Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-03-06
butler ON Civn service.

Special to st. Louis Republican
J Senator Butler, chairman of tn
J committee on civil service and re
, trenchment, will submit his repor
J of the investigations of the commit
tee into the civil service of Rhod
Island to the full committee to
morrow. The report is a volumin
Gus one. 1t shows that sections
1854 and 1855 of the revised statute
relating to the appointment of ex
soldiers and ex-saiIors TO civil Off
GERS have been repeatedly violated;
that efficient officers have been re
moved to make place for politicians
and that the Presidents civil-ser-
vice is sham. The report of the
committee concludes as follows:
"The civil-service of this govern
ment will never be reformed and
| purified so long as those charged
with its administration violate its
plainest principles in appointments
to Office. The PRONUNCIATION ofcivil-
service rules and orders and regu-
lations is farce while the officials
upon whom they are intended to
operate are incapable of realizing or
appreeiating the necessity of their
enforcement, or willfully and con-
temptuously ignore them. The
cure of the evil rests with congress
and the appointing power, and the
responsibility for this condition of
affairs as disclosed by the evidence
fastens itself there also. The atten-
tion and expectations of the country
have become fatigued by the high
sounding promises of civil-Service
reform in administrative circles, and
in turn nauseated and disgusted by
the practices in the same circles in
official appointments. Presidential
messages have been laden with
carefully considered homilies upon
the beauties and value of civil-ser-
vice reform, with professions of
most earnest desire to improve and
elevate the service by Withdrawing
appointments and appointees from
political influences and making
merit alone the passport to official
preferment, and yet the official re-
gister bears upon its rolls the names
of officials who would appropriately
answer roll-call in some reform
school or public prison. COngression-
al an0 other recommendation have
in late years been almost resented
as an encroachment upon and inn
pertinent interference with execu-
tive independence and administra-
tive responsibility, and yet we have |
witnessed the seandalous practice of
that same appointing power foisting |
into the public service bitter parti- !
sans of worse than doubtful charac-
tiers as reward for political services
of the most disreputable and dis
graceful kind. OF what avail are |
civil-service rules, prepared at great
expense by an able commission after
the most elaborate consideration; of |
what avail the PRONUNCIATION of
these rules with circular letters for
the guidance of subordinate officials;
of what avail the earnest cO-opera-
tiOn of the departments in the gov
for the improvement and
of the civil-service; of
what avail the recommendations
and professions and annual messages
to congress, when high public func-
tionaries in the exercise of the APP
power, one of the gravest
of public trusts, violate the law by
placing persons known to be abso-
lutely unworthy in civil positions of
honor and truth? These reflections
are not intended to apply in their
literal import to all the government
at Providence, but they
have been suggested by the dis
closures which this investigation
has developed in that city, and are
susceptible of easy proof in other de-
partments of the civil-service.