New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-12-09
DHSAPPolYrING THEIR FRIENDS


We do hope the Democratic majority IN the
XLVlth Congress is not going to disappoint
the hopes of the newspaper editors who have
set their hearts on reforming the Civil Service.
The opening performances give little encour-
agement for it. In rakIng over the ashes of
the late defeat, it has been found by careful
computation with the chalk left over from the
great "329n demonstration, on the blank
in the platform left by rubbing out the
tariff fOr-reyenue resolution, that there
els a difference of less than 1000 votes
in the 5000, 900 ballots cast last November"
and that "a little effort in behalf of purity
"of elections will give us a Democratic
victory in 1884, This is the Demo
cratic statement of it, with tho alternative
that if this effort is net made " the Republican
"party may remain IN power for twenty
"years to come" The effort III behalf of
"the purity of elections" is to be embodied
in reform OF the Civil Service which will
either practically disfranchise, or eflec.ually
disable, so much of the working Republican
force as hold office, without weakening to the
same or greater extent the attacking Demo-
cratic army. 1t is of course very important
to do this. Several newspaper editors have
given their whole mind to it as a piece of
grand strategy, and solemnly decided that it
is the thing to do. They have united in a demand
upon their representatives i'll Congress to
take it up at once, devise some practca
scheme for reforming Republicans out of, and
Democrats into the service of the Govern
ment, and enact 1t into a law without delay.
And the proposition Is 80 entirely charac-
teristic of the party, so consistent with its re-
cent record, that we expected it to be acted
upon Immediately OH the opening of the ses-
sion. The purpose is to spike the enemy's
guns upon the ground that they disturb the
peace. The leaders are In the position in which
Spanish commanders In the Netherlands some
times found themselves during the latter part
of the sixteenth century, when they discovered
that the prospect of massacre and pillage
without quarter while it melted the besiegefs to
greater exertIon, gavethe besiegeda still greater
incentive to holding out, and neryed them to
more desperate and unyielding resistance.
They have to provide for an army long unpaid
and mutinous. and nothing TO do it with bur
the spols In expectancy. The problem of
Civil Service Reform is to continue the hope
of pillage to the outs at the same time That
they assure the security and permanence of
the ms. Ii is not an easy thing to do, but
the Democratic editors sit at their desks like
Phillip III. in the Escurial, and complacently
order 1t done. Spiking their adversary's guns
has always been the favorite tactics of the
Democracy. They attempted to spike the
guns at Fort Sumter with the Constitution, so
as to leave the garrison at the mercy of
Beauregard and the rebel works in Charleston
Harbor. They have missed no opportunity in
the past twenty years to repeat the ex-
pertinent. Sometimes 1t was to prevent the
emancipation and arming of the negroes J;
sometimes to obstruct measures for raising
money TO put down rebellion; sometimes