Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1885-01-16
Washington Letter.
From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON, Dec. Goth, 1854.


From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON, Dec. Goth, 1854.
Dakota the latest deJutantt and
candidate for admission TO the Sis
terhood of states has been otficiously
chaperoned by the Republican Sen
ate during the week, but has no!
met with a favorable reception from
the Democratic side of the cham Der.
Dakota is not wanted just now.
The question is one of politics. The
Republicans have been able too long
to control the upper house by rotten
burrough States like Colorado, Neva-
da, Oregon, and Rhode Island. 1t
is necessary that the White House,
and both ends of the Capitol shall
be in accord, as soon as possible, in
order to carry out legislation that
has been needed for twenty years.
This accord will not be promoted by
increasing the power of the solid
north west.
There is q subject about which
your correspondent knows some
thing. Offices. He is an authority
on offices. He occupies an unique
position having resigned a govern
ment clerkship in 1873 in order that
he might openly expose the abuses
of Office holding in the press.
In less than three months the
Chief Office of the Nation will be &C.
cupied by new man. He will im-
mediately appoint new men to take
charge of the seven great Depart
ments of Government. The State
Department, the War Department,
the Navy Department, the Depart
ment Of Justice, the Treasury, the
General Post Office and the Depart
ment Of the Interior. The President
and his official advisers will not only
be new men, but they are opposed in
party aud in principle to the men
whose chairs and portfolios they will
take. opposed to the party and the
principles that have held the gov.
eminent with grasp of iron for
twenty-five years. No voice is
raised against the Presidents selec.
ton of his immediate assistants from
among his friends, from those who
are in accord with his views, and
with the political sentiment which
made him President; but when it is
proposed to go further and appoint
clerks and bureau officers who are
in accord with the incoming Presi-
dent and Cabinet, ten thousand pens
leap from their ink bottles and write
the refrain Civil Service Reform"
with variations. With great respect
for these enthusiasts and doctrin-
aires, they do not know what is
needed. 10 order to learn they
should, like Peter the Great, and
another whom modesty forbids me
to mention again, serve an appren-
ticeship. There is precisely the
same reason for appointing new men
and women throughout the Depart
ments that there is for appointing u
new Cabinet or heads for the De-
partments, and every practical man
knows it. 1t is indispensable that a
President shall bavo a corps of as
sistants, in accord with him, and it
is just as necessary that his Cabinet
officers shall have a corps of assist
ants in accord with them. A Demo.
cratic President has been elected
with view to change in the inter-
nal policy and methods Of the Gov.
eminent. Methods cannot be
changed without changing men.
Any one knowing the personnel of
the civil service here will realize
how utterly impossible it will he for
the new administration to navigate
the ship of state which it has Just
captured. with the same piratical
crew.
Civil service reform means, if it
means anything. reform of the civ
il servants. Those who are now in
office were never appointed for fit
ness, and they have been debauched
and demoralized by a wallow of
twenty-five years in the most cor
rupting, slatternly, unsystematic
and dishonest business establish.
ment that the sun of heaven ever
shone upon. These men and women
do not know how to work and they
are too old to be taught. They have
contracted habits, biases, and moral
strabismi, that not only unfit them
for usefulness but make their pres.
ence a contagion and menace. I
am far from advocating the doctrine
that "to the victors belong the
spoils.' The spoils idea should be
utterly ignored. In filling the De-
partments with sound and compe.
tent clerical force. the question sis
he a Republican? Is he a Demo.
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