The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-03-15
COMMENT AND OPINION.

THERE Is no more important obligation
resting upon the Fifty-frst Congress than
House.. as at the polls, the authority of the
majority is complete and unQuestiOnable.
st. Louis GlObe-DemOcrat.
If there are incompetent men in the civil
service of the government, by all means
turn them out; but do not let this necessary
ing equally incompetent men to fill the va
cancies thus created.-Boston Herald.
IT is no less contrary to the spirit of the
civil-service law to retain incompetent
public servants because OF fear of hostile
criticism should they be dismissed, than it
is to dismiss competent men simply because
of their politics.-Kansas City Journal.
WHILE other countries encourage their
merchant marine by subsidies and liberal
payments for mail service. the United
States government has adopted a niggardly
and unpatriotic policy toward its shipping
interests. The time has come to reverse
this policy.-New York Press.
WE sincerely hope that the next national
Democrat convention will have the courage
to build platform and give it narie; that
they will make it a free-trade platform and
call it that and nothing else. This is what
the free-trade leaders are now boasting will
be done. May their new-fOund courage
hold out until the test is made in 1S92.-De-
troit Tribune.
PRESIDENT HARRISON will not use his
authority to build up or break down any
element of the party In the interest of an
other. Hence there is no reason to suppose
he can be made the victim of a factiOnal
spoils warfare. or will be any less success
ful than his Republican predecessors in
distributing the offices and satisfying just
experimentation Tribune.
The policy of neglect as to the CONNER
cial marine of the United States is repre-
hensible. With protection to home in
dustry" the shibboleth of the majority,
there should be little difficulty in securin g
for the commercial marine the assistance
for want of which it languishes. while the
maritime commerce of the other nations of
the world grows apace.-Milwaukee Wis
consin.
NOTHING would better suit the Repub-
lican party than to have Grover run again
on precisely the same policy that brought
defeat last November. Cleveland cannot
go back on free trade, and if his party takes
him up again it will have to be with the
free-trade elephant and the whole civil
service reform menagerie so dear to the
hearts of the mugwumps.-San Francisco
Chronicle.
CARE should be taken in the selection of
district. attorneys and marshals at the
South that the right kind of men are APP
pointed. The country expects the next
four years to witness the beginning of the
end of the domination of a small but brutal
minority over peaceably inclined and in
QuSlrlal majority. In Otner WOruS, the pup
lie demands that the Department of Justice
shalljustify its name.-ChicagOI Inter Ocean.
THE country has that abiding faith in
President Harrison's sincerity of purpose,
and in his moral strength to maintain his
purpose inviolate. that only he by his own
act can destroy it. They do not believe
that he will order or sanction clean sweep
of the federal offices, that he Will trample
the letter or the spirit of the law under his
feet. or that he will turn his back upon his
own declared principles. They will not
believe it until he does it.-Philadelphia
Telegraph tDem)
THE ciyil-service special journals have
made much of the fact that there were only
Cleveland, the rest being designations
This is misleading. All changes made fol
party reasons are removals, and should ap
| pear for just what they are. We hope nc
Democrat will resign as mere matter OF
courtesy. Let the country know just how
many removals there are for party reasons
Milwaukee Sentinel.
How can President be at the same time
right as the head of the Nation, and wrong
] as the head OF his partyi Fidelity to his