Evening journal., 1897-07-16

ministration will have moved the civil
service fences back to the point where
they have monopolized the public pa
tronage, and we may be prepared to
hear them advocating the placing Of
the bars up again after they get the
places filled with their own kind, just
as was done in the case Of the railway
mail service. They are doing this in
the face of the fact that when the last
Democratic administration went out of
power IL left three-fourths of all the
places under civil service in the hands
Of Republicans. And not satisfied with
this, they have a committee Of the Sem
ate at work now investigating the pro-
motions and reductions made under the
last administration in order, as they as
sert, to discover whether they were
made in strict accord with the law.
But when properly understood it Is
simply a ruse to divert the attention of
the country from the violations Of the
law that the Republican party is maxi
ing by the wholesale every day.
What a bowling farce and sham
this is, when the Republican party has
violated the law at every opportunity,
and is now not only reducing and dis
missing every Democrat to be found for
no ether cause than his political
faith, but the special agents of the gov
ernment, who are scattered all over the
Union, hundreds and some of them
thousands of miles from home, investi-
eating questions pertaining to the bust
ness Of uhe land office, Bureau of Pen
sions and other branches of the govern
mental service, are being dismissed
right along by telegram, without mo-
ments warning or a cents allowance
upon which to return to their homes
and families.
AS unfair as it has operated to them,
the Democratic party has stood by the
law, and in a manly way it placed its
convictions on the subject before the
people in the last platform promulgated
at Chicago in these words:
We are opposed to life tenure in the
public service. We favor appointments
based upon merit. fixed terms of office
and such an administration of the civil
service laws as will afford equal oppor-
tunities to all citizens of ascertained fit
ness.
If this question were submitted alone
to the people they would abolish the
law and the commission by an over
whelming vote; and IL would not be a
vote stimulated merely by the spoils-
men. but the vote of the intelligent,
fair-minded citizens who are sickened
and disgusted with the shams of frauds
that have been cloaked by the law.
And it should be abolished, for, as a
matter of fact, if the men who, un-
der each succeeding administration are
in position to dispense patronage, are
not guided by their responsibility to the
people in choosing their subordinates,
then they are not such men as would
refuse to exercise their opportunity to
abuse the civil service law. And if they
are men of high purposes who have
the efficiency and credit of the public
service at heart, then they are able to
find thousands of industrious, capable
men who are able to fill the positions
under the civil service just as accept
ably as those who are enjoying a life
tenure there now.
And these men on the outside have
the same right as those ON the in. Ro-
tation in office would bring a larger
number of individuals into more in
teiligent contact with the operations OF
their government and thereby diffust
broader knowledge OF national man
agement and control, which would sim
ply mean the spreading of a most use
ful information among a self-govern-
ing people.