The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-12-21

developed among Republican politicians.
: When he ceased attempting to justify in
its crudest form the doctrine that to the
victor belong the spoiIs and offered a
PRACTICAL suggestion in the. shape of an
amendment, he supplied what has long
been needed touchstone by which to
disclose the real purposes of-Messrs. Hale,
Kasson, and other Exemplary Republican
converts to the cause of civil service re
form.
s What Republican pdliticIons under
stand by a reform of the civil service is
system which would give the whole body
of existing effieeholders. every one of
whom belongs 60 their own party, an in
defeasible title to go on drawing salaries
from the public purse, while as to such
vacancies in the lowest grade of offices as
may from time to time occur, Republicans
are to have an equal opportunity of filling
them. That their object is to deprive the
Democratic party, which constitutes ma
iority of the people, Of any connection
with the Federal civil service outside of
the right to compete for vacant posts of a
low grade is conclusive1y attested by the
Kasson bill, which strips the President of
the power of removal. merely authorizing
him TO prefer Oh rges and bring to trial an
incompetent or offensive officeholder.
This provision is due, of course, to the
apprehension. reused by the November
elections, that the next President may be
chosen by the Democratic party; and the
aim is to paralyze the executive authority
by making the multitude of agents through
whom it must be exercised entirely indie
pendent of their ostensible head. In brief,
what Republicans of the Kasson type
mean by reform is that they are in, aad
mean to stay in.
Il.
by Mr.. Hoar, when he defiantly announc-
ed ON Thursday in the Senate that ''the
civil service is made up now, and always
will be, of adherents of one political
party" and that the Democratic party is
now called upon to certify its patriot
ism and It's fitness to take charge of the
Government by pledging itself before
hand not to disturb Republican office
holdersi So much, at least, may be said
for this extraordinary affirmation, that it
helps US to comprehend why the Pendle-
ton bill commends itself to the Senator
from Massachusetts That measure, if
carried out, would merely give American
citizens, irrespective of party, right to
category Of offices, whereas all the higher
posts and fat salaries are left to be dis
tributed among the Republicans now in
office by competition exclusively between
themselves. This is the feature which
causes so called practical politisions of.
the Republican party-men whose hands
are still begrimed with assessments wrung
from of1iceholders-to view the Pendle-
ton project with complacency. The same
feature has not only provoked an outburst
of excessive indignation on the part of
Senator Brown but it has convinced fair
minded men of both parties that the bin
should be materially amended before be-
coming law.
Senator Brown is mistaken IN supposing
that the democratic voters cannot be raj
lied to the polls in 1884 unless they know
that victory viii be followed by the uni
yersal ejectment of republican officehold
ers. If the lust for office, like other pas
sions, grows on what it feeds on, il must
be well nigh starved to death in the case of
the democratic party, which for twenty
two years has been shut out from the fed
eral administration. It is also significant
that, with single exception, all the great
triumphs which it has achieved in the
northern states during that period have
taken place in off years, when there was
no immediate prospect of obtaining the
executive patronage. Neither should it
be overlooked that on the single occasion
when they elected chief magistrate, they
chose for their candidate Mr.. Tilden,
whose chief title to their suffrages was
his known devotion to the most economi
cal use of the public funds and to the es-
sential principles of the genuine civil ser
vice reform. Senator Brown may be
an authority on the state
of pnblic sentiment in Georgia,
but we can assure him that throughout the
North the great uprising of November last
was not in the least degree engendered by
desperate hunger for office and a deter
mination to monopolize the spoils. The 1
great majority of democratic citizens, who
for twenty years have been able to earn a
living in private life, desire ID protect and
not TO plumber the treasury, and are not
unwilling that republicans should have an
equal chance with democrats to discharge
federal administration.
It was, we presume, In order to prove to
the country that the republicans are not
willing TO give the democrats an equal OPP
portunity that Senator Brown Offered his
amendment to the Pendleton bill. He pro-
posed to strike out the provision that
entrance to the civil service shall be limited
to the lowest grade, and to enact that of
fees of every class shall be thrown open
for competition on the part of all Ameri-
can citizens, instead of being confined. as
the bill confines them, to persons already |
in Office. Not having the text of the |
amendment before us, we cannot say
whether the senator means to wait for vacan |
cies in the case of all grades, or whether |
he would compel every oficeholder to