The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1885-07-17
- TIME TO HALT.

st. Paul Pioneer Press.
The president has called halt, it is
said, on the superserviceable zeal OF his
department officers in turning Republic
cans out of Office before their terms have
expired in order to make vacancies for
Democratic Office seekers. The presi-
dent has evidently had an interview
by letter or in person with George Will
lam Curtis or some other of the high
priests Of the hierarchy of civil service
reform, and they have done him the
service of recalling to his recollection
the declarations on this subject with
which he secured the support OF this
element of the Republican mugwumps.
revelation from that political heaven to
have opened the eyes of the president
to the exceeding righteousness of the po-
sition in which the partisan officiousness
of his subOrdInates was placing him. On
the one hand, he had pledged himself
to enforce the principles of civil service
reform in appointments to and removals
from Office-that cOmpentency and hon
esty, not partisan subserviency, should
form the only qualifications for public
employment; while on the other, his
departmental subalterns were deliber-
ately ignoring the pledges which the
president had made to the country, and
removing officers of unquestioned integ-
rity and efficiency by the hundred on
the spurious plea of Offensive PARTISAN
Ship" to make room for offensive parti-
sans of the Democratic species; and this,
be it understood, in direct violation of
the letter and spirit of the tenure of
Office act. That law expressly provides
that no official appointed for a prescribe
nI IF han In
from Office during his term. The presi-
dent can only suspend HIM from Office,
and is required to accompany the official
announcement of such suspension to
the senate with the reasons therefor.
That is to say, such officials can only be
legally removed for cause-and by cause
is meant simply lack of competency,
efficiency or fidelity; of some attribute
or element by which the public service
suffers. Amy removal from an Office
with a prescribed term on the ground,
for example, of offensive partisanship,"
meaning simply that the incumbent is
Republican, is in violation of the dis
tinct purpose and meaning of the law,
which was in fact enacted during the
reign of Andrew johnson to prevent ar
bitrary removals on simply partisan
grounds. The president may we'll call q
subordinates in ignoring the plain pro-
visions of the tenure of Office act. 1t
would be disagreeable to the president,
after his proclaimed devotion to the
principles of civil service reform, TO
have the senate of the United States de-
handing the reason for such removals
as that of Mr.. Sinclair from the postoffice
at Winona and that of Mr.. Hunt from
the postoffice at Mankato. 1t would be
still more disagreable to the president,
when obliged to give answer that the
only reason for their removal was that
they were Republican editors, to have
his own appointments rejected by the
senate on the ground that they also were
offensive partisuns or precisely the same
kind and degree-that is to say, Demo-
cratic editors. Itwould be disagreeable
because it would bring conspicuously be-
fore the country the wide contrast be-
tween the prediction manifestoes of
the president, or even the promises of
his inaugural address, and the actual
surrender of his administration to the
spoils system under the thinnest and
most hypocritical of all possible dis
gllises.