New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1885-10-04
sTR1IN1YG At CHATS AND SWALLOWING

The Civil Service refoImers of Maryland
continue to protest against the appointment of
Morris A. Thomas as Indian Inspector. They
allege that his connection with fraudulent
failure. and the making of fraudulent checks
render him an unfit man for position III which
the opportunities for fraud are very great
They charge, further that he was presented by
a Grand Jury for tampering with the ballots as
Judge of election in 1875, and that his gen.
eral conduct is bad. What crime, they say,
should more clearly disqualify any person from
a place in the public service than a crime
against the integrity of the Suffrage All
these things might indeed disTualify man for
service under any other than this Reform Ad-
minstration. But how can it be said that bad
character or indictment for fraud, or participa-
ton in MISUNDERSTANDING for the benefit of the
Democratic party, renders man unit for the
confidence of such an Administration as thisY
The country is engaged, be it remembered,
in trying to find out what the Democratic party
means when it talks about the need of reform,
and solemnly pledges reform as the first fruit
of its success The only honest course is to
Judge this Administration by its conduct. Is
Hubert 0. Thompson denied the confidence OF
the Administration because OF his notorious
1899 frauds On the contrary, he has bound-
less influence in most important branches OF
the service, and is favored by the selection of
tools of his own in the New-Yorll Custom
House and Surveyorship. Is Higgins deemed
unfit for Office because of his notorious election
swind.ing and his wife-beating and general bad
character? On the contrary, he Is sustained by
the President, and retained by Secretary Man
ming after the worst is known about him.
Why should Thomas, from the same State,
meet unjust discrimination I To object to a
man because he has been indicted seems
absurd, when not a few jail-birds and actual
convicts are in Office. Is it wrong to swindc at
elections in Maryland, but right to hold a
Presidency, or a Cabinet office, as :he fruit of
swindhng in Mississippi, Arkansas and the
Southl The Civil Service reformers cannot
expect to be very efficient in straining at gnats,
if they persist in the daily swallowing OF
camels.
If the President were obliged to make whole
sale removals in order to purify the service, he
might be excused for making some mistakes in
the unavoidable haste of selection. But the
plain truth is that he removes, and upholds
his Cabinet officers and other subordin ates in
removing, men of rare capacity, unsurpassed
qualifications and proved integrity and merit
and he does this for no better reason than to
make room for the Democratic workers Gn-
Guiding occasional jail-brds and election
swindlers) who are getting Office. Yet the
Civil Service reformers continue to praise him,
and profess to believe in his zeal for reform
Why should he do any betterl The Civil Ser
vice reformers uphold the President in treating
with contempt the proof that elections at the
South have for years been carried for the Dem
ocratic party by systematic and wholesale
frauds, and that he holds his own place through
the triumph of those frauds. How can they ex-
pect to have any influence when they denounce
the sporadic and comparatively trifling
peccadilloes of Thomas, of Maryland