Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-01-16

spscial agents.. General Land once. y e.
Total, E,ms 5slM
Mr.. SAULsBURr.-Allow me to ask whether
those changes were all removals:
Mr.. HALK.-The Senator will take notice
that am speaking of changes. am COM
ing Afterwards to speak of the method Of the
changes.
At the time to which this table comes the
present Administration had been little more
than two years in power.
The best comment, Mr.. President, upon
this remarkable table that can make is to
quote the editorial headings of leading
Democratic newspaper, when it exultingly
published its sweeping list. Here they are :;
The Civil Services" Practical exclusion
of Republicans from employment under the
National Government: "Only small class
of public servants protected by the Pendle-
ton act" The changes effected with as little
arrangement of business as possible =
"Spoilsmen not satisfied"
Not satisfied Mr.. President, till they
should have secured possession of the small
fraction of offices remaining in Republican
hands in June last Since that time large
small fraction have been filled by Democrats,
duu uOpS III q iSN W navy ihS hSuiSs
which will show how almost complete and
exhaustive have been the changes.
This showing, Mr.. President, is most
amazing. was not aware of the extent of
the change till looked up the figures; the
country has not known or appreciated it.
Certain incidents connected with these
changes are startling. 1t can not be said in
defense of the President and his party that
in most cases the changes were made because
of the expiration of the terms of the
incumbents or of their designations. In
a very great majority of all these cases,
probably nineteen-twentieths of all, the civil
officers removed held under no fixed tenure
of Office, being removable at the pleasure of
the President So far as designations go,
they have been comparatively few, and in
nine cases out of ten, have been extorted
under the threat of removal.
In the great bureau of the internal rev.
enue, out of eighty-fve collectors eighty
four had been removed on June l |, and the
other, believe, has gone since. Not one of
these held under fixed term of office which
had expired The same is true of that large
number of officials who are employed in the
Indian service as inspectors, in the Land
Office, in the Pension Office, in the mints,
and in the judiciary of the Territories.
1t is true of that great army of small
officials who are known as fourth-class post
masters; and this class and its treatment
deserve some special comment. This class
includes the pOstmasters in smaller towns
and villages and crossroads throughout all
the States and Territories They rep esent
more than any other class, the men whose
official duties bring them into direct relation
and communication with the people. They
are, in most cases, poorly paid, and do their
own work. Scarcely one of these places can
be called sinecure, and yet such has been
the greed of the local Democratic politician
for some kind of Office that, out Of fifty
two thousand six hundred and nine places in
this class, forty thousand as near as the
estimate can be made or as the Postmaster
General, in his report, makes it between
thrtysix and thrtyseven thousand, had been
removed up to the early part of last June
do not believe today, Mr. President, that
ten thousand of the old incumbents in this
class remain in office. What is more to the
point, do not believe that out of those that
have been newly appointed, one hundred are
Republicans. The Nasbys and the Bascoms
and the Gavits of the Democratic party have
been put into these places by this civil-ser-
vice-reform administration.
No man can say, out of this vast mass of
patronage, how many local Democratic
strikers, who have come to Washington seek
ing high places in the Government and have
gradually beheld their hopes fading, have
seen their application strained down from one
grade to another till at last they have rested
content as fourth-class Democratic reform
postmaster in a grocery in some country cor
ner.
commend this list to the special attention
of the gentlemen of the civil-service reform
associations who still cling to the fond hope
that Mr.. Cleveland is a reform President.
Not one of these removals could have taken
place if he had forbidden it. Indeed, be-
tween the adjournment of Congress and his
departure for the Adirondack Mountains the
President appointed two hundred and fifty
three postmasters, of whom but one was ap-
pointed to succeed himself and ninety -one
were appointed to succeed postmasters who
were removed.
The difference between word and deed is
clearly shown in the case of Secretary Lam
ar, who took occasion in April last to COM
mend John c. Calhoun for his opposition to
the spoils system, and to congratulate him
self upon belonging to an Administration that
was engaged in carrying out the policy that
Calhoun advocated.
The stern facts are that in the service over
which Mr.. Lamar has presided every Terri
torial governor has been removed; sixteen
out of eighteen pension agents; every single
surveyor general; four-ffths of the local
land officers nine tenths of the inspectors
and special agents of the Indian service;
fifty-one out of fifty-nihe Indian agents sew
enty nine out of eighty three special agents
of the General Land Office, and more than
two-thirds of the special examiners of the
Pension Office. But Secretary Lamar today
stands on record as against the spoils system,
and takes high rank as a reformer.
II | were not consuming too much time
Mr.. President. | could select from the fig
ures which are before me other Departments
of the Government, not covered by the table |
which ! have presented, showing this con-
luering march of the Democratic party in |
pursuit of the offices.
In all the Departments in Washington are
found able and honest men, who have given
their lives to the service of the Government !
They have begun as clerks in the lower |
grades and have been steadily promoted I'M
til they have at last reached the highest
places to which they may reasonably aspire |
They were found, when the reform Dem |
ocratlc administration came into power as
chief clerks and chiefs of divisions. They
made the eyes and ears of the Departments. |
and one would suppose, should be considered |
rs almost indispensable. In the Treasury |
Department there are seventy mine chic clerks
md chiefs of divisions, and up to June. 1887. |
'i1ty-siI of these seventy mine had been |
changed. In not more than half a dozen |
cases the person appointed was promoted |
,lerk. The introduction into this force was
almost entirely from the outside. Every de-
putty auditor, deputy comptroller, and de
putty commissioner of internal revenue ha.
been changed. In many cases chiefs of di-
fisions have been reduced in grade. and new
men, from the outside world, of the Demo
ratio party, have been appointed. In more
han one case the head of division has been
educed to lower clerkship and the Demo
ratio politician has been appointed in his
,lace, and the old incumbent in his reduced
trade and at his reduced pay, is performing
III his old work, and the new incumbent
|oes practically nothing. But this is civil-.er-
ice reform.
Mr.. President, there is but one thing about
his showing that can be offensive TO nv
riends on the other side of the Chamber
those constituents are following them in