The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1881-12-15
PENDLETON'S SPEECH.
[ L...t ElJ- I'm 81 ..Ui1
The SpOils System Versus the
Merit System. ---,
A Thrilling Appeal by 0hiO's Ablest
Senator-Radica Reforms for
the Civil Service.

WASHINGTON, December 13.-Pendle-
ton made his expected speech in the
Senate this afternoon, as foil ,wS: All
the officers except those involving the
very power and policy of the party in
power are common property, the peO-
pies and not of the managers of that
half happening to be triumphant at the
polls. Now these offices are paid out to
henchmen to enable them to pay them
selves for the energies or money they
have expended in party services. This
policy reaches from the President down
through national, State, municipal and
local affairs to the very street labOreTs.
This is the spOilS system. Its name i'm
plies to every one a vision of wrong, in
justice, brutality, wastefulness, reckless
ness, fraud, peculatiOn, and such degra-
datlOn of persons and of parties as has
driven from American political life
much of the cultivated intellect and re-
fined morality of the country, and filled
the most hopeful minds with sadness for
much in the present and grave anxiety
for the future. The spOils system was
the real cause of the assassination of
Garfield. 1t rObs President, Cabinent,
Ministers, Senators, COngTessmen and
judges of the time needed in the perfOr-
nance of public duties, renders their pub
lie action often partisan, partial and un-
JuSG, anu IOO htQu6nbly uuIfleu anu
half done. In place of the spOilS system
there should be instituted a merit sys-
tenn, which should be founded on the
idea that public offices and public trust
must be administered solely for the pub
lie good; that the fitteSt men shall ad-
minister them until still filter men be
found; that the offices do not have to be,
except that the faithful execution of
the duties attached to them are neces-
Co. khn n.
maximum of efficiency and the mini
mum of cost constitute the only cOndi-
ton on which they should exist. Va
cancies should be filled by the men,
whom proper intelligent comparison,
based on competition, show to be the fit
test, irrespective OF personal influence
or action, and then the political pressure
for the place would cease. If removals
were only because of inefficiency or un-
faithfulness, or because another was
shown to be better fitted for the place,
the scramble for office would cease.
Then the subordinate civil service would
be open to all who choose to aspire to
it, The service would be filled with
men proven fittest by fair competition.
The moral tone of all aspiTants would
be elevated by the consciousness that
they owed nothing to patronage, but all
to merit. The service would become
ten-fold more efficient and public ex-
penses would be reduced. Principle,
and not emOlument, would become the
prize of party struggles; even if the zeal
of party spirit be seriously moderated.
Its dangerous quality would be destroy
ed. Politics would be consigned to men
of higher aspirations and nObler aims.
The brutality Of politics would be elm
mated. The President and Cabinet and
Congress would have time and heart
for higher duties. Merit would
achieve the highest rewards and
excellencies would be stimulated into
competition. A higher grade of intel
lectual and political education would
be demanded and stimulated in time,
the merit system, which would accom-
plish all this, would reach the popular
elections and affect, for the good of the
country, the popular choice of holders
of those offices which control the
national policies. The popular thought
being reached thus, public opinion
free ballot, and with fair count,
whether by fraud, force or intimidation
of voters, or by political assessments;
and the expenditures of immense sums
of corruption funds would be done
away with. The court would become
one of laws and cease to be one of men.
The pivotal idea of the merit system is
that, whenever hereafter a new appoint
ment or a promotion shall be made in
the subordinate civil service, the office
shall be given to the man best fitted to
discharge its functions, and that this
fitness shall be ascertained by open,
fair, honest and impartial competitive
examination to all who choose to pre-
sent themselves, each aspirant to be eX-
amined with regard to the particular
phase of the service he desires to enter.
PendletOn concluded by appealing to
the Democrats to ally themselves to the
movement for such civil service, as
the chances of time would sooner or
later give them the government, when
their previous adherence to this sound
policy would make firm their popular
support, and insure for them a useful
future, disengaged from the influences
that sooner or later wrecked all Ameri-