Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-11-27
THE INCOMING ADMINISTRATION AND
POLITICAL REFORM.

incoming Administration. General Gar
field has given few or no indications OF
what he purposes, nor can any definite con-
clusion be drawn from his past career He
has been a Congressman and an active
politician for twenty years. He has been
accustomed to view things from the stand.
point of party exigency He has once or
twice shown disposition to uphold even
partisan abuses On the ether hand he
has displayed mental grasp far beyond
that of the average politician. He has
evidently endeavored to Go his duty by the
whole country rather than by party alone.
And he has, by his intellectual cultivation,
his scholarly tastes, his reflective power,
and his general affinity for the more ex-
allied and noble tendencies OF national life,
appeared to belong naturally to the ele-
ments which are at present trying to com
bine their forces against political corrup-
ton and the spells system, and in support
of civil service reform. Nevertheless it is
necessary to remember that in his letter Of
acceptance General Garfield took what ap.
peared to be anything but advanced ground
on this subject. He then intimated 4 belief
that local appointments should be made by
and with the advice of Congressman F.; a
principle which, if literally carried out,
would be fatal to even the least measure Of
reform in the civil service Since the
election it has been apparent that an effort
is being made to carry abroad the impress
sion that the new Administration will be
either controlled by, or on the best possible
terms WITH those political elements which
are regarded by all friends of reform as
most obnoxious to improvement Day af-
ter day reports and rnmors have been cir
culated that this, that or the other politi-
cal boss " was to be offered seat in the
Cabinet that some notorious machine pol
tician was believed TO have the ear of the
President-elect that some particularly
+" stalwart" elements were to be infused
into the Government that it was to be
administered on basis which would en-
tirely satisfy the most extreme politicians !;
and hints of that character. There is really
no warrant for suspicion that these intima-
tions have any support in fact. They
are advanced anonymously for the
most part, and not a few of them are con
tradicted subsequently. But the import
ance of the matter is such that the friends
of reform cannot help feeling anxious as to
the intentions of General Garfield. For
this question of civil service reform is one
which cannot be thrust aside, which will
not stay suppressed, which is growing con-
tinually, and which is enlisting larger
and more determined public opinion every
year. Party managers will do their best
to evade it. The men who have been
trained under the spoils system viii fail to
comprehend it. Self-seekers viii endeavor
to decry it. But it will force Itself upon
the attention OF the country because it in
wolves so many things besides the mere
consideration of how certain Offices shall
be filed. A little more. than year ago a
committee of Congress, composed neces-
sarily of active and experienced politi-
clans, used the following language in re-
port At the end of each four years the
centre Federal patronage amounting to
90 one hundred and ten thousand offices), Is
collected in one lot, and the people divide
themselves into two parties, struggling in
name to choose President, but in fact
.'to control the enormous patronage,
(which the President, when elected, is
compelled to distribute to his party be-
s'cause he was elected to distribute 1t.
''The temptation to fraud, to usurpation,
"and to corruption, thus created, is beyond
calculation. A prize SO great, an infu-
"ence so powerful, thus centralized and
''put up at short periods, would leopard
- the power and safety of any nation. No
"nation can withstand strife among its
town people, SO general, so intense, and
$50 demoralizing. No contrivance go
g effectual to embarrass government, to
'disturb the public peace, to destroy
"political honesty, and to endanger the
common security, was ever before in
"vented." This is strong language, but
it is the language of men who from their
position must know the subject they are
discussing. 1t is, therefore, the more sig
nificant that, no matter with what Interior
motive, they should have borne this testi-
mony in regard to the spoils system, and it
must be remembered that their testimony
harmonizes completely with the conclusions
reached by far more disinterested OBJ
servers.
The evils of the spoils system are for
tunatsly becoming apparent to the people.
1t is no longer upheld as the best possible
system, save by few hide bound partisans
here and there, who are as deficient in in
telligence as they are behind the age in
appreciation of the public needs. 1t is
very generally recognized at present that
to this system we owe nearly all the most
dangerous and discreditable of our political
phenomena that it adds bitterness and
unscrupulousness to our political contests
that it organizes corruption, venality, dis
honesty in politics; that it has built up
the detestable boss" system, by which
few adroit ire-puliers are enabled to con-
troll the patronage and consequently the
politics of whole districts and States, to the
entire suppression of public opinion, and
to the aggrandizement of knaves and
rogues that it fills our public offices with
incompetent persons; that it prostitutes
the fiscal system of the nation into