The Portland daily press., 1888-03-17
The Civil Service.

The Senate has adopted Senator Hale's
resolution for an investigation of the civil
service since the Cleveland administration
came into power. The Democrats made
some objection, though why they should,
inasmuch as they have been circulating Mr..
Hale's speech or the same subject as cam
paign document is not quite clear, unless
they feared that the result might show that
Senator Hale hadI exaggerated the degree to
which the spoils doctrine had been followed
by the President and his Cabinet
There is no great doubt of what the pro-
posed investigation will bring forth. Indeed
the Independents long ago gave up claiming
that the administration had been much Of
civil service reform administration, except
for few months at the start. And as for
Democrats their growing content shows
that they are fully persuaded that they
have succeeded in completely knocking out of
the Presidents head whatever intentions he
may have had when he took the oath of
Office of ignoring the claims and clamor of
the hungry and thirsty. Yet we imagine
that the extent to which the old spoils doc
trine has been followed by the administration
when it is revealed in cold facts and figures
will prove surprise even to those who have
not been accustomed to take much stock in
the Presidents protestations of devotion to
civil service reform. A few country postmas-
tiers who were in office on the fourth OF
March, 1885, are still in Office, but the reason
is, not because the post Office department be-
lieved in civil service reform, but because
the Offices paid so little that there were
ha than or xuould
take them. With the exception of few of
these offices, and the New York post office,
in which Mr.. Pearson is still permitted to
remain as concession to the New York
Mngwumps whose votes are wanted in the fall
there has been pretty general clean sweep.
The process was somewhat retarded by the
multiplicity of Democratic candidates and
the bitter quarrels between them, and that it
has taken three years to bring 1t to its pres
ent high state of perfection is not due so
much to the resistance of the administration
as to these quarrels and this superabun-
dance of material
The worst part of the showing will not be,
however, the clean sweep, but the Partially
with which orders directed against all Office
holders have been enforced. These orders
have frequently been made The means OF
turning Republicans out while Democrats
have violated them with impunity. Witness
the cases of Republican district attorney
in Massachusetts and Democratic district
attorney in Missouri, both of whom were
guilty Of precisely 1.-The same offence, bnt
only one Of whom lost his head. Witness
the impunity with which Higgins and Ralsln
managed Germans caucuses in Baltimore;
while Republican postmasters were declared
guilty Of offensive partisanship and turned
out for opposing Cleveland in the last Presi-
dental campaign. 1t is the pretense
that Republicans have been turned out
for cause and not to make room for
Democrats that has constituted the worst
feature of the administrator per-
Torrance. Republicans expected to go,
but they expected, and had right to ex-
pect. that the reason for their going, which
in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out
of thousand: was entirely political, would
be stated, or at least not mis-stated/