The Indianapolis journal., 1884-11-24

ton will hardly warrant him in saying Hen
bricks and Cleveland" land as, if it might, he
would probably omit "and Cleveland") he will
proceed upon the assumption that the successor
to the Presidency on the 4th of March coming,
will be Cleveland & Me.
1t is hard to discover any other idea at the
bottom of Mr.. Hendrickss Brooklyn speech. 1t
was in the nature of a prophetic revelation or
forecast of the policy of the coming government
How can an Indiana politician, notable chiefly
for his facile habit of riding two or three horses
in contrary directions at the same time, be able
to foreshow the course of government of which
he will not be part, and to which he will stand
in relation of adviser counselor, or any
other9 Certainly the cipher, standing unre-
lated to any sign of numerical value, can SHOW
nothing. Evidently, it is Mr.. Hendrickss idea
that he is going to be the Presidential least,
that the Inauguration of Cleveland will include
the Inauguration of Hendricks, who being the
greater, will naturally include the less! The
country will be blessed, then with reign OF
William and Mary, and Mr.. Hendricks will not
be Mary. This notion pervades his Brooklyn
speech. 1t is speech that contains great deal
of Hendricks, and no discoverable Cleveland,
excepting the name 1t presented the constltu-
tional cipher in the role Of William, and left to
the constitutional figure only the insignificant
part of poor passive Mary.
'Oh, you will see very great change after the
fourth of next March, said the coming govern
mental cipher. "Do you ask me if l am i'll
favor of civil-service reforml"-as if it could
make a prodigious difference whether the of
fetal nothing should favor civil-service reform
or not!
"Of course am in favor of civservice reform!
Do you desire to know from what civil service L
have confidence ini very free to say to you peo-
pie tonight that not particularly confident OF
success after schoolmasters examination. But
will tell you what have confidence in. AS it was in
the days of Andrew Jackson let u true man come to
be President of the United States and let true be
called around him to aid him in the public service and
let these resolve that the only test of quaica
ton for office under them shall be honesty and fit
and hava riyil-c
FORM"
Everybody will understand what that means.
1t lets the world know that the style of civil
service reform" which will be put into effect by
Mr. Hendricks, after the 4th of March next, is
the style and kind called rotation of the office
holders" That was Jacksou's idea of civil serv-
ice reform. That illustrious civil-service re-
former said in his inaugural speech lS29) of his
election to the presidency. that it "inscribes on
the list of executive duties. in characters too
legible to be overlooked, the task of reform,
which will require, particularly, the counterac-
ton of those causes that have disturbed the
rightful course of appointment" The country
was not permitted Z remain long in uncertainty
as to the nature of Jacksons task of reform 7"
He made clean sweep" of the whole civilserv-
ice establishments filled every official
post and public employment with characters
whose Honesty and fitness for the
service appeared in the intensity and un
scrupulousness of their partisan zeal; in fine,
used the utmost scope of the appointing power
TO convert every pubic of1ce, station and place
into weapon of party government to be en-
ployed against a popular opposition to more
arbitrary government than any viceroy
English king had ever practiced ir America.
Mr. Hendricks is ardent admirer of jackson,
it appears, and of the Jacksonian style of civil
service reform" much so that the very
great change" which he foretells rs we shall see
after the 4th of March (when he will assume the
appointing power!I, will include a reproduction
of Jackson's wonderful reform of the civil
service.
Great is Tom Hendrieks!-that is, if he be
taken at his own measurement of himself.
Luckily, however, the country has not taken
him at his own measurement It has taken him
simply because it found him attached, as a pla-
card tor the admiration of some Indiana folk, to
the coattail of it preferred to Blaine.
If he had been the man. instead of the attach
ment, the country would have taken Blaine be-
yond question. For President, even the guano
diplomat would have been preferred to the vain
glorious mossback from Indiana But for the
superfuous and absurd sinecure called Vice
president, the political o. the governmental
nothing, anybody more than suffices. 1t is just
the place for an aspiring politician that is not
wanted for anything, because it is the place of
nothing. Nothing that its incumbent can do or
wish to do, or that it's expectant can say or
prognosticate, can attain the magnitude of an
apprecable quantity "t' id