The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1897-08-21
Mckinley MEDlTATlN6 A BACKYARD
STEP.

MCKINLEY NEGOTIATING A BACKWARD
STEP.
The Republican party won the battle Of
1895 in Maryland upon its promises. 1t
must fight the battle of 1897 upon lis per-
formances Now it has record in this
State; then it had nome Two years have
wrought vast change in the situation.
When their personally respectable candi-
date for Governor went through the State
proclaiming the gospel of reform, many
voters believed him and voted for him,
but the sequel has taught the people at
large what the experienced already knew,
that the cry of reform is always to be
taken with suspicion for behind it usually
lurk selfish ambitions and sinister purposes.
Ii is an easy matter to preach reform,
when party has no recent record to be
analyzed but it is not SO easy TO carry out
what is promised The performances Of
the Republican party during its brief lease
of power have not merely been disappoint
ing-they have been characterized by de
ception, inconsistency, hypocrisy and false
pretense.
In no particular does this criticism more
justly apply than in reference to the atti-
tude of the party on the subject Of civil
service reform. If the voters of Maryland
will recall the campaign of 1895, they will
remember how Lowndes, in his schoolboy
speeches, prated incesantly of applying the
merit system to state, county and munlcl-
pal offices, and with what Indignation he
scorned the idea that public patronage
should be used for any but public purposes.
This idea. with stale and meaningless
platitudes on the subject of good govern
ment, without once pausing TO show
specifically wherein the State of Mary
| land under Democratic rule, had been
the victim of bad government, constituted
the burden of the arguments upon which
he sought the suffrages of his fellow -citi
zens. While the rejecting voters, free
from bias and prejudice, were not caught
by the deceptive words, yet Il sufficient
number of mistaken, but now repentani,
Democrats, left their party to give the
great reformer of Alleghany county the
opportunity TO fulfil in his administration
what he had so glibly professed with his
lips. The record is before us, and it can
be briefly analysed from evidence inr-
nished by both executive and Legislative
acts
The sixth plank of the Cambridge platform
declares 'sAll public offices exist for
the good of the people only, = and yet
Gov. Lowndes had barely been inaugu
rated into his high office before he contra
dicted this platform principle by using the
public patronage to promote the ambitions
of his political partner, George l.. Wei
lngton. This prostitution of the honors
and emouments under his control, COM
bined with what one B. II. Warner, OF
Washington, suggests as Il corrupt bargain
with Sydney +. Mudd, then Speaker Of
the House of Delegates, was successful in
accomplishing the Senatorial ambitions Of
Mr.. Wellington, who in his short service,
has more than once caused the people OF
MARYLAND TO blush for shame that they
should be represented in the highest legis
lative body of the land by such a paryenu
and egotist.
Nor is this the only evidence of Coy.
Lowndes' hypocrisy in exempliiieation Of
his his oft proclaimed theory that all
public offices exist for the good of the pee
pie Only Another and a more recent
ihistratration has been given in his manipu-
lation Of the patronage attached to one OF
the State Tobacco warehouses by disPlac-
ing Inspector James |. Naylcr, friend of
Congressman Mudd, and substituting one
of his own minions in the person OF -------
Gather. While irregularities in the man
agement of the warehouse and a desire to
give the state better service were the causes
assigned for the sudden change, the pene-
trating public readily perceived the real
cause in the clashing ambitions Of Con
gresham Mudd and His Excellency for
seat in the United States Senate. When
it is remembered that only a few months
before the Governor, against the protest OF
the Leaf Tobacco Association Of Balti-
more. knowing that the requirements OF
the tobacco trade were fully met by the
three inspectors then in office, created a
sinecure in the form of fourth Inspector.
This lately professed desire for retrench-
ment and economy will deceive nobody
and the public generally will regard the
dismissal of Mr. Naylor as plan 10 ma
nipulate the state patronage to further his
own senatorial aspirations.
But eclipsing these evidences of hypoc-
risy. in which the obligations of personal
friendship and the impulses of personal
ambition may be pleaded in extenuation,
was the passage through the Legislature
of 80 of farcical bill, submitting the
question of civil service to vote Of the
people at the election next November
Not many weeks ago at meeting Of
the Republican League of Business
Men in Baltimore. it was declared in Il
manifesto to the people that the Republi-
can party had fulfilled all the pledges made
in their platform of 895, and one ofthese
promises was that it would submit
civil service act to the people at the polls.
II is true that the Republican party has
submitted civil service act to the vote OF
the people, in the nature Of proposed
amendment to the constitution, but 1t Is
equally true that the proposed amendment
is utterly worthless as a reform measure,
and even if favorably voted upon would be
| absolutely nugatory in applying the merit