The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-05-20
Uermurt @attbmam.
Honor to Whom Honor.


Senator Villas started in recently, in
the United States senate, to show that
civil service reform, as it exists to-day,
is due solely to the sublime and disin-
terested efforts of President Cleveland.
In the language of the correspondent
of the New York Tribune.
An astonished senate listened to the
speaker for while, and then it became
the duty of Mr.. Hoar of Massachusetts
to pour the icy stream of fact upon the
feverish dithyramb of the White House
minstrel. Mr. Hoar's statement is not
only contribution to history, but ii is
also graceful tribute to the men whose
work in behalf of this great reform
largely tended to making it the success
it is to-day.
Senator Hoar said:
The president bravely announced in
his inaugural address, in the beginning
of his administration, his adhesion to
the doctrine of civil service reform,
and, as the senator from Wisconsin has
conceded, he had not been very long
in office before some $500 employees in
the railway mail service were displaced;
he had not been very long in office be-
fore some thirty-two collectors had been
removed solely for political reasons,
the whole consular service Of the coun-
try was changed, and the president
seemed to me to have shrunk and
flinched from the brave doctrine that
he had advanced as if he had been
frightened almost at the sound of his
own voice. Like Fear in the Ode to
the Passions"
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewilder'd laid,
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
Fen at the sound himself had made.
Mr.. President, there are three men
who ought to have the credit of this
great accomplishment and reform in the
civil service of the country, and l think
/ know whereof l speak when l name
them. The first is Mr.. Dorman B.
Eaton of New York, man, believe,
not connected or affiliated with any po-
litical party. Early, when the whole
country seemed to be given up to this
vicious method which have mentioned.
Mr.. Eaton called the attention of his
countrymen to the matter. He studied
the fashions and habits which prevailed
in other countries; he spoke at public
meetings, and he published a book
in which he outlined the scheme which
has been adopted finally with so much
success.
Next to Mr.. Eaton comes, in my
judgment, my honorable friend from
Connecticut, the senior senator, Gen
eral Hawley, who, as chairman of the
committee on civil service, framed and
carried through and defended against
all antagonists on the floor of the SEN
ate the provisions of the present civil
service law, even when some other
champions had their hearts fail and
were in favor of incorporating in that
law some exceedingly vicious provi-
sions which would have destroyed its
whole efficacy. With the single excep-
ton of Mr.. Dorman B. Eaton of New
York, whatever credit is due to this
great revolution in the political habits
of this country is due to Joseph R.
Hawley.
The third man, and the only man
who deserves to be named in the same
breath with either of these, is Mr..
Theodore Roosevelt of New York, who
was bold, courageous, intelligent
most effective and efficient administra-
tor of the law when he was in charge
of its operation. l do not think Mr.
Cleveland's name, though he has done
many good things in his administration
deserves to be written up very high on
that scroll.