The Sunday herald. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1866-1887, 1883-01-14
B0rBBON IDEAS OF REFORM

BOURBON IDEAS OF hEfchM'
Ex-senator Mcdonald has attended
meeting of Indiana politicians, assembled
to create a boom in his favor as Presidential
candidate, and, according to the newspaper
reports, has made very unfortunate utter
ance against the Civil Service Reform Act.
The press despatch before us says:
Abiding to the Pendleton bill and what he con-
sdered Its one specially Objectionable feature, he
said: "a perpetuity In office, such proposition
was anti Democratic in It's broadest sense and the
direct opposition the republican principles under
lying the Government. If that principle oil per-
petuity In office is adopted 1T is simply borrowing
from the mother country. civil Service list VIII
follow for superannuated officers and there will he
list for the support of whom the people Will be made
TO pay This is a necessary sequence" The speaker
Illustrated by the custom already In force relative 10
superannuated judges and officers OF the Army ana
Navy and showed what a burden would result II the
same was applied to the civil list. In MS Judgment
the principle was obnoxious, and, like other Republl
can reforms, mere sham
This betrays the error into which most
honest opponents of Civil Service Reform
fall. the error of confusing the means with
the end. They look upon the holding of
offices as the end, whereas Offices are only
the means of getting certain public services
performed.
Ifwhat Mr.. Mcdonald chooses to call
ga perpetuity in Office " is fundament-
allv Objectionable, then the converse of
"rotation in ofice" must be the true prin-
ciple. But the real question is 10y what
system can the necessary business of the
ion ll,,no md In Tod
This business has become of vast proper
tions, involving enormous interests, Affect
ing the common welfare in multitude OF
ways, and its transaction requires in its
agents not only strict integrity but in many
cases a Knowledge of details which can only
be acquired by long practice. Can this
governmental business be conducted econom-
cally if all the civil servants are to be
changed every few years And is not an
insecurity in the tenure of civil offices an in.
direct invitation to fraud and corruption
And if rotation in office is the only rule com
patible with the "principles underlying
our republican form of government how Of
ten must civil servants rotate But 1t is only
necessary to bring the rotation hypothesis
around to this point to expose the shallowness
of all arguments in favor of the Spoils Sys-
TEN. They are all easily reduced TO abb
surdity.
A word may appropriately be added about
what Mr.. Mcdonald evidently regards as his
"cincher "-the possibility of pension
list for superannuated civil servants, Sc
curing TO clerical officers a tenure during
good behavior does not have as " a necessary
" sequence" retired list. Provision for
superannuated servants can properly rest
only upon the ground that fxity Of tenure
does. II it will pay the Government, by
acting as an incentive to more yigilant ser
vice, or by attracting better class to enter
the service and inducing the most efficient
officers 10 remain in it Notwithstanding the
low pay, then a retired list will not be a
burden upon the treasury, but an insurance
of faithful and efficient seryice-an eNpendi-
ture in the interest Of true economy This
horror, whether real or affected, at the pos
Bibility of n retired list for the Civil Service
is only another illustration OF the Spola
System habit of looking at the public service
as a certain aggregate of salaries rightiully
belonging only to faithful political hench'
men, and the transaction of the public bust
ness as merely an incidental and subordinate
attachment to the Offices.