Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-11-17
Letter from Mr.. Blaine.

AUGUSTA. Me Nov. l6, 1886.
To the Editor of the Kennebee Journal:
thank you for calling my attention to
circular issued by the so-called Independent
Committee during the recent canvass in Mas
sschusetts touching ny position on the ques-
ton of Civil Service reform. Absence from
home for several weeks has prevented my
seeing it sooner.
The circular embodies q singular perver-
sion of what l said, and a still more singular
perversion of what quoted in \ speech on
the 10Th OF October at Huntingdon, Pennsyl
vania. How the error or Misrepresentation
originated it is not for me to say. My
speeches in Pennsylvania were accurately re-
ported for the Philadelphia Press by skilled
photographers. and personally saw the report
in no other paper. send you herewith the
speech of October 18th as it appeared in the
Press, and respectfully ask you to republish
it in your columns side by side with the cir
cular issued by the Massachusetts Indepen-
dent Committee.
thank you further for submitting to me
public letter of Oct. Goth from MIR. Martin
Brimmer of Boston, in which | am accused
of "repudiating the reform of the Civil Ser
vice with a sneer" Perhaps Mr.. Brimmer
inconsderately based his remarks upon the
circular of the Independent Committee, and
has thus been led into publishing a statement
which does me great injustice. If my sup
position be correct Mr.. Brimmer will, as a
gentleman, withdraw his language 1t 10
scarcely necessary to say that | have never
repudiated reform in the civil service nor
sbated my interest therein. Nor have | ever
regar led the sneer as forcble mode of ar
gument. Were l tempted to resort to it
should direct it not against the reform of the
civil service, but against the hypocrisy of
those who wish the conditions Of that SER
vice to be enforced against their political oppo-
nents but not against their political friends
The point which | sought to establish in
my speech at Huntingdon was entirely con-
fused and obscured in the Independent circu-
lar. In effect, said that the English Civil
Service which was held up as model for
our own government by those who left the
republican party two years ago is now under
investigation and apparent condemnation by
the English themselves; that the British
Ministry have instituted a commission to
examine into the alleged abuses; and that
Mr.. George w. Smalley apparently agreeing
hitherto with the American admirers of the
English service, now declares the belief in
England to be that the Civil Service is worse
in all the Departments ofthe Government than
it was forty years ago. Mr.. Smalley gives
a somewhat detailed recital of the defects
and abuses alleged to exist in the English
service-defects and abuses which were never
attributed to our own Civil Service even by its
most mercless censor. MY argument i'm
piled and was intended to imply that the Re-
publican party had been wise in not adopting
the English system with its lite tenure and its
large pension list and all the attendant evils
which have at last demanded investigation by
a Ministerial commission.
Nor would justice and fair courtesy have
been done to my speech even if my remarks
on civil service, torn from their logical con-
nection, had been correctly quoted by the
Independent Committee. Those remarks
were but part of an argument in which en-
deavored to lllu trate how truly American in
its best sense were the whole pol
icy and history of the Republican
party, and how under the lead of the so called
Independents, the Democratic party, both in
it. Revenue system and its Civil Service rules,
was to be conformed to British policies just
at the very time when the British themselves
are finding fatal weakness in those policies.
In short, though did not say so in words
meant to convey nv belief that the
very worst leaders and guides for
Continental Republic are those who
persist in seeing the perfection of
human government in an insulsr Monarchy
whose conditions are in all respects radically
different from those of our own broad land.
, The Massachusetts Independents should learn
that American inspiration ends where imita-
ton of England begins
Very respectfully.
JAMES G. BLAINE.