Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-07-15
0be iortastcr 1ntclli9cntcr.
LANCASTER. JULY IL, 1855.
ReOrganize the Civil Service Commission.

keOrganiZe the civil service COMMISSION. |
Among the great number of people who |
are making cant out of the civil service |
reform idea the three members of the com |
mission must be written down as the most
persistent. They are continually making
themselves ridiculousb by deciding one waym
one case and another way in similar one.
by pushing themselves in where they do not
belong and by continual patent interviews
with themselves from which the greatness
of the commission is never omitted.
The men were originally selected without
any special reference to their fitness for the
work in hand. DOrman Il. Eaton was Il
narrow, conceited and bumptiOus old man
who had used the scissors and paste pot to
compile history of the civil service of
Great Britain. In doing this he became
thoroughly impressed with the idea that
the English system was not only the best,
but the only one on the planet. He en-
tirely forgot or overlooked the fact that it
could not be engrafted successfully upon a
government like the United States
But he has gone on in the most persistent
and ridiculous way until the real friends of
an honest reform of abuses have been com
PEELED to write him down an ass. The
quicker he is turned out the better it will
be for the cause.
OF his associates. John NJ. Gregory, of
Illinois, was a professor i'll a prairie college
out in Illinois. lie belonged to that ira.
upon book knowledge us the end and aim
of all things human. lie had no fitness
spG cial or otherwise, for Il place Of suCl
importance when the successful inaugura
tion of new and difficult system. which
the public did not then and does not now
understand, was to be made.
But the worst selection of all was Leroy
ID. Thoman, of Ohio, the Democratic
member of the commisS -. IL was ap-
paTeLtiy cEJscn on the principle that. Is
tile minority Must be recognized under the
law, it was the proper thing to pick out the
weakest and most tinconsequental Democrat
to be found anywhere. A little probate
judge out in DnCkwOodS town in Ohio was
thus put into Il position of great delicacy.
as the repre- sentative of Onc-half the voters
OF the country. The result is that he has
been making fool of himself in season
and cut Of season ever since.
q There is general desire to promote the
= cause OF real civil service reform; but this
public demand can not be satisfied unless
the work is entrusted to men whose char
acter and fitness are known and recog-
nized. This is not the case with the in
cumbents, and the sooner the entire com
mission is reorganzed the better it will ht
for the cause, for the president and for all
concerned or interested. 1t is certainly not
necessary to put such work into the
hands of three of the weakest and most
inefficient men to be found in the country
Moreover, these men were the appontees
of an administration with entirely differ
ent aims and purposes from those Of the
present administration. 1t needs different
agents to give vitality and vigOr to its prac
tical ideas of reform, and to command fol
them the respect and support of its OWL
party, while it wins and holds the respect
of the people of the country.
Turn the commissioners out, and appoint
better men in their places.