Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-03-20

| supplying by legislation, when needed, ths
| which was formerly the established custom
They neither expected nor desired from tn
! public officers any partisan service. The
| meant that public officers should give thei
whole service to the Government and to tn
| people. They meant that the officer shoul
| be secure in his tenure as long as his pei
| Sonal character remained untarnished an
! the performance of his duties satisfactory
If elected, shall conduct the adrainistra
t1on OF the Government upon these princi
! pies, and all constitutional power vested il
| the Executive will be employed to establish
this reform.
This was taking high ground by
the party of great moral ideas anC
their chosen candidate for the Presi
dency on the subject of civil ser
vice reform; but these promises 0
reform on the part of the Republi
can party bore such a striking re
semblance to death-bed repentance
that the people declined to repose
that confidence in them which they
were designed to inspire. The elec.
people decided the contest between
the two great contending parties
Samuel J. Tilden was elected Presi-
dent of the United States. Then
commenced the practical operation
of that civil-service reform on the
part of the Republican party unpar-
alleled in all our past. The means
by which the choice of the people
was defeated by fraud and a man
not elected was installed in the
Office of President of the United
States forms chapter of our history
which succeeding generations will
read with shame, even if our insti-
tutions shall so far survive the shock
as to leave to posterity no graver
sorrow than blush for the crime.
Sir, it was. dark day in our his
tory that witnessed the oath of office
administered to Rutherford B.
Hayes on the east portico of this
Capitol. His Inauguration, under
the circumstances, was the severest
test to which the patriotism and
forbearance of a free people could be
subjected. A large majority of the
people had cast their votes for Mr..
Tilden, yet they stood peacefully
by and saw man whom they
knew to have been defeated, in
stalled by fraud in that high Office
which had never been filed before
by anyone who did not owe his ele-
walton to the esuffrages of his coun-
trymen. President Grant declared
that no man could afford to occupy
the Presidential chair by a title
tainted with the suspicion of fraud
but we have had the modification
as a people of beholding that proud
position occupied by one whose title
is not tainted simply with a suspi-
ciOn of fraud, but is fraudulent from
center to circumference, in the hon.
est belief and conscientious conVic-
tiOn of large majority of the Amer
ican people. This was not a mere
triumph of the Republican over the
Democratic party; it was a triumph
of wrong over right, of fraud over
the expressed will of the people. 1t
was not only the inauguration of
President, but it was
the installation Of fraud, with all
the pompous sanctions of law, in
that high place which had never
been stained by fraud before.
Our institutions have felt the rude
shock of parties in their imbittered
for power and survived
they have even felt the clash of
arms and lived; but how long they
can survive destruction of the con-
idence of the people in the arbitra-
ment of the ballot-bOX remains to be
seen. Confidence in this peaceful
method of settling political contro-
versies once destroyed, there re-
mains under our system of govern
ment but one other arbiter, the
sword. The men of the party who
shall succeed in shaking the faith of
the people in the efficacy of the bal
lot-box will have unsettled the
on which our fabric of
rests. He who can
treat lightly the probable influence
and effect of that great crime upon
the future struggles of parties in our
country has failed to consider, in
my humble judgment, the gravest
danger that throws its warning
shadow upon our path. We can
only hope for the best, and seek to
avert the worst consequences of this
first step of the Republican party in
the redemption of their pledge of
civil-service reform embodied in
their platform. This Introductory
chapter to the Republican volume
of reform ought to have given the
country some idea at least of what
the book would contain.
When Mr.. Hayes took the oath
of Office he fastened to throw out
profuse promises and to indulge in
rose-cOlOred professions that led
some to believe that he really in
tended to make an honest effort to
reform abuses; but men do not
gather grapes of thorns nor figs of
thistles. A corrupt fountain cannot
send forth pure waters, nor can a
stream rise above its source. 1t
was idle to look for reform and
purity in the public service from a
party that had committed the great
crime of inaugurating' Hayes, or to
expect Mr.. Hayes, after he was in
augurated, to tear down the fraud
ulent props that braced his admin
istratiOn and stand forth alone the
hero of a political reformation.
True, he has gushed dd i'!Jf'aitatna
and dd 7lGlLse0Dl. In his inaugural,
speaking of the founders of the Gov
ernment and avowing his intention
to follow in their footsteps, he said :
They held that appointments to Office
were not to be made nor expected dmerely as
the nomination of members of Congress, as
being entitled in any respect to the control
of such appointments.
In his first annual message he
lifted the trumpet of civil-service
reform and blew a blast so clear and
loud that some political Zealots mis-
took him for the millennial harbin-
ger. Hear the mellow notes that
warble from his gushing heart:
recognize the public advantage of MAX
impersonal, in the sense of being free from
mere caprice or favor in the selection.
And again he says:
L shall most heartily cooperate with Con-
gress in the better systematizing of such
methods and rules of admission to the pub
lie service and of promotions within it as
may promise to be most successful in
making thorough competency, efficiency
and character its decisive tests in these mat
ters.
Soon after his installation he wrote
the following letter, calling attention
to his celebrated ciYil-Sevice order j:
CIvIL-sERvICE ORDER.
EXECUTIVE MANSION
Washington, June %, 1877.
SIR: desire to call your attention to the
following paragraph in letter addressed by
me to the Secretary of the Treasury on the
conduct to be observed by the officers of the
General Government in relation to the cleo
tionS:
"No officer should be required or permitted
to take part in the management of political
organizations, caucuses, conventions, or
election campaigns. Their right to vote and
to express their views on public questions,