The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-07-28
A CIVIL SERVICE QUESTION.

A clerk named SMITH in the sixth audi
tors office at Washington has been ire
moved" That is to say, he has been in
formed that his services are no longer re
quired, and the only reason assigned for
turning him out is that he is a Democrat,
this being a Republican administration.
Mr.. SMITH declines to go, unless some
other reason for his discharge shall be pre-
scented. He has performed his duties
faithfully, there being no complaint against
him on that score; and he maintains that as
he obtained the clerlship by the operation Of
the civil service law he cannot be removed
for partisan reasons.
The case is an interesting one, and will
be carefully watched by politicians, depart
ment clerks and those who hold positions
under the civil service law. If SMITH can
be removed at the will of his superior then
the first thing that Congress should do on
assembling next winter should be to repeal
the civil service act, and put stop to the
costly farce. Everything is against SMITH.
All the precedents are opposed to his posi-
ton, for Republican and Democratic. chiefs
have bounced the underlings at will. as if
there were no law beyond their will; and
yet the clerk is right in the position
he has assumed if there is any
sense in the law upon which
he relies. The civil service law was in
tended to restrict the government service
to worthy and competent persons, without
regard to politics: indeed, the main pur
pose af the law, and the chief incentive to
its enactment, was to eliminate politics
from tae minor positions in the service of
the government. The law having provided
for getting worthy persons into the ser
vice, should make provision for keeping
them there; or, at least, for preventing
their removal for political reasons. If it
does not do this the statute is Of the least
possible avail, for the partisan head of a
bureau or department can at any moment
defeat the law, and make matters as if no
act existed. He can remove at will those
of different political faith, and soon have
a force of subordinates, all the members of
which will be members of his party and
willing to do his political bidding.
The civil service law is humbug, and
its application has been ridiculous and
farcical in the extreme. 1t is one of those
things that are pretty in theory but ugly in
practice 1t is doubtful that there can
ever be successful civil service law in a
government like ours where partisan poll
tics is contemplated in everything, from
the constitution down to the most trifing
congressional enactments, and where cleo
lions in the most insignificant towns are
decidedly partisan affairs, every man
deeming it his duty to belong to a political
party whether or not he can define any of
the principles of the political organization.
Theorists may deplore and protest until
they are heartsick, and the fact will stand
that in the minds of the great ma
ioriry of the American people, the
doctrine of ''to the victors belong the
spoils' is more firmly fixed than any desire
for pure but non-partisan administration.
This fact will make failure of any civil
service law which proposes to take service
for the government out of the field of
politics, and make government employment
depend on fitness merely. But the civil
service law can be made to mean much
more than it does, and Clerk SMITH has set
out to give new and broader and better
meaning to the statute. His failure should
be the death knel of the law.