Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1885-08-07
Washington Letter.
FROM our Regular Correspondent.


WAsHINGroN, July 25, 1855.
The reports that President Cleve-
land is broken physically are without
foundation in fact. He needs the
rest which he will soon take, though
he needs it less as bygieuic want
than from the necessity tha. every
one engaged in a great enterprise
has to step back from the momen-
tous task, as an artist would from
his canvas 10 see what has been
done, as we'll as what remains to be
done. But few are aware of how
much has been accomplished in the
less than five months of the new
Administration. The magnitude of
the work can be appreciated only by
those who were acquainted with the
condition that had prevailed since
the war. If the President is not q
wise and experienced statesman, it
must at least be conceded that he
has been miracuIously happy in the
selection of Cabinet. There is not
a department of the public service,
military, naval, judiciary, post
official, diplomatic, financial or that
which relates TO the interior, that
has not been marked by conspicuous
reforms. Many of those reforms are
patent to every one who keeps the
run of public events, but there are
others which are less palpable, more
subtle and inchoative in their char
acter; these can be discerned only
by those who are intimately ac-
quainted with the intricate machin-
cry of government, the motors and
motives, in short the life and the
esprit du corps OF our vast civil SER
vice. That sublime fanatic, ex-Sen-
ator Morton, deceased, once said ,
with the conviction of an Ell Mahdi:
"We have the best civil service in
the world" There are some mis-
statements that are too solemnly alb.
surd for refutation, and this one of
Morton's stands pre-eminent in that
class. The civil service, to which,
-.z-6.u~tur Morton ruYerr5d, consist
ing to a sad extent both in system
and personnel of mere political work
ers and personal favorites. has been
greatly improved during the last
four months. 1t is very natural to
talk about radical changes. The
word radical arises in tie heart
and gathers on the lips of every one
justly indignant at the rooted abuses
of the past twenty years. But a lit
tie reflection will convince the rash
extirpator of abuses that, in an ad.
ministration under law, or in any
reformation not preceded by revolu.
ton and anarchy, the change must
begin at the caput aud not at the ra.
dir. The reform has begun at the
head, and the vital elixir, worse
needed than the water Moses struck
from the rock, is infiltrating the
morbid system of one OF the worst
civil services of the world. The
much that has been done in four
months is big with promise of the
forty and four to follow. The first
step in capital reform, was to appoint
q reform Cabinet. The next step
was to appoint heads of the various
bureaus. 1t is refreshing to go into
the different high offices of the de-
partments like those of the Commis-
sioners Of Pensions, Patents, Indian
Affairs, the Assistant Postmaster
Generals Office and the Auditors
Offices and find real men there. The
heads of these and other important
Offices have evidently been selected
with great care and for the work
they are expected to perform. The
contrast with their Republican pre-
decessors is striking, even to a super
fetal observer, and il must be O rev.
elation 10 the average benishted
Washington Republican, to whom
the first article of his political faith
has been. that his own party con-
tanned all the gentlemen, and that
all Democrats were low fellows.
Republicans are the real bourbons
in American politics to-day, they
have much to learn and much to for
get before they can align themselves
with the practical honesty and BUSH
ness.like expedition that has been
established at the national capital
and that is felt alike in the navy
yards and custom houses of the East
and the Indian agencies of the West.
Dem.
PETER Cooper once said: In oil
townswhere newspaper is published
every man should advertise in it,
even if nothing more than a card
stating his name and the business
he is engaged in. 1t does not only