The Republican journal., 1882-08-03
cance of the word-ladies by birth, in.


1t has been sought to convey the idea
that no clerk can feel secure in his posi-
ton that removals are the order of the
day. In point of fact, the relative mum
Der of changes is less than in merchantile
employment. In the past twenty years
although the changes in the heads of
Departments have been quite frequent,
there have been no sweeping removals of
the subordinates. Men who have held
clerkships and other positions twenty,
thirty, forty, and even fifty years, are to
be found in the Departments to-day, and
many of them are Democrats. And un-
der the administrations of Lincoln, Grant
and Hayes, Democrats secured clerkshps,
though making no secret of their politi-
cal preferences. OF course it is not to be
expected that Republican administra-
ton would give the preference to its po-
lltlcal opponents, when it had plenty Of
capable men Of its own faith: but in
leaving undisturbed the many Demo
Gratis in the Departments and in the ap-
pontment Of others, the Republicans
have certainly shown themselves more
tolerant than their opponents would
have been under like circumstances. OF
this we have had evidence in the course
pursued by the Democrats when they oh
tanned control of the House OF Represent
atives in 1876. The first thing they did
was to make clean sweep of all the
House officers, from the highest to the
lowest. They did not spare the manned
Union veterans who had been given
places as door keepers, one OF them Il
man who had lost both arms on the bat
tie field. They replaced the competent
and experienced officials by Il set of
drunken and dishonest wretches whose
conduct scandalized the nation. one by
one they were obliged to reinstate many
of the officials they had dismissed, owing
to the incompetency of the new appoint
ees. Members had no use Of the library
until colored man, who had been en-
plo\e as messenger under the Republi-
cans, was reinStated and became the Ii
hrarian in fact though not in name The
doorkeeper, who was "hger than Old
Grant" achieved wide notoriety which
eliminated in his removal. His immediate
successor was dismissed. The Clerk. who
did not believe that cleanliness is next
to godliness; the subordinate who under
took to use his position to enrich himself
in the claim business but the list is too
long. Let these examples suffice to show
the civil service reform the Democrats
practice when they are in power and the
inSincelty Of their present professions.
one Robert Z. Randall, Washington
lobbyist, and brother of eX-Speaker
Randall having made some statements
before the Committee on Foreign Affairs
relating to the official conduct of Mr..
Blaine as Secretary OF State, the latter
has replied in vigorous letter, which
the committee unanimously voted to re-
ceive and put on record The document
places MI Randall and Mr.. Elm0re, the
Minister from Peru, who associates him
self with AIr. Randall as a corroborative
witness, in an unenylable light before the
public Bob" Randall, as he is known
in hotel lobbies, is a person of very little
consequence, while as to Mr.. EImore, the
eX-Secretary expresses his ''sincerc re-
gret that he should, as a Minister pleno-
notentiary, have 50 entirely identified
himself with the interests of private
corporation, foreign to his own country,
foreign to the country to which he was
accredited, and quite as ready, according
to Count Montterrand, to aid Chill as aid
Peru" In conclusion Mr.. Blaine says
All that ask, and | have right to ask this.
is that the foreign policy of the government
when | was at the head of the Department OF
State, shall be Judged by its official acts, its
official dispatches, its official records. | ask
that the true history of great questions shall not
be determined by Wayside talk, by Eearsay Of
interested parties, by errors of memory, by
shreds and patches of idle gossip by msrcpre-
sentations of the malignant, OF by misappre-
tensions of the ignorant.
The Portsmouth, n. H., Chronicle tells
how Congressman Blackburn, Of Ken