The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-01-13
WILL NOT EXTEND 1T
There's No More Protection for Place
Hunters.
President Harrison Talks on the Beau
ties of Civil Service.
MANY CHANGES COULD BE MADE
With Advantage to All Parties Interested
but the Incoming Administration
Must Attend to Details.

WAsHINGToN, Jan 13 -lSpccial -
Great pressure has been brought 10 bear
upon President Harrison during the past
two months to extend the provisions OF
the civil service law in various direc
tions. Men from both houses of con-
gress, politicians, reformers, office holders
and their friends and persons of both
sexes and in all the walks Of life have
either called upon him in person or adj
dressed him by letter or petition for an
extension of the civil service laws.
They have urged him to protect quite
all the employees Of the government fill
ing positions of a common and technical
character, from those who watch the ebb
and flow of water in canal locks or report
the air currents to the men and women
who set type and feed presses in the gov
eminent printing offices, all down through
the various positions about the executive
departments here, and collectors offices
and around the yards and docks Of the
navy and about the military posts.
Scarcely one from the man that tends
the horses of a federal official, to the men
who clean the cu~spidOres and dust the
furniture in all classes OF federal offices,
has missed the notice Of those who would
have the skeleton arm of civil service
raised against the hungry place hunters
who are longing for the changes to take
plooo oftor tho Ath IF March
One prominent man urged the presi
dent to extend the law over a large class
of federal employees In order that one of
his own appointees might be secure from
the keen edge of the political guillotine.
TO a congressman the other day the
president raised his hand in horror. He
said that while he was a believer in
civil service reform and supported
the law, he had gone far enough. His
order Of last week was the last one he
had intended to issue. The president
pointed out the good and the bad effects
of the law. saw much more of the
former than the latter in it. Its weak
ness was more in its brevity of extension
thar it's lengths If it went down into
lower grades and reached up into higher
attitudes, it would be more effective.
The president said he longed for the
time when the attention Of the first Off
Ger of the government would not be oc
cunied by listening to and providing for
office hunters. He said that not only
was his own time AMI thought given to
the demands of place seekers, but those
of members # the cabinet from early
morning till late at evening. There ap-
peared in almost every phase of official
life the hand Of the office seeker. 1t
was part Of the Legitimate duties Of the
president to attend to these wants and
he performed them unmurmuringly, but
he felt wholly incapable at times to sat
isfactorily attend to these duties in view
of the demands made in the other direc.
ton. Continuous thought upon any
subject Of state was impossible if the
president sought to please the political
place hunters. If custom, usage, law
or some other device would but inter
vene to give the president more exclu
sive time and thought away from office
seeking, there would be ADLER work at
the hands of the chief executive.
1t was a pity the details of office Civ
ing, the smaller Of them at least, if still |
lodged with the president, could not be
looked after by a subordinate, designed
by him for that purpose, one with more
time for such affairs. The matter of Ee.
ing beseiged for office, Of being unable
to turn in any direction without a re-
quest for a place being made, moved the
president to liken his situation to one |
who wherever he went was asked for |
a loan. Lend me a dollar" If one |
heard this from nearly every one he me
dollar lending would become the bane |
of his life. He could see its specter in
every face presented. 1t would haun,
him in his dreams. The state of his
mind would be that of one ewhitched
the resources of the lender would not
lessen his condition of mind. The re
quest would be the same, in fact he could
shift his accounts by virtue of pie
thora. 1t would be necessary to open
elsewhere. Certainly the de-
pletion of resources created limitations,
but it would not altogether remove the
predicament.
Turning TO present conditions sur.
rounding him, the president said he had
gone SO far since the recent elections in
broadening the scope of the civil scr
vice law as he could and maintain the
dignity of his position and the respect
Hf intelligent and fair. minded men. II,
on the very eve of his departure from
office he should cast about with a view
to protecting as many office holders as
possible, and taking in all federal em
pI"yes who could be gathered under the
protecting arm OF the law, he would be
regarded as one WHO crawled under the
table after the feast and ate the crumbs:
no ,.Dn 1