Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1899-06-09
Republicans and the Civil Service

Republicans and the Civil Service
In 1896 the republican national CON
vention met in st. Louis and solemn
| ly adopted platform, not the least
interesting plank being the following:
The civil service law was placed
on the statute books by the repub-
lican party, which has always sus-
tanned it, and we renew our re-
peated declarations that it shall
be thoroughly and honestly ell
forced and extended wherever
| possible.
There are number of planks in the
republican national platform of 1896
which meant nothing. There was the
plank about the ''rights and interests
of women" thrown in to please Mrs.
Foster and a few women who were to
take the stump for Mckinley: there
was the temperance and morality
plank, the Irrational board of arbitra-
| ton" plank and one or two Others.
The other planks in the platform
meant something-eith they meant
what they said or were meant to de-
| ceive. That they were meant to de-
ceive is evidenced by the fact that
most of them have been broken and
discredited by the republican admins
tration. The international agreement
plank has been repudiated, the Monroe
doctrine plank has been repudiated
and laughed to scorn, and now the
civil service law has been ignored and
republican promise of extension of
that law broken. With one stroke of
his pen William Mckinley, elected
upon platform promising to extend
the civil service, removed 1000 places
from the list covered by the civil
service rules. Not only has he refused
to keep the pledge of civil service eX-
tension by actually decreasing the
service, but he has refused to keep the
pledge by putting the census bureau
under the civil service rules. The
census bureau is to be made an agency
for the payment of political debts.
and upward of $4,000 places are to be
distributed among party heelers in de-
tiance of plain promise that the re-
publican party would extend the law
which places merit above partisanship
and ability above political chicanery.
The republican national platform of
| Gall, l..
by political schemers, whose regard
for truth was as nothing compared to
their ambition to rule and riot in i'll
gotten political spoils. 1t declared
its intention to do all it could to pro-
mote international bimetalliSm, and
then made a farcial attempt to keep
the promise, knowing full well that
the men who framed the platform
would be able to prevent any such
international agreement. 1t reiter
ated its devotion to the Monroe
doctrine. and then violated it in word
and spirit by entering upon a war of
conquest. 1t declared for the indepen-
dence of Cuba, and then refused to
intervene until whipped into it by an
indignantpeople, land after intervening
has shown an evidentintention ofdisre
garding the rights of the Cubans by an
nexing that island to the United States
1t declared in favor of extending the
civil service and then impudently re-
stricted the civil service and increased
the spoils list. The republican nation.
al platform of 1896 has been violated
in nearly every plank, and the ''moral-
ity party" of Mark Hanna and Matt
Quay is proud of its record of repudia-
ton and deceit World Herald.