The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1883-01-15
The Pendlet on Bill.

From the st. Louis Evening Chronicle.
George William Curtis, President of the
National Civil service Reform association,
says, in Harper's Weekly, that the passage
of the Pendleton bill is an important event in
American political history. He continues !.
1t is the first practical legislative step to-
ward the correction OF abuses of administration
| involving dangerous consequences which are
plainly perceived and universally acknowl-
edged. 1t is measure which, should it be-
come law, will overthrow the aristocracy OF
patronage and spoils, and open the public
service to all the people. 1t will not, indeed,
purify politics at blow. There will still be
corruption and demagogism, and no good
citizen can put off his armor of diligent watch
fitness and effort.
On the other hand, that eminent political
| economist and conservator of the public NOR
| ais, the Chicago Times, has this to say:
The enactment is fraud and humbug
1t is shallow tub thrown by hypocritical
demagogism to the popular whale. The mo-
| tves of the demagogues on both sides of the
chamber is not to stop the patronage system !;
il is to catch the whale and extract from it the
plentiful oil of patronage wherewith to lubri
cate the party machine. II the country shall
manifest content with this delusive device of
humbuggery, it will deserve the yet greater
increase of the patronage curse viii oh
probably is necessary to bring it to
the determination that party gov
eminent by patronage shall cease.
| There is not single provision, section
or clause of this excitement which proposes to
relieve the president from the pressure for
patronage of the partizans who have made
him what he is, and to whom he must look
for support in his character as party execu-
tive. There is not a single provision, section
| or clause which can tend to have that effect
| Those persons who suppose it is going to
prevent a party president from treating the
public offices as patronage and using the pat
ronage as the partizans who have made him
wish to have him use it, delude themselves
| too easily.
| But since the constitution invests the presi-
dent with the appointing power which no
congress can take from him, and since the
prompters of civil service reform had higher
ends in view than merely to relieve a presi-
| dent, this part Of the Times criticism seems
worthless.
Meantime Governor Thompson, Of South
Carolina has taken high stand on this sub
ject by refusing to make any changes among
the FIVE or six hundred state officialt, in spite
of the pressure exercised on him by friends and
party workers. This is an illustration on a
small scale of what the appointing power can
do to make stability of tenure one Of the Gus
toms of American politics, instead of insta-
bility of tenure, which is now one Of its Gus
toms. One of the greatest obstacles with
which civil services reformers have had to
contend is the theory that because the law
| does not prohibit removals without cause,
presidents and governors are in some mys-
FERROUS manner boand 10 make removals
without cause, and cannot stop making them
| unless the legislature interieres to tie their
hands. Of course, this is pure hallucination,