New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1885-05-18
4 LANE EXCUSE FO8 VILAS.

The attempt to discover respectable excuse
for Postmaster General Vilas's secret circular
strains The Herald. The excuse gwen Is
that he has been reduced to des, Grafton
and that his letter is an appeal for help.
No doubt it is enough to make any man des-
perate to have in his ears, night and day, the
bowls of the hungry. No doubt Mr.. Villas really
wants help - III order to get up some sort oil
pretexts upon which ten thousand experienced
and faithful postmasters, more or less, can De
turned out. 1t is not an easy task for a genue-
man who makes pretence of believing that
the public service should not be used as an
asylum for political wrecks, crlppes, ana IN
curables. But The Herald thinks the chief OBJ
lection is that he applied to the congressman
and that a set Of Democratic bosses Is not
wanted. That is true. The Republican party
had a long struggle to get the public service
measurably emancipated from the rule of local
bosses. But if Mr.. Cleveland proposes to rely
upon the information given by the few Demo-
cratic Congressman from Northern States. he
will not only bring back all that was worst III
the old spois system. but will cause the wishes
and interests of the people of the North TO be
jnsultingly disregarded in the conduct OF
the service lust as Democrats assert that the
wishes and interests of Southern people used
to be dlsregarded under what they call "car-
pet-bag management. With truth, The Hes
aid says, too. that if the President and his
Cabinet depend upon the private and secretly
given advice of Congressman, they will be
" deceived, as they have already been de-
"celved.n The confession is as interesting as
the prediction.
President Cleveland ought to know by this
time that he cannot trust Congressman to tell
him the truth about the fitness OF thelr con-
stituents for appointment. The congressman
has more fear of blatant, INSCRIPTIONS, ras-
cally political hummer, nine times out OF ten
than he has of the mild and evanescent censrre
of all the decent men in his district. When the
Congressman is supposed to be responsible for
the selection of officers, the strikers and bum
mers know that they have the appointing
power at their mercy. If the disgusting selec-
tions already made, of which The Herdld
makes confession so alphabetically, do not
convince the President that the political bosses
will deceive him when they can, nothing Aill
convince him. The first step, and every
other step, on that once wel-trodden but
now abandoned road is q step toward
the destruction of all reform and the disgrace
of the President who takes it. Unhappily for
Mr.. Cleveland, he has taken several already,
and the letter of Mr. Villas was the longest and
worst:
But there arises the wailing cry for "help";
if Congressman cannot be trusted, nor their
secret information which the person accused
has no chance to answer, "hOw under the sun
are we to get these Republicans out of places
which they fill with fidelity and credit"f True,
there is difficulty. 1t is a rather hard matter
to be q Reformer, with large r, and spoils
politician of the Higgins sort at the same time.
To serve God and MammOn is impossible. If Mr..
Cleveland must find some way of turning out
many thousand faithful officials, solely because
they are Republicans, and if he must put in as
many incompetent creatures merely because
they are Democrats who have been doing the
dirty work of the party, then he may as well do
it openly and invite his Congressman and party
committees to concoct the pretexts and pick out
the workers for him. Only, in that case, he will
have to stop pretending to be a reformer of any
size or sort.