The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-12-26

engraving and printing used 10 be craven
creature who crossed himself and ducked
his head before his chief, as 3 Hindoo
might before hideous idol.
Il : pos sible that things are better in
that bureau than they were fifteen years
ago, but II IS not probable. As
this bureau was constituted fifteen
years ago il was a moss conspicuous
example of the demoralizing influence of
clerical homage upon the chief Of b.
reau- Some fifteen hundred persons were
then dependent for their place on the
caprice OF the chief OF the bureau. Some
nine hundred Of them were women. and II
was absolutely sickening to notice how
the daily homage Of these fifteen hundred
people TO their chief nor only 6enoralized
them. but corrupted the good sense and
manliness OF The chief, so fatal st last was
the constant feeding Of his vanity and
self-consequence by seeing fifteen hundred
subordinates every morning duck their
heads TO q chief who held their financial
fate n his hands a cowboy in Colorado
or Montana IS deal manlier and more
self-Eespecting being than al ordinary
government bureau employee 81 Wash
ington.
II Germany men Of scholarship and
literary and scientific ettainments accept
government clerkships a, small salaries
because they do not lose the social conse-
quence that their culture assures them,
buE in plutocratic America the Washing
oil
social standing. no matter how blue his
blood or versatile his culture He is .
government clerk, and every coarse
haired congressman considers him SIS "a
little better than his dog, little lower
than his horse" And so the average
government clerk gradually become. q
seedy, dovncast, shabby-genteel crea-
ture. II he is an upright gentleman he
breaks his hack premat urely trying 10
support wife and house full of children:
If he IS coarse fellow he swells with
his breath the breeze that is the motive
power 10 the gin mills sails, or drops his
dollars into the bottomIess pit Of the
brothel and the faro bank
Taken ali in ali, there is hardly more
melancholy fate that can befau young
man who cares 70 rise than to be a
government clerk at Washington for ten
years. He suffers all the moral disabiIi-
ties and social infrmIties of Bohemian
without the enjoyment OF that personal
independence the Bohemian can call his
own when his copy" Is accepted and his
pay Is in his pocket. To make such a
spiritless, dead and alive class a perma-
nent fixture through life tenure would be
bad public policy. To quote the life ten
uTe OF the army and navy as an argument
for that life tenure of the civil service,
which the civil service reformers ulti-
mately expect 10 establish, is absurd. be-
cause the peculiar work demanded of an
army and navy requires that it should be
desposic form Of government. In no
other way could that discipline,
that unshrinking because unthinking
and unquestioning obedience be OBJ
tanned, which meets life or death.
except through despotism. By its very
nature the military service must be des-
potism to be efficient, and without as
surance Of life tenure men would not SUBJ
nit TO its despotic rule. For the sacrifice
or surrender Of the unlimited freedom Of
thought and action in civil life men claim
some compensation. They will not accept
service under q constructive despotism
without assurance Of perpetuity Of official
life, power and pay.