Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-05-30
HIS SHORTCOMINGS.
The President Unable to Resist
the Temptations Of His
High Office.
The Civil Service WreSted from the People
and Made to SuDSerYe Personal
and Party Ends.
George William Curtis Addresses the
Civil Service Reform League.

e Civil Service Reform League.
!, New YORK, May 20.
! In the course of his address before the
= Civil Service Reform League this evening,
, George William Curtis said.
n Last year we told what we believed to be
the truth of the present administration in re-
gard to reform, as we have always sought to
tell the truth of every administration, and we
\ were assured that our meeting was like a
I funeral feast. But we could safely reply
that if the remark were true, then, in the fa-
{ miliar phrase, it was certainly not our fune-
, raj. Undoubtedly more had been expected
of this administration than of any of its pre-
, decessors, because the frequent and
, friendly declarations of the President, and
{ because his election by the votes of those
who were not of his party, authorized an in
r dependence of action which President
elected solely by the vote of his party, might
feel to be denied to him. This anticipation
has been largely disappointed =
The unwritten law which forbids third
term to any President is founded in the rea-
son which would prohibit second term and
which great American statesmen have strong
ly stated. Jackson, who advised Montoe to
be the President of the whole people and
not of party, but who, when he reached
the White House was the most absolute of
party Presidents, twice urged upon Congress
the passage of an amendment limiting the
| Presidency to Ole term. Harrison pledged
himself, as have said to single term but
perished in a month under the fierce pressure
for place. Henry Clay in 1912 declared such
an amendment to be the principal object Of
the Wing party, and in 1874, the Wing Con-
vention, which nominated him resolved that
it was inseparable from the public honor
and prosperity, and Webster gave it his ap-
proval and support. Charles Sumner intro
duced in the Senate an amendment providing
for the neligibility of the President and
President Cleveland, in accepting the nomi-
nation four years ago, added his voice to the
earlier warnings. He said .'When we con-
slider the patronage of this great office, the
allurements of power, the temptation to re-
tain public places once gained, and more than
all, the availability party finds in an incum
| bent whom horde of office holders with a
zeal born of benefits received and fostered by
the hope of favOrs yet to come, stand ready
to aid with money and political service, we
recognize in the eligibility of the President
| for reelection most serious danger to that
calm, deliberate and intelligent action which
must characterize Il government of the
people
| The tendency and temptation which in the
mere prospect the President depicts in these
decisive and accurate words, actual expert
ence has doubtless proved to him to be
stronger and more seductive than he imag-
ined. The Secretary of the Treasury denies
that the administration has abandoned reform
and adds that the law has been rigil;ly en-
| forced, its application exteniel and its spirit
observed. But he would probably agree that
| if the constitution had maIe the President
| ineligible for reelection there would have
| been no reason for the assertion that reform
| had been abandoned, the application of the
law would have been much more widely ex-
| tended, and its spirit would have been so
generally observed that no successor of the
President would have dared to return to the
old abuses, and the President himself
| would have happily identified his name with
one of the most benefcient political reforms
in our annals. Let us help the Presidents of
the future in their tremendous struggle. Even
Ulysses did not dare to pass the sirens with
out stopping his ears against their song. Let
us save Ulysses hereafter from the irresistible
allurements by making it impossible for
the SIRENS song to ensnare. The one term
amendment is a measure, simple, practicable,
intelligible, which would command, immedi-
ately, general and earnest support, and whose
adoption would remove at once both the temp
| tation and the danger which President
Cleveland describes. 1t would emaucipate
every President from the absolute despotism
| of party and from the temptation of personal
motives, and leave him in the greatest of of
fees with no motive for official action but
the wish to deserve the praise of history by
promoting the welfare of his whole country.
There is more reason in requiring a
postmaster to agree with the President of
the United States in political opinion, than
in requiring a railway engineer to agree with
the religious views of the president of the
road. The postoffice was established for pub
lie convenience. 1t is the duty of the Pres-
dent to call into the postal service only per-
| sons who are fit for it in ability and charac-
ter, and so long as they are efficient and faith
full it is his duty in the public interest to re-
tain them, and gross public wrong to remove
them for political opinion. If their conduct to-
ward the officer in whom the law vests their
appointment is scandalOus and unseemly they
should be peremptoriy dismissed, as un-
seemly conduct toward all appointing auth
| critics is punished by dismissal and if such
| dismissal should be said to abridge the politi-
cal rights of American citizens, American
| citizens are quite sensible enough to know
that unseemly conduct which they would not
| tolerate in their own private service should
not be tolerated in the public service. But
this is wholly different from dismissal for
| political opinion from posts which are
| in no sense political. Such removals
| Madison declared would justify i'm
parchment. And only because with all the
great constitutional authority of his word he
declared such removal to be an mpeachable
offense, and because Washington was Presi-
dent, by whom such abuse of authority was
| incOnceivable, was the power of removal
| given by Congress to the President. But if
before the evil day that have SEEN
| Madison thought such arbitrary removals i'm
! peachable misconduct, what would he have
| said had he seen the whole non-political
public service trampled and secured by the
| bloodhounds of all parties in turn, making
prey of official fidelity, efficiency, and ex-
perence, and baying that such ravages are
essentially American?
| Unquestionably all officers of the Govern
ment whose duties are concerned with giving
effect to the policy which the country has
approved and whose offices bring them into
personal and confidential relations with the
| heads of the Government, should be in entire
sympathy and accord with those to whom the
| people have entrusted the conduct of the ad-
ministration, But the great mass of officers
and employees of the Civil Service are not
of that kind, and they can be disturbed for
| political and party reasons only to the great
/ detrlment of the public welfare. An cleo
/ ton which changes the party of administra-
ton often changes the public policy in min
| isterial management of the post office, for
instance, never changes, and the proposition
to effect political change of postmasters
I is merely naked and monstrous scheme to
transform a vital and universally diffused
public convenience into national election
eerlns agency for party.