New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-07-23

= Mr.. Cleveland gained the Presidency as
| Reformer of the Civil Service. II he then de-
sired the change of tariff he now urges, ne de-
ceived the people about it, The votes which
turned the scale were obtained by his explicit
promises that abuses in the Civil Service should
be corrected, that appointments shoulo DC
made for merit only and that quallhed anu
faithful officers should not be removed Tor par
tisan reasons In his letter Of acceptance Au-
gust 18, 1884, he said:
The selection and retention Of subordinates IN
! Government employment should depehu upTn l";
their asceraned fitness ana the value VI 'i,,1 nor
! work and they should neither be expected NOE
! allowed to do unquestionable party service
In case of his election. he declared that re-
form should prevail, so that:
The unseemly scramble for place under tne
| Government, with the consequent lmpor.9IitS ny ~
which embtters official hfe VIII e eease anu those C
| public departments will not he hlled Dy IhVse
| who conceive il TO be their first duty TO ala the
party 10 which they owe their places
In his letter to Mr.. Curtis, December 20,
1884, he said:
The lessons of the past should be unlearned,
| and such officials, as well as their SUCCESSORS
! should be taught that efficiency. fitness ana de-
votion TO public duty are the conditions OF uhcir
continuance in public place: and taat the aHieII
and unObtrusive exercise OF lndlNl9uaI pol.i.rt t
/ rights is the reasonable measure OF their party
| service.
To show that he thoroughly understood the
pernicious tendencies which he pledged HIM
self to resist and overcome, he declared IN MS
letter Of acceptance:
! When we consider the patronage OF this great
/ Office. the allurements of power, the temptation
to retain public place once gained, ana more orr
| than all the availability a party fnds In an IN
! cumbent whom a horde Of oflice-holders WIN n
| zeal born OF benefits received, ana fosterea py
the hope of favors yet to come stand reaay c 70
| aid with money and trained political service, we
recognize in the eligibility of the PRESIDENT ior re-
| election most serious danger
How have these pledges been kept? The
President has become candidate for re-
! election. But has he purified the public ser
vice? Has he been faithful to Civil Service
Reform. which means according to The New
York Tines May 81, 188Q:
The essential principle of reform IS the absolute
abolition Of patronage, the complete ana PER. ft.
manent separation OF the public service ID Ils
administratire branches, from politics.
In the following pages, evidence regarding
the actual conduct Of the President and his eX-
ercise of the appointing and removing power
is presented 1t is evidence mainly from DEM
ocratic sources. Out of / O45 editorials or
DISPATCHES quoted only 249 are from THE
| TRIBUNE and all other Republican journals;
more than three-quSrers are from papers
which are now supporting Mr.. Cleveland for
reelection While great care has been taken
to omit statements by these supporters OF the
| Administration which were aftervard found
erroneous, it is possible that in some instances
out of so many. satisfactory corrections nave
been overlooked and if in any case this has
bappened. THE TRIBUNE will promptly pub
| lish correction.
! II appears that in seventeen cases the Civil
| Service law has been directly violated by ap-
pointments and in seven by removals; that the
intent Of the law has been violated in nine
other anpontments specified and in sxty-ive
removals, besides $50 cases in which the facts
without names are given Acts of offensive
partisanship by officials of Mr.. Cleveland Sc
lection are specified in 151 cases, while many
others are described. But it is within the
personal knowledge of every intelligent clt-
zen that the entire army Of officials is as actively
at work in the cause Of party as it ever was III
| the days of Pierce and Buchanan, before Civil
Service Reform was undertaken. Official state
ments more than year ago showed that above
fonr-ffths of the officials under President
| Cleveland had been changed during his Ad-
ministration, so that in August, 1887, the
resolutions of the National Civil Service Re
| form League uSOIdC
The change in the unclassifed Evil service is
| so great as to fOrebOde its cOmpleJe partisan re-
! construction by the close Of the ADM nlstratlon
The changes during the past year have sub
stantially finished this " complete partisan re-
construction; undoubtedly much more than
nine-tenths Of the officials are now men Sc
lected by Mr.. Cleveland, and selected because
they are Democrats. Men have been up
nointed in a great majority of cases expressly
| for partisan services. The appointing power
has been used to reward party workers, from
Mr. Manning chairman Of the Democratic
State Committee in New York, and the char
men in Ohio, Massachusetts,, New Hampshire,
| Vermont and many other States, down to the
very clerks and dOorkeepers who served during
the campagn which resnlted in Mr.. Cleye-
lands election. The names Of 81 notorious
marty hacks who have been selected for office
represent a great army. The appointing power
has been used TO support 35 relatives of the
President. his wife. his Cabinet officers, promi-
nent Senators and other officials and in II
other cases specified to pay personal or
political obligations.
In order to make places, great number OF
! tried and faithful public servants have been
dismissed. A few illustrations such as the
dismissal of Mr. Bacon for the keeper of a
Brooklyn gin mill, are mentioned. In host
of cases partisauship has clearly dictated action
in contemptuous disregard Of public opinion,
as when Benton and Stone were dismissed for
making political speeches; the Democrat was
reinstated and the Republican was refused
or in the case of Postmaster Wallace, dismissed
for offensive partisanship and a successor ap-
pointed; Wallace proved that he was Demo
crat. and thereupon be was reinstated and the
other man turned out. In notable cases the
public service has been used to control noml-
nations: thus Collector Bishop of Cincinnati
packed a convention with officials to nominate
his son for sheriff Messrs. Benedict and May
nard appealed to postmasters to make can
vass Of voters for the Democratic party. In at