Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-07-30

po NohuuCteu uOW III n more Duhl0eBB- Ike
0 manner than before, and that the efficiency o
a the service has been lifted up to a much high
r or standard.
DEMOCRATIC "CLEAN SWEEP"
Now substitute for this the Democratic re-
[ form, making clean sweep according to the
, old spoils system, and what will you have
( Hundreds of thousands of politicians great
, and small, but all hungry, rushing for seventy
, or eighty thousand places, backed and press
ed by every Democratic committee in the
land. This impetuous rush must be satisfied
as rapidly as possible, for they want to make
the best of their time, and in this case, as well
as others, time is money. 1t is useless to dis
guise it the masses of ofice-soekers. starved
for 20 years, will not be turned back as long
as there is a mouthful on the table. Seventy
or eighty thousand officers selected at ran
dom from that multitude Of ravenous appli-
cants will be put into places held now mostly
by men of tried capacity and experience
They must be taken at random for IL is i'm
possible to fill 80 large n number of places in
so short time as the furious demand will
permit, in any other way Need tell any
sensible man what the effect upon the con-
duct of the public business will be? It will
be the disorganizaton ofthe whole admnistra-
tive machinery Of the government at one fell
blow 1t VIII be the sudden substitution of
raw hands for skilled and tried public ser
wants the substitution Of the eager desire TO
make out Of public affairs as much as can be
made in the shortest possible time for official
training, experience and sense of RESPONSE
bility. 1t will be q removal for some time Mt
least of those carefully devised guards which
are now placed over the public money and
lts use 1t will in one word be the sudden
distribution of so many thousand places of
trust, responsibility and power, now well filed,
IN The true sense of the word as spoils among
the hosts of the victorious party 1t is use
less to say that the Democratic party contains
sufficient number of men of ability and in
tegrity TO fill all those places No doubt it
does. But it is absolutely impossible for
| those who have the appointing power, even
If they were ever so well disposed, to make
selections for so many thousand places in a
| short time, especially considering the fact
that usually the least worthy asprants are
among the most clamorous and the most skill
ful in securing the strongest political indorse
ments. Need | tell the tax payers what such
an experiment will cost! Suppose after
success of the Democratic party in a pres-
DENTAL election all the offices, high and low.
in all the banks and savings institutions of
the country, were to be filed suddenly with
Democratic politicians upon the recommen-
dauon OF Democratic congressman and cam
paign committees, what would the stockhold-
ers and the depositors think of the safety of
their money! And yet the interests involved
in the banks are certainly by no means great |
er than the interests involved in the conduct |
of the great government of the United States. |
l do not think this is putting the case too |
strongly, and invite the business men of the |
country and the taxpayers generally to con- |
slider it well before they cast their votes I |
am willing TO assume that in all these respects |
Gen. Hancock entertains the best possible in
tentions, and even that he may form for him
self plan of action intended to obviate these
difficulties and disasters. He may possibly
tell you SO, and mean what he says. Yet is
1t not obvious that, having no experience
whatever in political life he will be complete
ly at the mercy of wind and waves and that
there will be power of wind in the Demo-
cratic victors clamoring for the spoils strong
enough to upset the ingenuity of the firmest
and most skilled politician in his party No:
let nobody indulge in any delusion about it
Democratic victory means that the victors
will take the spoils at once and tnis means
the complete destruction for a time of the
whole administrative machinery of the gov.
ernment, with all its checks and guards, and
the people will have TO foot the bills for the
carnival. This will be q reform of the civil
service TO make the ears of the taxpayers
tingle.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ON THE WHOLE DOING
WELL.
No prudent citizen can fail to be repelled
by such prospects unless equally great or
greater dangers threaten from the other side.
Let us look at that other side now l am GER
tainly not one of those who would assert that
the Republican party has been without fault
have been one OF its most unsparing critics,
and have been uusparingly criticised myself
by thorough going partisans in return. l
shall always claim for myself freedom of opin-
ion and speech in that respect. The Repub-
lican party has undoubtedly made q great
many mistakes | will not 20 back to the pc
riod of reconstruction and an absolved south
ern policy, because that lies far behind us
and is not an issue in this campaign. Its con-
results have become settlements.
accepted by both sides-in profession at least,
and the policy of force after the readmission
OF the late rebel states has under this admin
lstration yielded to scrupulous rule of con-
principles Neither would deny
that, with regard to the question of the public
debt at one time and to the currency question
Tor more extended period, there was in the
Republican party an antagonism of opinions
/ contest of conflicting ends. We have had |
Republican advocates of the payment of the
public debt in greenbacks; we have had Re-
publican inaationists and the discussions in /.
side of the Republican party were for some :
time heated and bitter Thus for a season =
he party seemed TO stumble along with an +
Uncertain gait, but it has always had an un- =
'rrihg instinct which in the end made it turn ! !
light side up; and then it kept right side up.
When in 1869 the Republican majority in
congress declared for the payment Of the pub
ic debt, principal and interest, in coin there il
vas the end once and forever of the repudia- z
ion movement, open and disguised, in the L
republican party. When in 1875 the Repub- s.
lean majority in Congress passed the resump- Il
ion act, there was the end, once and forever d
f the unredeemable paper-money business in Il
be Republican party. Those who remained b
epudiationists or fat-money men did not re- Il
nain Republicans, at least not leaders of the Il
'arty. They tried their luck for some time p
inside of it then they left it, and became in O
ependent greenbackers, and finally most of n
hem landed in the Democratic party as the p
greenbackers, who for a time be- Il
anne independents mostly went back there. b
ZEN. Weaver and his followers are still in the tr
ltermediate state, but will no doubt finally Ell
laterialize as sound Democrats. But while b.
le Democratic party has been attracting such ia
ements, the Republican party has been a
ther converting them to sound principles or d,
iecting them until they almost wholly disap- &C
cared among its component parts. Thus it ol
as become emphatically the protector of the ca
ltional faith and the party of sound money it,
have no doubt that the disagreements still IN
listing upon financial subjects of minor i'm OF
1rtance in the Republican party will be er
lived in the same way after mature discus ril
On. This tendency in the Republican party wi
IS been owing to some very characteristic of
uses. 1t was not only predominance of fri
'od sense and a thoughtful desire to be right irI
ID an endeavor TO do that which was best SCI
r the general interests of the people, but it its
rs also the traditional feeling grown out of an
g loyal attitude of the Republican party dur fin
g the civil war in support of the Union and ab
q preservation of the republic-the feeling of
solemn duty that all the obligations con- bu
'cted for so sacred purpose must be and cy
main sacred and inviolable Therefore it to
IS that the idea of reputation never could pa
tain permanent foothold among republi- ion
rs, whatever the vacllations of individual ele
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