St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-09-29
Cleveland and the Mugvumps.

Special to the Globe.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2S.-Col. Fellows
of New York, who was so prominent a
figure at the Democratic national conven-
ton last year, has been in town to-day and
spent a good part of it at the White house,
waiting in Col. Lamont'S room to see the
president. Though the latter sent word
that he would see the colonel at any time,
Col. Fellows preferred waiting till the
crowd was gone. His errand here has not
transpired, but it is supposed he has
been consulting the president as to the selec-
ton of a candidate for lieutenant governor
The president was not very grateful to his
Mugwump friends in New York, who are
appealing to each other to sustain his ad-
ministration by beating his party. He does
not forget what some of these gentlemen
seem to forget. that he is a Democrat,
and has never held Office except as
the leader Of his party. He is
anxious to have the Democratic party
in New York victorious this fall, though
the ticket is not what he would have liked
and the platform is a very feeble echo of
his letter to Dorman B. Eaton. The Dem
ocratic ticket and platform are not so
strongly for civil service reform as the
president would have liked them to be-,
but as between the Republican and the
Democratic parties of the Empire state
there is
LITTLE TO CHOOSE,
though the Republicans proposed great en-
thusiaSm for reform plank in their plat
form. A good deal of injustice is done
GOV. Hill III the discussions of his attitude
toward civil service reform. 1t was Gov.
Hill, denounced now for his antagonism to
civil service reform, who defeated scheme
of the Republican senators at Albany
to delay for year the passage,
or at least the enforcement of
the act. There was in the bill provision
that the governor should nominate
civil service reform commissioners before
the act went into effect. The Republican
senators STAYED off action on the bill until
an hour before the senate expired. Then
it seemed impossible for the bill to be passed,
and commissioners were appointed before
the sine die adjournment. The Democrat
reform senators tried to strike out the clau Sc
of the bill requiring the commissioners
to be nominated before the bill
went to effect, but the Republican senators
defeated this But Gov. Hill, then in the
chair, sent word to the Democratic senators
that they might pass the bill and he would
save 1t, and while they were voting on the
final passage of the bill he made memor-
andum of some suitable persons for com
missioners. The instant the bill passed he
signed and sent it to the governor with the
memorandum. The governor
LOOKED OVER THE LIST
and picked out some names and sent them
back, and the commissioners were nomi-
mated when the session of the legislature
had but Is minutes more to exist. But for
the interest Gov. Hill took in the matter,
the act could not have gone into effect till
the next session OF the legislature. As to
the Republican candidates, they have
given but small evidence of any interest
in the reform. When Ira Davenport was
comptroller he dismissed Democrats in his
Office and appointed Republicans in the most
approved spoils-System manner, and Gen.
Carr dismissed every Democrat he found in
his Office when he entered it, and the fact
that some Of these Democrats were old
federal veterans did not save them.
That is all he cared for
civil service reform or the old
soldiers. The result of all this is that the
president does not see that the cause OF
civil service reform would be obstructed by
the election of the Democratic ticket any
more than it would be by the election of the
Republican ticket, and he is for his OWL
party. There is not a great deal that he
could do in the aid of the ticket, but what
ever he can do with propriety he will do tc
assist in the election of Gov. Hill