Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1885-11-19

CIVIL SERVICE.

III ,Le ed1or of the Alexandria Gazette:
have for years been constant and ap.
preciatiye reader of the GAZETTE. The
recollection of it in my childhood, now some
time since. is distinct. lived in another
part of the State, but we'll remember hear.
ing it then often designated as "the best
paper in Virginia" In many respects the
mantle of your honored father has fallen
upon the son, its present editor. His views,
for instance, upon the State debt and the
tariff are so sound and so fearless as to
merit the unqualified acceptance OF every
intelligent reader, and elicit an aspiration
that they might meet the eye of every voter
in the commonwealth.
Feeling thus toward your paper, which I
can but regard as lifelong friend, and
duly valung its extended influence, pro-
foundly deplore its attitude toward that un
speakably important question, the reform
of the civil service. You never lose an OPP
portunity for fling at it either in your
Washington correspondence or your edi-
torial columns, and you must forgive me for
saying that your objections have uniformly
impressed me as illogical and not maturely
considered. The subject is broad one, and
your space is limited, so l con6ne myself
now to notice of your leading editorial on
the 14th instant.
You think "the signs of the times indicate
that the civil service law must go sooner or
later" In view OF the fact that President
Cleveland was elected on the distinct assur-
ance Of his approval Of that law, and that
recent State elections express in unmistaka-
BILE language the popular endorsement of an
administration which has been marked,
more than in any other way, by the daunt-
less fuliilment of his pledge in that regard,
your opinion appears TO have slender found
alton.
You proceed TO object to the civil service
law on the ground that 1.-THE people who
| make the Offices should certainly be allowed
to ell them;" that there should be 'no pri-
vileged class" and that under the law you
oppose there is such a class, because none
but educated people can be appointed to Of
fce;" and that consequently "nine-tenths Of
the people whoimake the government are
excluded from the Offices thereof"
Ii by educated people, you mean those
college-bred, the allegation is without sup
port, as the reports of the U. S. civil service
commission show that a large majority of
those who pass the examinations have had
no further advantages than such as are af-
forded by the public schools of the country.
IF, on the other hand, you mean that under
the new law the offices are closed to those
who are without sufficient education to fill
them, it is, am glad to say. strictly true.
The plain requirement of the Pendleton bill,
that is, Of the "act to regulate and improve
the civil service of the United States, ap-
proved January 1G, 1885," is that the com
peiitive examinations for testing the fitness
of applicants shall be practical in their
character, and, so far as may be, shall re-
late to those matters which will fairly test
the relative fitness of the persons examined
to discharge the duties of the service to
provision it is hard to see how any one who
really desires the efficiency of public SER
wants can take exception.
It is remarkable that the main argument used
by the GAZETTE,i in common with other advocates
of the spoil system, against the reform now be-
ginning in this country, is exactly tho reverse Of
| that employed in England forty years ago against
| similar reform then in progress and since con-
summatcd there. Tho British spoilsmcn de-
nounced the merit system as democratic, as one
that put the son Of lord aud peasant on the same
footing, and threw open the Offices of the country
| to ALL without distinction of rank. Tho American
| spokesman declares that those who have so far
| imp! oven the advantages 0ilered lmp2rihlly 10
all at public free schools to be able to pass civil
service examinations constitute a privileged class
| AN illumination in free country-and are not
| entitled to any such advantage.
No, Mr.. Editor, tho present civil service law has
| come to stay. not, as you fondly imagine, sooner
| or later TO disappear from the statute book, I'M
| less indeed, it be to yield place. as it assurcdly
will, ere long, to another far more comprehensive
and sweeping. But there is something else that
must go, and that is the congressman who adheres
to the system that has so long been the blight of
American politics. The people are at last aroused.
They believe in the President, and in his policy,
and they are prepared to demand that their
servants in Congress shall support him in the
leading aim and purpose of his administration,
the elevation, the publication, the reform of the
civil service. l.. M. B.
Fairfax COUNTY, Va Nov. IS, 1885.