The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-22
DROPPED OUT OF OFFICE.

DROPPED OUT OF OFFICE.
Albert b. Stearns, Democrat, was re-
Gently removed from the Office of APP
praiser at the Boston custom house, where
he had served nineteen years. The
Worcester (Mass.) Spy thinks that this
sudden and unexpected removal was con-
trary to the spirit of the civil service law.
land confessed that neither party be-
lieved in the civil service act," and the
removal of Mr.. Stearns for political reasons
shows that President Harrison is no more
of bigoted civil service reformer than
was President Cleveland. In England
civil service is humbug. There the ap-
pointee is either an impecunious aristocrat
or the protege of an aristocrat, or not sell
dom the parasite; and the whole civil SER
vice is so administered that practically it
is absorbed by the aristocracy. The civil
service theory of England has been i'm
ported and grated upon our American
system, but it is as impossible of sincere
enforcement when enacted as pro-
hibition. because as President Cleve-
land said, neither party believes in it.
The average American does not believe
in political armies and political battles
which do not result in a division of the
spoils, and to the plea for business meth
DDS" in government he answers that the
government is a business machine. but no
more business machine than great pri-
vate corporations. who make revolutionary
appointments in their service with every
change in their executive management. A
railway or great business firm changes
hands, and sooner or later remorseless
changes are made in its subaltern officers
and rank and file. If business houses.
banks and various corporations do not ac-
cept the doctrine of life tenure or scholas-
tic examinations, why should the business
machine of the government?
In the civil service the life tenure of the
military service is not desirable, since
man sure of his place for life and enioying
all the unlimited freedom of an American
out of office may become either a danger
GUS drag on the wheels of government or
an insidious teredo to its timber. He is
under no despotic military control, and
yet he enjoys all the privileges of both
civic and military life with unlimited on
portunity to make himself an undying red
tape worm in the stomach of the govern
ment's business administration. Every
American of business intelligence knows
that the vast mass of the persons protected
by the civil service act are no more abso-
lutely indispensable to the smooth and
efficient working of the government ma
chine than the ordinary rank and file of
employees in any line of large business.
The vast army Of men who are copvists.
inferior accountants, etc, in the govern.
ment service, are not only not indispensa-
BILE persons, but presumptively not desir-
able persons to pension on the government.
Their places could be supplied on a davis
notice from any great city or large town.
Their quality is not superior, for of course
no man of indispensable quality seeks a
minor government place or stays long con-
tent with it. He is snubbed by his sumo
riors, chaffed or bullied by every illiterate.
vulgar or consequential congressman. The
average American is not a bad-hearted fell
low, but ''woe to the vanquished" has been
the motto in the battle of business. and a.
a rule he is not willing to be treated as the
under dog in the fight when the battle has
ended in the defeat of the other dog.
This is not heroic politics but it is the
rule of American business life when bust
ness changes hands, that is, the indis-
pensable and desirable stay, but the non.
essential and non-inluential go. In bust.
ness, place and power not seldom 60 less
by merit than by favor, and the average
American in either business or politics
does not believe in doing anything that is
worth doing for nothing, and as long as
the people are of this opinion in both
parties the civil service act viii be eluded
evaded, or boldly nullided by the powers
that be- Given a good president and Won
get good administration with or without
a civil service law; given weak, indiffer-
ent president and your civil service act is
mere paper pretense, for neither party
| practices its methods in business or poli-
tics.