Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-03-21
TENACIOUS ACTIVITY.

When President Harrison proclaimed that party service would not be consid- cred 8 disqualification for public office he meant to convey the impression probably, or at least certain events in- dicate this, that pernicious democratic activity would be an eminent disqualifi- cation. The first indication of what democratic otficeholders may expect in this regard was given on Tuesday.
 Representative Payson of Illinois made a test case for presentation to the post office department in order to determine the question whether offensive partisan ship would be considered sufficient grounds for removal. Mir Payson charged the democratic postmaster of Pontiac, III, the town in which he himself lives, with being democrat and an active partisan during the last campaign, and asked his removal for that reason alone. Postmaster General Wanamaker granted it, and sent a nomi- nation of new postmaster who was named by Payson to the senate. Pay son did this after consultation with several of his colleagues, and it is understood to be the rule that will be followed here after. The authority for this is the re- publican New York Press, which is per haps as near to the administration as any republican organ in the country, not even excepting Russell Harrison's paper, and the statement of the case may therefore be accepted as correct. And the same authority has it that Mir i Clarkson, the assistant postmaster gen eral. has said that an offensive partisan rule would go into effect next week-it owing to the great number of vacancies to be filled first.
 ! It will be seen from this that there is no thought or intention on the part of ] this godly administration to leave dem- ocratic ofiiceholders in office. When of fensive partisanship so-called is accepted as disqualification for continuance in | office the rest Is easy. There will be no difficulty, and there will be less hesita- ton, in writing down all democratic officeholders as offensive partisans and so cutting off their heads at one fell swoop. The officeholders thems elves will probably not object very seriously to this-there is little use in kicking against the pricks-but what they do ob- ject to is the hypocrisy of trying to make it appear that this administration is going to be friendly to the cause ot civil service reform. There are plenty of democratic officeholders-like oul own worthy postmaster, for instance who would have scorned to be offensive partisans last fall. Partisanship whose greatest offensiveness consists in decora ting ones house in honor of a repub lican parade, and the courtly permis. sion to all men to hold theil own political views, ought not to be con
 sidered sufficiently pernicious to bring an official into disfavor with an admins tration that holds that honorable party service is no disqualification for public office" We would look, could we take seriously these words of President liar. rison, to the retention in office of oul own postmaster and many others whose partisanship like his was of the harmless sort. But as they were intended to bt Pickwickian we think officeholders mus go whose partisanship is not of th' twenty-two karat republican variety. To paraphrase the words of an eminen American citizen, civil service reform bt
 d-d.