The Portland daily press., 1897-08-21

not appear that he had arrived at this
conclusion by any investigation or exper-
lment upon his own part. Indeed it did
not appear that he Ehad any reasonable
ground for his conclusion, except that
the antl-toxin treatment was something
new, and that some other new treatments
Tor various diseases had failed to come up
to expectations. Nevertheless he was cock
sure that it was humbug. In spite of
has opinion, however, the anti-toxin
treatment has continued to grow in favor,
and is generally regarded by physicians in
active practice a wonderful help in
the treatment of the dreaded diphtheria.
Senator Gallinger has now delivered
himself of another opinion, this time in
regard to civil service reform. He is
quite as sure that that is a humbug as
he was that anti-toxin was. Proof, he
says, is not forthcoming that the new
system furnishes better. officials that the
old one in the days when "honesty and
capability, to be determined by actual
I trial, under supervision of honest and
capable heads of business and depart
| ments.'' Mr.. Gallinger is contrasting
our new system with system that never
existed. If honesty and capability had
been the fundamental requirements un-
der the old system tens of thousands of
capable and honest clerks who had 10
more to do with shaping the policy of the
government than the man who paints
IL. L IL
course, would not have been turned out
at every change of administration; and
if actual trial had been relied upon men
who had not been tried at all would not
have been preferred at every change of
administration to men who had been Jried
four years and not found wanting. The
old system asked first about the politics of
the applicant. A man was seldom ap-
pointed under it because of his capability
when his politics We're not right, that is,
not in accordance with that of the admin
istration in power We do not mean to say
that character and capacity were
ignored, but we do mean to say that if
the applicants politics were wrong in
the vast majority of cases that settled it,
and there was no inquiry further. A
system which placed politics first and ca
pacity and experience second, must be
just as bad a system for selecting govern
ment employees upon as the employees of
private concerns.
Senator Gallinger saws that Cleveland
did not faithfully observe the spirit of
civil service reform, that many competent
men were turned out during his admins
tration for purely political reasons
Granted. But what bearing has that
upon the superiority or inferiority of the
new system.
If civil service reform is the hunbug
that Mr. Gallinger thinks it is, how does
it happen that it continues to thrive and
| to make progress From the time of it's
| inception there have been plenty of men
| like Senator Gallinger and Gen. Grosve-
nor crying from the house tops that it
was fraud, it has been Exposed" over
and over again, but yet every incoming
President feels some sort of pressure
upon him which compels him to widen
the scope of the reform, and deplete the
stock of offices which the Senator or
| Representative can dole out as rewards
for eloquent shouting and skillful manip-
ulation. Not much of it. we may be
sure, comes from the men who are near
est to them. Senator Hanna in the midst
| of campaign for the Ohio senatorship
did not urge upon Mckinley, probably, the
issuance of any order which would make
it any more difficult for him to promise
that the feet of the cold toed Ohio boys
should be warmed; nor was Representa-
tive Grosvenor, who was one of his prin
cipal managers before the convention and
his arithmetician, boisterous in his de-
mand for any greater security of tenure
for Democratic office holders-indeed he
has been quite boisterous since in protest
Whence, then, does the pressure come?
Undoubtedly from the people, who be-
lieve in the reform and are determined
that it shall stay. Civil service reform
has progressed on it's merits, generally
against the opposition or Indifference of
the majority of the men in political life.
Senator Gallinger can't stop it, or even
check it, by shouting humbug, no more
than he could the progress of the anti
toxin treatment for diphtheria. He is
simply kicking against the pricks. and
upon the authority of the Scriptures, that
is hard business-hard for the kicker.