Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-01-03
PENDLEToN's PERIL.
Assaults of the Ohio Democratic Press.
CkepeL1nd Col.rearaoa,1euca zIior., I'll

| CFsoetdnd Correspondence Chicago Tribune.
Whatever results may favorably accrue
| 10 senator George III. Pendleton by reason
of his civil service reform venture in New
YORK or the East, it certainly has been q
prontiess investment so far as the Ohio
Democrats are concerned. Whatever NAV
have been the disloyalty of the Democratic
party OF ONO during the war, or the here
sizes or financial belief into which II has
fallen In later years, it has always pos
| sessed a rough, shell-bark hickory honesty
of expression that has not kept its pur-
poses or desires from view. 1t has ALWAYS
gone on the principle that the people
were not to be gammoned by fine
phrases, and that hunt for offices
was not made the easier by pretension
that the salvation of the country was the
urst tnought, ana ofhce-seekingo only sec
ondary consideration. They have there
fore been more 0utspOken than the Repub-
lleans, and confessed to the hunger that
was at work within them. The man who
blurted out in the Republican National
Convention of 1881, 80 If we are not after
the offices, what are we here fOr?', was an
ONO Democrat in nature, although a Re-
publican by profession, and a Texan by
nativity. The endeaVor of the Democratic
Senator of Ohio, therefore, to close the
! door on the golden future of 1884. which
nine of every ten of his party in this State
believe has been foreordained to dawn uDon
them, was at first met with good-natured
contempt, and the declaration that il was
all buncombe and would never be pushed
with any serious purpose. But when time
and events proved that Mr.. Pendleton had
really gone in on this line with all serious
ness, and riSked his political fjlture on #
with the same recklessness that had led
him to the edge of destruction through a
halflnsane Greenbackism few years AGO.
contempt turned to opposition and indiffer-
ence gave way to fear. The feelings of his
constituents were not long left unIttered
ana from every corner of the State howl
of rage was sent up from the Democratic
press. The Cincinnati ENQUIRER, the
Cleland Ptdindealer, the Toledo Democrat,
the Hancock Courier, the Hardin COuatl
Democrat, the Sidney Sentinel, the Mount
Vernon Banner, the Seneca Adrey9tser,
the Stark County Democrat, the BRYAN
democrat, the Warren Constitution. the
ChillicOthe AdcertiSer, and a dozen other
Democratic papers of great local infiu-
ence have been very outspoken against
what they call a weak and untimelv
move on the part of Mr.. Pendleton, and
some of their remarks have been charac-
terized by great bitterness.
Comments like these are met in their
columns with each issue: Z" What we need
Is a genuine reform by turning the thieves
out of office and putting honest men in.
We favor that kind of civil service re-
FORM" "We don't want any fool civil
service reform bill passed that will keep
Republicans in office" 1The way to re-
form the civil service is to get the Repub-
llcans out OF Office" " Rotation in office
is the only way to keep matters straight
and that is the Democratic rule" Sena-
tor Pendleton may mean we'll in his able
effort for 'snlvel '-service reform, but it
must be apparent to him by this time that he
is on the wrong road to popularity 8 We
are in favor of civil service reform after
the Democratic party gets control of gov
ernment Offices" "NOw that the RepCb
lican party has the offices, we are not IA
vorable to measure that will retain the
offices in the hands of men who. from long
experience, would possess an aptness for
answering questions relating to the pub
lie service that a new set of men equally
honest and equally capable could not so
glibly answer" 'Reform is going all
right, and does not need any doctoring.v
'We have grave doubts whether the plan
proposed by Mr., Pendleton is the best to
remedy the evil.'i "If Senator Pendleton
wishes to be his own successor the
quicker he abandons his bill to keep
Republicans in office the nearer he will
come to getting there.'' Senator Pendle-
toms civil service bill is obnoxious to the
Democracy and the people, and he ought
to see and know it." 'sHe proposes to
shut us out of the fruits of our long wait
ing and hard work by what Bill Allen
would have called new id barren
ideality.' The long and the short of it is
that Mr.. Pendleton hopes to shove his nose
deeper into the public crib, while he asks
us to keep on bleating out in the cold. OF
course politics make men selfish. but
they need not make them foolish
as well. If PendletOn could have
seen further than the end of
his nose he would have said.
Come on, h0ys, it is our turn now. Let
us gain possession of the government, and
then every man will get his SLICE But
instead OF doing that he has put himself
in such position that were we to nomi-
nate and elect him President, the barest
form OF consistency would compel him to
deny us all, and keep the well-fed Repub-
licans under perpetual pay, We like re-
form in the abstract, but over in our end
of the State the Democrats are not hun
gering for martyrdom."
And so one hears it all over the State.
The party that believes in such practical
politicians as W. ID. Hill, John G.. Thomp-
son, Ben La Fevre, o. FL. Payne, w. w.
Armstrong, l.. ID. Thoman and George L.
Converse has little patience for statesmen
of the gilt-edge school. Mr.. Pendleton's
course may have won him friends In some
quarters of the country, but it has done
him an irreparabls damage in OhiO