Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-03-29
From the Boston Traveller
The Independent NOter-''HOme
Again"

1t is our melancholy duty to chronicle two
sad cases of mysterious disappearance in
American politics. Civil Service Reform is
missing from its democratic home, where it
was last seen about the time that its alleged
parents moved into the new and enlarged
premises at Washington. The other case is
that of the independent voter. The famous
party of the third part is simultaneously mis-
sing. The two events have close connec-
ton. OF the reform movement and the third
party it may be said that Gin life they were
united and in death they are not divided"
The history OF these two political babes now
lost in the Washington woods, is full of in
struction and warning
The Reform Movement was based on a
great moral idea. 1t took its rise within the
republican party, like every other movement
that has had moral idea at the bottom of it.
1t aimed at the publication of politics. and
was designed to reca,t our otliceholding sys-
TEN by making merit the sole basis of APP
pointment to office. Political services were
to count as nothing, personal fitness was to
form Nov ement, which had this idea for its an
mating aspiration, was rocked-we repeat and
defy contradiction-by republican statesmen.
We say this for the benefit of those superb
cially informed people, who, with memories
that carry them no farther back than the last
Presidential campaign, entertain the delusivc
notion that Civil Service reform was the le-
Ultimate child of the democracy Men like
Sumner and Greeley were its fathers; men
like Curtis and the late Sam Bowles assisted
at its baptism; ideaiss like Schurz and
Bristow did their best to bring it up. True
it is that the veteran republican leaders, and
the mass of the party, regarded it as a sckly
child, destined to die young, for lack of prac-
ticality. Experience has abundantly vind-
Gated their Judgment. None the less true is
it that the democratic party had nothing to
do with its coming into the world at all
Moral ideas, practical or impractical are alike
foreign to the Bourbon genius. How. then
did democracy come to be currently credited
with the parentagc of the reform idea? Brief
/ ~ in this wise The republican reformers
formed a third party; they divorced them
selves from their old political home and took
the custody of the child. just then the heads
! of he democratic bqunehnld. being very any
ious for an enlargement of the family, hap
pcncd along, and proposed to the third party
to set up joint housekeeping. The third
party. being excessively independents refused
to come in unless the reform child was adopt
ed. Democracy, remembering Old lIickorv's
immortal maxim, eyed the child askance.
II wanted the third party vote badly, but it
didn't want reform bit. Seeing it could on
ly get the first by adopting the second. it
stified its sCrupes and swallow ed both The
democrats gained some votes. and revealed in
the strange sensation of being for the first
time in the life of the party. the sole proprie-
tor of one whole and undivided moral idea 1t
fastened to secure the patent. cautioned the
public against intringcmcnts and has screamed
reform ever since. No, not ever since.
but up to the 18th day of this current month
Of March. 1t stopped shouting for Civil Ser
vice Reform AT that point. There was abso-
lutely no further use either for the lndepen-
dent party or its troublesome infant. There
were number of snug berths in the Senate
to be distributed, and, cycling the long haired
Rcformers with whitening glance, the heads
of the democratic family arose and sternly
said This foolng must stop. Play is
play, and business is business Reform was
well enough for the Cincinnati circus OF 1872,
and for the st. Louis show of 1876, but here
the farce ends and legitimate drama takes the
boards. The clerk will proceed to call the
roll, and the republican officers must CO.,
4. Mr., VOORHEES, ptbily put it. "Tbe re-