St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-07
THE NEW COMMISSION.

THE NEW COMMlSSIONs
Mr.. CLEvELAND's new civil service COM
mission is an experiment, and consequently
it is unsafe to predict what the outcome OF
it may be. The reappointment OF Mr..
EATON is an experiment which less
courageous man than Mr.. CLEVELAND
would never have thought of. The APP
pointment of the two other members, who
are comparative strangers to the public ana
of whose qualifications the president
admits he had no personal knowledge, Is
scarcely less hazardous experiment.
than the EATON reappointment. But
President CLEVELAND is q clear-headed,
calculating man and the presumption is he
knows what he is doing. In an interview
with the editor of the Washington Post,
whom the president seems to have ap-
pointed to the responsible post of conti-
Dental custodian of state secrets. Mr..
CLEVELAND says that he has made no
mistake. He says that he has filled the
positions in the civil service commission
with members who combine elements which
ne considers most useful to an honest and
successful enforcement of the civil service
low. hC ID DOulu W lCSpCCU bAO
honesty of the presidents motives
and to coufde in his judgments
until something occurs to- justify a
change in the public mind. Of the
two new appointees ex-Congressman ED
GERToN is the better known, although his
seclusion from public life for number Of
years had rendered him an almost forgotten
statesman. He is warmly Endorsed by his
Ohio neighbors, Chief Justice WAITE and
Senator PAYNE as a most excellent man
for the place. The other member, Mr..
TRENHOLM of South Carolina, is promi-
nent business man in his section. He is a
banker and broker, leading cotton mer-
chant of Charleston, and had some sort of
connection with the treasury department of
the late Southern Confederacy. His repu-
tation as sound and successful financier is
good enough, but as to his familiarity with
the principles of civil service reform
the country is entirely dependent on
the statement of Secretary BAYARD,
upon whose recommendation Mr.. TREN-
HOLM was appointed. According to the
explanation made by the president respect
ing his action in this matter and published
in yesterdays GLOBE, the probabilities are
that Mr.. EATON goes back on the commits
sion for the temporary purpose of Inducing
the other two commissioners into offices
which are entirely new to them and OF
initiating them into the mysteries of a civil
service commission. When this is ac-
complished the grand chief mogul of the
order is expected to step back into the re-
tirement which he has so justly merited
and allow some other Republican to try his
skill in the science of ENGRAVING feudal
system of official life tenure upon
the stock of republican institutions. So
far as the president is concerned, he finds
the civil service law on the statute books.
and it is his constitutional duty to enforce
it, as it is his moral duty to give it fair
and honest trial. His mission as the repre-
sentative of the Democratic party is to
bring about genuine and permanent re-
form of the civil service. If there is any
thing in the civil service law or in the con-
stitution of civil service commission
which can be extracted to facilitate this
work, then it is his duty to get it out.