The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-04-03
MERIT FOR THE BASIS
Mr.. Roosevelt Wants Civil Ser
vice to be Universal.
No Sense in Appointing for PO-
litical Reasons.
IT is BOUND TO COME.
One Partisan Does Just as Well
as Another.
IT is BOUND TO COME.
Almost All Offices Should Come
Under Civil Service.

Commissioner Roosevelt is thoroughly
| committed to the doctrine of including
! many more offices under the civil service
rules. Speaking on this subject to an
! Associated Press reporter he said:
ga house divided against itself has got
to fall and in the end this government,
! so far as the non political offices are con-
! cerned, must be administered on both
and am perfectly certain that the merit
basis is the one on which it will ultimate
| ly be administered. We have got to have
! civil service reform, not only in the ma
| ton, but in the state and the municipali-
! ty and we have got to have it not only to
those offices to which it now applies in
the nation, but to very many of the offices
which are not properly political in char
acter.
The people in former years have been
educated to regard the spoils system as
| part of the natural order of things, SO
that they are wholly incapable of under
standing as yet that postmaster, for in
stance, has nothing whatever to ado with
! politics if he attends to his duty, and that
there is no more need of filing the
fourth class postoff1ces with people who
sympathize with the views of the admin
istration for the time being on questions
of the tariff and currency than there will
be sense in having the express or tele-
graph business of the country admins
tered by men who are protectiOnists or
free traders, according as one party or
the other triumphs at the election.
Every civilized country in Europe re-
fuses to treat pOstOffices as political spoil
and it may be of interest to those foolish
members of our own body polite, who
rail themselves against the reform be-
in, Enoloo6 = 81
vice reform, to know that in England the
reform only came in with the growth of
the Democratic spirit and the reform has
reached its most perfect manifestation
in the federal republic of Switzerland
"The latter country is genuinely gov
erned by the people, for the people and
no public servant whose duties are non
political is ever appointed or turned out
for political reasons. In England post
masters are appointed by promotion from
within the ranks, except in the lowest
grade where they are appointed directly
from the outside
"They are never removed for political
reasons In our country it would per-
haps be difficult to allow of a system of
transfer from Office to office Throughout
the nation at large, but such transfer
could certainly be made within the Dor
ders of a state and the postmasters in tn e
big cities at the largest offices should be
appointed whenever a vacancy occurs
from within the ranks of the postal serv-
/ ice of that state
s'If you wish an illustration of the
fact that the service rendered by post
master has nothing to do with his poll
tics let me refer you to Postmaster Zum-
stein of Cincinnati, who has Just been
supplanted by Postmaster Brown, and
who himself, four years ago. supplanted
! Postmaster Riley. Mr.. Zumstein was
Republican. For over two years he has
served under the Democratic postmaster
general, Mr.. BisselI. All through Mr.
BisselPs term of service Mr. Zumstein
| has been postmaster at Cincinnati
Nobody would know from any result
visible in the operation of the postal SER
vice that Postmaster Zumstein was of one
politics or another. He has given dur
ing this time precisely as good service as
Postmaster Sullivan of Brooklyn, or Post
master Hesing at Chicago, both of them
Democrats. The letters have been dis
tributed just as well in Cincinnati
under the Republican postmaster as
in Brooklyn or Chicago under the
| Democratic postmaster, and so four years
ago the letters were distributed Just as
well under the Democratic postmaster
at Cincinnati, Mr. Riley, during the Re-
publican administration of the govern
ment, as they were by the then Repub-
lican postmaster of Chicago or Boston
"Ths people have been as we'll satisfied
by one administration of the office as by
the other. As a matter of fact SO out of
every 100 of them have not known and
have not cared q rap what the views of
the postmaster were as to the annexation
of Hawaii or the Nicaragua canal sc
lon e as their letters were delivered
speedily and without blunder. In Charles
ton, S. c., the Democratic postmaster was
continued all through Mr.. Harrison s
term of service just as in New York
where the Republican postmaster was
continued during Mr.. Cieveland's first
term, and neither case did single indi
vid0al outside of the class of profession
al politicians who wanted job for their
henchmen, complain.
at is Just as absurd to turn out a letter
carrier because he voted the wrong tickle
as it would be to refuse goods delivered
by an expressman who is out of sympa-
thy with the dominant party on some
question of finance or to say that you
would not give your message to tele-
graph clerk who did not think just as
you did on the tariff
"The present railway mail service fol-
instance is in exactly the same hands
and is being administered precisely as il
was three years ago under Harrison
Democrats and Republicans go into the
service alike, and as a matter of fact, are
now pretty evenly represented in it a
curious result of the present system ii
that often the nominal head of an office
is of no consequence whatever in the
administration OF the Office. In grea
many postoffices throughout the country
all the work is done by the assistant
postmaster. who is permanently retained
. He could do his work quite as well i
there was not postmaster.
''The decent postoffices of this coun
try are greatly interested in politica