Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-07-02
Reform" Tested Again.

Very soon, we are told with delight by
Democratic journal, there will not be
left single Republican collector of in
ternal revenue in the country. Within
ninety days the new Commissioner has
already managed to put out sixty of the
eighty-four collectors in the United
States. He has put in some men who
are good, and some men who are passa-
BILE, and others who are entirely worth>
less; but in one respect they are all alike.
They are all Democrats, without expert
ence or knowledge of the business they
have undertaken. And all this is 're>
form"
One could understand il, and perhaps
even sympathize with it, if there were a
real change for the better in the charac+
ter of the service. But there is not. Many
of the men who have been put out of
Office were gentlemen Of superior ability
and worth, and in addition had long ext
perience in the service, perfectly under>
stood its requirements, and had demon
strated their efficiency in collecting the
revenue at very low rate of cost. In
place of them the country has new off,
cials who have yet to learn the business,
and who will not be better acquainted
after years of experience with all the
tricks and devices by which the pay
ment of revenue is evaded than the men
are whose places they have taken. As1
suming that they are equally honorable
and Jealous. there is not one chance in IA
hundred that they will be found equally
efficient. Had the new Administration
confined itself to the removal of the few
officials who were thought to have abus-
ed their trust, or who had been found
lacking in force OF in ihoroughness, that
would have been real reform. Instead
the very best men in the service have
been put out, and some who were not
the best yet remain.
The one excuse given for these cham
ges is that the officials who held office
under Republican Administration were
most of them active partisans. But has
the service been improved in that re-
spect? Does it appear, in a single in
stance, that an active partisan has been
removed and man who is not an active
partisan has been appointed? That is
not the fact. The men who have been
put into office are notorious as jealous
ocratic partisans. There has been not
the least effort to make selection of
men not active in party work. Indeed,
there has not been in the reorganization
of this branch of the service even the
thin pretense of desire to take the SER
vice out Of partisanship. On the con-
trary. in nearly every case the new Off
cials have been selected because of their
previous effectiveness, burning zeal, and
proved unscrupnlousness in the service
of the Democratic party. The choice Of
the Administration has fallen upon them,
and not upon other persons, because it
was believed that they would use the
service with more force and with less
scruple than other people for the benefit
of the President and his party. A single
illustration sufiices.
Does any one imagine that Eben F.
Pillsbury, of Maine, was put into the
Internal Revenue Office in Massachu>
sets for any other purpose than to do
the political work of Cleveland and
Manning? He had been for years chair
man of the Democratic State Committee
in Maine, and there had organized and
carried out the most infamous fraud