St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-08-23

with fraternal blood, and the republic have
gone down in disgrace forever. [Great APP
plause.
GUITEAU.
And four years ago we saw one who was
the worst type of the American ofice-seeker
and professional politician, -Guiteau- mad
dened by appointment, and sharing in the
passions of his faction, send down to dark
ness and dust, by the bullet of the assassin,
one of the broadcast and brightest intellects
the new world has ever produced. Long
continued applause
WHAT WAS ATTEMPTED BY THE REPUBLICAN
! PARTY.
Good men Of all parties have recognized
these great dangers, and tried to avert them.
Laws have been passed to lessen the clamor
of the hungry hordes, by providing for gov
ernmental competitive examinations. An
other law has been passed to prevent public
officials from requesting contributions from
office holders, under penalty OF discharge
and fine, and, under this law, Gen. M. n.
Curtis, special agent of the treasury depart
ment, was convicted, in 1882, in New York,
|
his honor be it remembered, issued
an order against Office holders tax
ing part in political conventions,
under penalty of dismissal; and
my Dakota county friends can remember how
one or two conventions were held at that
time in old Dakota, that were not frightened
by the face of a single official; even my old
friend, Major Kennedy, now dead, then
postmaster of Hastings, and an Unborn poll
tician, being compelled to sit in his office.
gnawing his finger nails, while the people
attended to their own affairs. [Applause].
CIVIL sERvICE-oRDER NO ONE.
The order of President Hayes, to which
have referred, was known as Civil Service
Order No. 1, issued June 90, 1877. 1t said:
'sNo officer shall be required or permitted
to take part in the management of political
| organizations, caucases conventions, or
election campaigns. Their right to vote and
to express their views on public questions,
orally Or through the press, is not denied,
provided it does not interfere with the dis
charge of their official duties. No assess
ments for political purposes on officers or
subordinates shall be allowed. This rule is
applicable to every department of the civil
service" [Applause.]
Both the Democratic and Republican ma
tional parties in their platforms, in 1876,
took strong ground in favor of civil service
reform; and for time the Office holders
kept their hands out Of politics.
But all this is sadly changed.
PENDLEToN's DEFEAT.
We have seen the great champion of
civil service reform, that eminent Democrat
and accomplished gentleman, United States
Senator Pendleton, retired to private life,
and his place given to one whose sole claim
was that he had built up an immense for
tune by monopoly Of the oil that lights the
dwellings of the people. And we have seen
the order of President Hayes treated with
contempt, from one end of the nation to the
| other.
A PEN PICTURE OF MAJOR STRAIT.
Look at the condition of things in this
district:
We have gentleman mentally not the
superior of the average citizen of the district;
far inferior intellectually to scores of men in
his own party, with no especial fitness for
public life; incapable of making himself
heard IN even the humblest fashion, upon
the floor Of congress-, no matter what great
interest OF his constituents might be at
stake; we find him by the mere machinery of
politics, surrounded by body-guard of office
holders, the ja,lizarieS of public life, control
ling county and district conventions, and
forcing himself into nomination, time after
10 tba TT ,,;ta -
of the better elements of his own party.
(Applause.)
THE OFFICE HOLDERS CONVENTION.
In the cOnyenGon that nominated him last
spring THERE WE'RE SIXTEEN OFFICE HOLDERS
(Applausc.)
Aud it is a well-know fact that the mail
agents on the several railroad trains, who
owed their appointments to Major Strait,
left their places and risked the safety of the
public service, to rush wildly around from
county to county, hunting up delegates and
packing conventions. And so eager were
they, and so fearful lest the people did not
want the Major renominated, that they pre-
cipitated action and put him in the field sic
months before the day Of election.
If the Major was anything of public
speaker 1t might be thought that this great
interval was to enable him to speak in every
hamlet OF his district. But as the Major is
not an orator, and as congress remained
in session for months after the nomi-
nation was made, it follows that
the sole object of this unusual and I'M
natural haste was to deprive the Republicans
,rt a. =; ~ - rio Of
some man they really did want. Applause. !
Lest II may be thought that do not fairly
state the facts as to this convention, l quote
the following from paper, not Democratic,
the Fdrmiggton Tribune, of August T..
''Mr Strait got his nomination by spring
ing his convention upon the people months
before any one had right to suspect it, at a
time when farmers were particularly busy
and could not attend caucuses without great
inconvenience; by overriding the will of
the Republicans who did not attend the eau
cuses by running in Democratic voters to
carry towns that could not otherwise have
been carried, by packing his convention
with federal offceholders, whose appoint
meuts he had controlled. in spite of the pro-
tests of the press and leading men of the
district, us well as the rank and file of the
party"
THE MAJOR PROPOSES TO HOLD ON.
| could cite score OF similar utterances
frola the Republican papers of the district.
The leading men of Major Straits own party
are outspoken in their denunciations. They
say that member of congress ought to be
something more than runner of errands,
u distributor of seeds aud an agent for the
collection of claims; IGreat applausel and
that when a man has in him no capacity for
intellectual growth, he ought not to absorb
the honors of district for life time ZAP
plause. As it is, they see no indications
that the major proposes TO let go his hold, al