New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-07-24
ANOTHER REFORM LECTURE.


a new albeit faint-hearted, deliverance on
Civil Service reform, which we print in full in
another column THE TRIBUNE published
Yesterday in detail the shameful record OF his
appointments to Office. 1t was an overwhelm-
ing demonstration of the rapid conversion oil
public Offices into party spois, and If the
degradation of the Civil Service under the
present Administration. His appointments
were shown by Democratic testimony to vio-
late every idea of fitness and decency, and to
belle every profession of interest in reform
which the President had made. 1t was merci-
less but scientific dissection of his Admins
tration and thorough exposure of its cantng
hypocrisy. On the same day the President, by
a curious coincidence, felt impelled to read to
Congress one of his perfunctory lectures on
Civil Service reform in connection with the
annual report of the Commission, closing with
labored congratulations upon the progress
which the good cause has made. That civil
Service reform has not made progress under
President Clevelands Administration the rec
ord of the Administration compiled in yestcr-
DAYS TRIBUNE conclusivey established. The
time has gone by when he can impose upon
either credulty or ignorance in affecting in
terest in a cause which he has deliberately
abandoned.
The President remarks with his usual be-
travail of self-consciousness that " the path OF
Civil Service reform has not at all times been
pleasant nor easy" This would seem to imply
that he considers that he has been travelling
that road and that he has had tiresome and
difficult journey. But if we can believe the
doctrinaires of the National Civil Service Re
form League, he has not been on that road at
all. In their resolutions last August they de-
clared "The change in the unclassified Civil
Service is so great as to forebo ode its complete
partisan reconstruction by the close of the
Administration The conversion OF public
offices into partisan spoils they considered
practical reputation Of the cause of Civil Ser
vice reform, to which the President had
pledged himself without reserve in his letter
to the Reform League on December 20, 1854.
They were right, since the essential principle
of their reform is the separation of the public
service from politics; and of this abolition of
patronage there has been no trace under the
present Administration. The President is not
in any honest sense Of the words Civil Ser
vice reformer; yet it suits his purposes to dis
course with an affectatiOn Of sympathy upon
the necessity for extending the operation OF
the existing law a1d to deprecate the opposi-
ton which it meets from partisans of the pat
ronage system
The Presidents message has plaintive tone
when he refers to the facility with which this
subject is misapprehended by politicians and
the public The painful truth is that the peo-
pie are beginning to understand the President,
and it is no longer prudent for him to affect
zeal for cause which his party despises. Even
his Mugwump admirers have found him out,
since in the language of "The Evening Post'
it is doubtful "if a single Independent voter
of this State, of the thousands who supported
President Cleveland in 1884, any longer at
taches any Importance to the utterances of the
members Of the Administration on the subject
of Civil Service reform, or any longer refuses
to believe that the Presidents promises and
professions have been violated or disregarded'
on a great scale, with the utmost bOldness."
If the President cannot any longer deceive
even his bigoted partisans why should he do
more than display a languid interest in the
subject? Is he not Free Trader? What
more will the Democracy and Mugwumpery
have? The Civil Service farce is played out.