Republicans, they Will make open
war only upon the reform which threat
ems to break up the machine in all States
alike. TO ell the outs they Will say,
Reward for your devoted labors is
refused" To ali the ms they will say,
''Reform means, to cut your head Off. }"
For once it seems possible that the men
who have got Office and the men who
want Office as a reward for personal or
party service may be rallied to do battle
under the same banner.
We shall hear great deal, no doubt,
of s'the one armed soldier" or his wild
| ow or his children. It will be said that
| it is abominably cruel and ungra5eful to
turn anybody out of Office because he or
she is not needed or is not competent.
Tears enough were shed to produce a
| freshet in the Potomac when the num-
| Der of female clerks at the Treasury and
Interior Department was reduced last
week. Correspondents who passionate
" demanded reform before the election
| now berate unsparingly the Cabinet Off
Ger who wants to reform anywhere in
particular would belate the Presi-
| dent if they dared. It is very strange,
| too, that every man or woman that was
turned out happened to be, according to
some Senator or Representative or edi-
| tor or other influential person, an s'abso-
lutely indispensable person, and zone
of the best clerks in the service" Out
of hundreds who went, Messrs. Schurz
and Sherman did not happen to hit
solitary one who ought to have gone.
So it will be to the end of the chapter.
The place to begin reform is somewhere
else The average politician prefers
reform where the afflicted person
thought it most desirable to have boil,
con some other mans nose"
Not less Jealous, but vastly numer-
Gus, will be the people who want pay
for party services. The five Thousand
men who "frst suggested the name of
Hayes" are all dead, it seems, because
he does not recognize that as qualifi-
cation for office. But none the less the
great army of men who have done some
thing for Senator or a Representative
or any influential politician are rushing
to the front to get recommendations.
To the distress OF these patriots, it is
noticed that the Presidents not prompt
with his appointments. By the time
the Senate meets, the murmurs of thou
sands will swell into roar.
All the outs and all the ms who know
that they ought to be out, all the jobs
that exist and all the jobs that want to
exist, will be rallied with the carpet bag
ger and his friends for a grand assault
upon this administration. Every step
toward the real reform of the public
service viii be resisted. Every selection
of dangerous men who mean business
in reform will be defeated if possible
in the Senate. For each case there will
be reasons plenty as blackberries. But
for all there will be one motive
to break down if possible the Admins
tration which has become hated and
feared because it is trying to keep its
pledges and do its duty. The assault
will fail, we trust. But it will be
desperate one. To defeat it will re-
duire not only resolutionsbut an infinite
deal of patience.=N Z Tribune