The New York herald., 1878-02-28
President Hayes and the Civil Ser-
vice.

| Boston, in compliance with the wishes OF
Senator Hoar, increases our regret that the
| President has SO long foreborne to send to
Congress his expected special message on
civil service reform. TWAS given out at the
time the annual Message was sent i'll that it
would soon be followed by careful docu-
ment setting forth the views of the Presi-
dent on the great topic which was made SO
prominent in the glittering generalities OF
his letter of acceptance and inaugural ad-
dress. We should be sorry to think
that he has abandoned his intention
of defining his views on this subject
and laying down the principles on which
he proposes to regulate the personnel Of his
administration. Up to this time his action
is puzzle. We doubt whether it would be
possible for him 10 mark out any line OF
conduct respecting removals and appoint
ments which would explain and reconcile
the apparent inconsistencies of his course
up to this time. II he has adhered to any
settled rule or pursued any consistent prin-
ciple the country would be glad to learn
what,it is. 1t is possible that ho hos with
held the expected message because he can
lay down no chart for the future which
would not condemn some part Of his see
/ saw conduct in the past
The nearest approach the President has
made to any specific statement on the sub
ject of civil service appointments is his re-
peatedly pulling out of his pocket and read
ing to members Of Congress who have at diff
ferent times called on him to urge candidates
or remonstrate against removals, that part
of the republican national platform which
condemns the interference of Senators and
Representatives. But if that is the rule by
which he is guided what are we to make
of his appointing successor to Collector
Simmons to crafty Senator Hoar? If this
were o solitary Inconsistency little would
be thought of it, But he has never had any
more scruple in using the patronage OF the
government to promote his personal or
political aims than GeneQal Grant him
self President Hayes had not been a.
week in office before he made an
alliance with the late Senator Morton
and permitted him to dictate batch
Of appointments, with an understand
ing that he would support the new admin
istration. It is notorious that the demo-
lowed to control an important federal ap-
pointment in that State It is believed
that the unsuccessful attempt to remove
Collector Arthur, of this port, was an in
tended act of hostility to Senator Conkling.
Nobody doubts that the removal Of Collec-
tor Simmons is recognition of the services
of Senator Hoar in securing q strong in
dorsement Of the President by the
Massachusetts republicans True, most
of Mr.. Hayes predecessors would
have acted in the same way in similar
circumstances. We are not discussing
the intrinsic propriety Of his conduct, but
it's consistency with his public professions.
We wish he would send in that long deferred
civil service message and bind himself to
follow some ineligible, settled rule in
making appointments and removals
President Hayes has been nearly year in
Office, and he must be a very self-complacent
as well as very sanguine man if he thinks
what he has accomplished in reforming the
civil service is worth oil it has cost him.
BY his vacillating, inconsistent course,
which has won the approval neither of the
true friends of civil servicereform nor of the
spoils-hunting politicians, he has put him
self in state Of humiliating isolation. He
has failed to improve the civil service and at
the same time he has stripped himself Of
influence to accomplish good in other
directions. 1t is now plain to everybody
that party President Of the usual type
would have been altogether more successful
and more useful. An ordinary party Presi-
dent could easily have prevented the PAS
sage of the Silver bill by majority so large
that veto is not likely to overcome it.
Such service would havo been worth in
finitely more than any benefit which Mr..
Hayes could have conferred on the country
by his appointments and removals. even if
he had had n steady policy and been sue
cesstul in it, But to sacrifice all his in
fiuence and usefulness to such will-of-the-
wisp as he has been pursuing by zigzag
course through political bogs mot enriches
him and makes us poor indeed"
Mr.. Hayes entered on his Office without
any due sense of the proportion and fitness
of things. Almost every period has its one
paramount question beside which all others
are for the time being dwarfed. A ruler
who understands his epoch" makes it his
chief business to settle the paramount ques-
ton, not permitting subordinate questions
to interfere with the main success. For Mr.
Hayes. administration, coming into power
when it did, the great problem of all which
met it on the threshold was the rehabilita-
ton of business by wise measures
of finance. The country had been
anguishing for years under extreme indus
trial prostration the date fixed by law
for resumption of specie payments was at
still 1,auiro civ in