Los Angeles herald., 1891-01-12
MONDAY, JANUARY la. 1891.
CLEVELAND AND JACKSON.

President Cleveland was selected as the
principal orator at the banquet of the
Tariff Reform club OF New York city.
His attitude, taken in his famous and
admirable message of 1887, would nat
urally give him the leading position at
any assembly in which tariff reform
should be discussed.
We confess, however: that in our opin-
ion there was some incongruity in Sc
lecting the distinguished ex-president as
the orator of the occasion at the celebra-
tion OF General Jackson's glorious and
ever memorable victory of New Orleans.
1t has been sought in some quarters to
establish parallel between President
Jackson and President Cleveland. AL
lowing for the exceptional merit of both,
we think no comparison could possibly
be more misleading.
The enemies Of the Democratic party
have been fond of holding up General
Jackson as the very incarnation Of
the spoils system. He was in a
very special manner the represen-
tative of the principle that rotation
in Office was o most wholesome feature
in American politics, and he carried out
his ideas with an unsparing severity.
The Democratic party had had very
sad experience with its adversaries up
till the time Jackson attained the presi-
dency. Mr.. Jefferson tells the story Of
how President Adams. with disregard
OF all decency, put in his very last mo-
ments ofoffice in signing appointments
which would leave the new president
almost entirely without patronage. The
federalist barnacles were fastened on the
country years and years after the party
had ceased even to be shadow. They
absolutely owned the supreme court OF
the United States. They swarmed in
all the de partments at Washington.
They were insulting and aggressive.
General Jackson thought, and in the
judgment of an overwhelming majority
OF Americans he thought justly, that
when the people had spoken de-
cisively, and had elected a president
who embodied their will, and who
was responsible for the conduct of the
government, that that official, clothed
with all the sponsibilities of admins
tration, should be allowed to select his
own agents. This just idea was EN-
bodied in an energetic and perhaps OBJ
jectionable shape, by William L. Marcy,
in the famous aphorism, "that to the
victors belong the spoils." We believe
today that that sentiment, couched in
identically those words, would com
mand the assent OF great majority of
the American people.
General Jackson despised from the
bottom of his soul the spirit of bureau
cracy which is now known as civil SER
vice reform. He would have had no
patience with any one who told him
that he must keep in Office his partizan
enemies because they had the indorse-
ment of some bureaucratic board, like
the civil service commission. He would
have looked for higher qualifications for
Office than a school-boy proficiency in
details Of grammar, geography and the
mathematics. He would not have under
valued these accomplishments, but he
would have taken into the count the
moral qualities OF manhood, honor,
honesty and character. As soon as he
entered Office he set up political guillo-
tine, and the heads OF the enemies of
the Democratic party fell right and left.
Certainly the official career of Mr..
Cleveland furnishes nothing in common
with that of General Jackson. Admira-
BILE and patriotic as Mr.. Cleveland was
as president, many Of his admirers
think that he was entirely too partial to
his political enemies. There is little
doubt that he owed the loss of the great
state OF New York in 1883 to his reap
pointment OF Postmaster Pearson of New
York city. There was nothing even in
strained Interpretation of the civil SER
vice law that called for the reappoint-
ment OF Mr.. Pearson. He was Repub-
lican. His commission had expired.
He controlled the appointment of four
thousand subordinates in various lines
of service. His reappointment caused
a howl of agony to 60 up all over the
city which practically controls the re.
suit of our later presidential elections.
Under no conceivable circumstances
could General Jackson have been in
duced to make similar appointment.
Mr.. Cleveland has many claims on
the gratitude of his countrymen. He
introduced into Washington an era Of
honesty, republican simplicity and
official responsibility. If he had only
added to his conspicuous public SER
vices little OF the spirit Of Jackson and
Marcy, there would be no end to his
He would have lost the
support of the Mugwumps, it is true.
But, as in the case of Governor Hill, for
every vote thus lost he would have
gained two. He would have escaped,