New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-04-06

thing as TO abolish family life Does he think that
party zeal, combined with honesty, efficiency. and
fidelity. is the same thing as party zeal with
ont those essential qualifications fOT Officer The
Republican Convention designed to abolish the evils
of patronage by not bestOwing it upon men who
! had no other qualifications than party ZEAL but
| to make honesty efficiency and fidelity essen
tial. This is right and wise, practicable dcsira-
bic, even imperative. Mr.. Eaton makes the Con-
venton say in effect that patronage should be
abolished and party zeal ignored-whcb is not only
untrue on the part of Mr. Eaton but is to make the
| Convention speak as a fool. The ounces" and
| common politicians" who composed III COnven-
| ton NAV not have been able 10 wrestle with a
! "person of intelligence" on the Civil Service Com
| mission but they knew enough TO know that no
! Government has ever been successfully administered
without patronage, and they started out on no such
rowing commission. If Mr.. Eaton would rehnquish
| for o time his benevolent but ambitious scheme OF
shOuldering up the zigzag path to Heaven some hiF
or sixty thousand OlcehOders who have as free ac-
cess to Gospel privileges himsefand give us some
vigorous and rigorous little essays on such simple
themes as The Honesty of Quotation Marks, or The
Morality of Misstatements he might not, indeed, be
able to install Great Reform, but he could keep one
| little candle burning more brightly III naughty
world.
with more vagueness and caution. "When prepar-
ations for the last election opened both
parties declared for the very policy so
lately discarded" II is not quite clear what MIR.
Eaton means by "the policy" fit was the technical
Curtis Eaton-Medil reform that died in Congress
for lack OF legislation, when did either party plat
form declare for 1T If it what Mr.. Eaton calls
abolshing patronage-w was really aboishingt the
evils of patronage-and regarding merit, when ala
the Republican party discard ii What the party
did at the outset of the last Presidential campaign
was to declare that the nvarabe rule for appoint
ments should have reference to the honesty, fidelity
and capacity of appointees, giving to the party in
power those places where harmony and vigor OF adj
minisration require ITS policy to be represented but
permitting all others to be filled by persons selected
with sole reference to the efficiency OF the public
service and the right of citizens TO share III the
honor of rendering faithful service to their country"
should like to have Mr.. Eaton point ont any
plank in any Republican platform, or any author
itatiye declaration of the Republican party where
this policy is dscarded-where honesty and capacity
are declared Insignificant or where the party IN
power is forbidden TO fill subordinate places with
members of the opposite party. l should like also
to have Mr.. Eaton specify any time during the as
tendency of the Republican party in which Demo-
Gratis did not hold subordinate places under the Gov
eminent.
Mr.. Eaton says the nomination Z" fell upon one
who, more emphaticay than any other person ever
before proposed for that high station, had pledged
himself TO the reform of the Civil Service" Had
pleCed himself" That is Mr.. Hayes, before his
nomination, was n stronger adherent of Civil Ser
vice Reform than any other proposed candidate had
ever been. This may be true. l am unhappily not
familiar with Mr.. Hayess history previous to his
nished it. He may have pledged himself TO Mr..
Eaton's reform when he was lawyer in Fremont.
or when the Ben EgglestOn Ring" " know him,
OF when he was writing in 1872 that the Cncin-
natl Liberals were gobbled up and done for in the
handsomest way imagnable-such n defeat
never was seen before" or 1t may be
that the Pennsylvania machine politicians were
sending $1,000 apiece to Ohio to help elect
him as Civil Service Reform Governor | only
wonder that the most prominent Civil Service Re
form candidate the country ever knew should not
have been Mr.. Eaton's first choice, rather than
Hobson's What the country at large knows of the
Presidents pledges is to be found in his letter Of ac-
ceptance after his nomination. In this he refers,
though incorrectly to the practice of the fathers
affirming that they neither expected nor desired
from the public officers any partisan services that
they meant that the officer should he secure IN Ms
tenure as long as his personal character renamed
untarnished and the performance Of his duties sat
isfactOry.
This is not matter of great importance. What
We ought to do, ought to do, whether Our 1athers
did il or not But when important person as
the candidate for the Presidency of the United
States makes a historical misstatement IN so i'm
portapt a public document as his letter of accept
ance it is not only worth while but imperative to
affirm in the most respectful but the most positive
manner that IL is a misstatement. Governor Hayes
fell into an error Lot surprising, not unnatural but
not the less an error.
We depict a set of rounded and perfect, if some
what uninteresting figures, and label them Our
Fathers. and bow down before them with Chinese
Difference, but when we come upon cross section
of that period, and those well-beloved men
going about their business IN their everyday
clothes we find they were just violently partisan
az We and when they wanted man out of office he
had to 90, and when they wanted him in they pulled
the wires and ierkcd him inf they could. At any
rate. they pulled the wires. shall not here prove
this, because have already proved 1t in previous
Numbers of THE NEw-YoRK TRIBUNE. single
hook 1.-THE Life and Letters of George Ca
bot.D shows conclusively that the Government of
the fathers did expect and require from Its
public officers partisan service, and that they did
not mean that any officer should be secure in his
tenure that they could not turn him out, ire
spective of his character and the performance of his
duties But in addition to this, happen to have
before me the unsolicited testimony of one Of them,
still living a man who, with the brave blood Of the
splendid old Fedcralists bounding through all his
fourscore years and ten. still makes fight for Massa-
| chusetts as If BOnaparte and the Embargo were
| going to be the main issue Of the next election.
| 1.-THE war of 1872" writes this spirited old poll
ticiau, twas got up to help Bonaparte conquer Eng
land, and to destroy the commerce OF New-England,
| which the South had been working at for years
| through embargo and non-ntroOTSe. | think old