The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-01-12
BETRAYED HIS IGNORANCE.
NO NECESSITY THAT THE HEAD OF
THE DEPARTMENT COMMIT
HIMSELF.
sPoELsMEN ARE TOO CONFIDENT
Counting on More Than They Will
Receive as "a Result of the
Report.
WASHINGTON BUREAUST. PAUL GLOBE, J
CORCORAN Bull DING.

Special to the Globe.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 1.-THE sur
prise which was expressed among the
be st friends of civil service reform at
Secretary Cages answer to the senate
resolution of inquiry as to the positions
i'll his department which could with
profit be exempted from the operations
of the civil service rules, has not yet
cleared away. 1t had been expected
that he would recommend the restora-
ton of the deputy collectors of internal
revenue to the free appointive list, but
1t was also expected that he would
base the recommendation on another
ground. If he had said that the law,
as he construed it. or as it had been
construed by the officer charged with
the duty of furnishing legal opinions
to the secretary on departmental mat
tiers, seemed to vest the full power of
appointment in the collectors, he would
have stood side by side with a few men
who are as DESTROYS today as ever to
put the deputy collectors under the
rules, but who do not believe that the
law sanctions such a course. There
would have been nothing aston's hing or
the secretary is recognized as so sin
cere that every one would have given
him credit for acting according to his
best lights, however misleading When
he did not simply defer to the law,
however, but went out of his way to
express his deliberate preference for
the patronage practice as distinguish
ed from the merit system, ne convinced
many persons who have known the in
ternal revenue service many years
longer and a great deal better than he,
that he had not taken proper pains to
inform himself before making up his
mind.
II is safe to say that there is not an
expert in internal revenue matters who
considers the good of the service in
ste ad of it's political aspects, who would
not tell Mr.. Gage-and give the rea-
sens why-that the whole service would
be vastly benefited by drawing the can
didates for appointment as deputy col
lectors from an eligible list prepared
according to some such method as that
employed by the civil service commits
SION By universal consent among the
disinterested judges, a much more cap
able class of appointees would be OBJ
tanned, with an average of honesty GER
tainly as high If not higher. Secretary
Gage would probably resent the impu-
tation that he was fastening upon the
service lot of incompetents chosen by
the congressman from the whisky dis
tr:Cts and foisted by them upon the
collectors as part of the local political
traffic in offices and salaries. That is
because he has had the same experience
as other secretaries, while still new to
the treasury portfolio, in having his
attention called only to those instances
in which the collectors and their con-
gressmen were at odds over patronaga.
He has doubtless been impressed
with the idea that in all cases the col
lectors act Independently of the con-
gressmen in choosing deputies because
the only way In which he is brought
into these matters is by being called
upon to arbitrate between a congress-
man and a collector here and there
where the collector happened to have a
mind of his own and the congressman
had appealed to the secretary In the
hope of getting the collector disciplined
and his own desires carried out When
the secretary has been in Office longer
he will learn that these cases are the
rare exceptions, and that the collector
as a rule takes the larger part of the
congressman's SLATE" and makes it his
own.