Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1896-12-23
CONGRESSIONAL.

The House of Representatives before
it adjourned yesterday evening for the
holidays passed the legislative, execu-
tive and judicial appropriation bill.
The day was devoted to q debate of the
civil service law, and the attempt to
strike out the provision for the COM
mission was defeated.
Mr.. Baker attacked the method of
administering the civil service laws
under the present administration. He
asserted that LOG Georgians had been
appointed to plac 8 in the Interior De-
partment by this administration; that
of SIG dismissals from the department
1856 were veterans, and that the Treas
ury Department had also Disseminated
against republicans in appointments
and dismissals, leaving but one repub-
lican in the secret service. Under the
spoils system the public business has
been better handled than now, when
clerks are kept under secret espionage
aud are no better off than factory
! hands. Yet the civil service commits
sion had never protested against such
mal-administration.
Mr.. Brosius, chairman of the COM
mittee on civil service, replied at some
length to Mr.. Bakers structures. He
eulogized the merit system and arraigu-
ed the remnant of the spoils system
which still remained. He charged that
the complaints against the classified
service were, in fact, complaints against
spoils system. The civil service rules,
he declared, percluded the possibility of
political influence in admission to the
service. There was, he admitted, a
practical difficulty in enforcing the
spirit of the law after officials had en-.
tered the service.
During the debate the Senate amend
ments to the urgent deficiency bill were
concurred in.
Mr.. Walker warmly endorsed the
principal of the civil service law, which,
be declared, was the controlling princi
pie in every well-regulated business
concern.
A remark of Mr.. Walkers about the
"poor white trash" of the South drew
from Mr.. Williams, Of Mississippi,
an eloquent and singing rebuke.
He characterized the so-called poor
white trash of the South as
the most magnificent raw material
in this country for the making of
manhood and womanhood. The South,
he said, was to-day the only American
part of America, and from the "poor
white trash" of the South sprang Hen
ry Clay, Andrew Johnson and Abraham
Lincoln. The latter's magnificent cour-
age and keen sense of humor were
southern, and poor white trash at that.
Mr.. Settle, of North Carolina, moved
to strike cut all provision for civil SER
vice. Mr.. Brosius expressed his aston.
ishment that q motion to strike out this
paragraph should come from republi-
can. He read the utterances of the st.
Louis platform and of President-elect
Mckinley on that subject. MIR. Settle
said that he was not so much opposed to
civil service law as to the extensions
made by Mr.. Cleveland.
There was great deal ofsparring for
points throughout the debate. Mr.. Set
ties amendment was defeated-29 to
81. Mr.. Hill (rep.j, of Connecticut,
moved an amendment to provide that
all persons in the classified service who
had not taken an examination should
take such examination.
The purpose of this amendment was
to subject those persons placed in the
classified service by Mr.. Cleveland's or.
der to an examination. The amend.
ment vas ruled out on point of order.
The committee then rose and the bill
was passed.