The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-06-10
BELIEVES IN SPOlLS.

If the Provo Enquirer is anything, it
is partisan. And the very intensity of
Its partisanship challenges admiration.
Few Republican organs in the United
States have had the temerity to at
tempt to justify McKinley's violation
of mis- platform and abrogation of the
civil service rules. None has ventured
upon the same line of vindication our
Provo contemporary has taken. 1t
says:
The Salt Lake Herald seeks to make
political capital of the fact that President
Mckinley has removed some 1900 officers
from the civil service list. The Herald
does not look to the cause of the action.
But what is the cause the Enquirer
gives? 1t says that Grover Cleveland
found some $4,000 offices which proper
ly belonged to the civil service" and
admits that they were positions which
should not be changed every few years,
because such changes would impair the
government in several departments
The Enquirer says further: AT the
end of his tern, he had increased the
civil service offices OF the country to
about seventy thousand"
Because Cleveland increased the num-
Der it holds that Mckinley should de-
crease it. Since the civil service sys-
TEN Was built up under a Democratic
president our extremely partisan friend
thinks Republican president ought to
tear it down. That is the logic of the
party zealot.
Why should Republicans object to the
merit system? Because so many Demo-
Gratis were able to get places by pass
ing the competitive examination. One
Republican apologist started the eX-
cuse that too many Democrats had
found positions under Cleveland. But
William Dudley Foulke, one of the best
authorities on civil service reform in
the Republican party. has checked that
falsehood by proving that a majority
Of the men in the classified service at
the close of Cleveland's presidential ca
reer were Republicans.
But the Enquirer quotes a Democrat
ic resolution against life tenure and
claims that Mckinley was acting upon
the policy outlined therein. 1t is in
deed refreshing to see an administra-
ton organ tracing the motives of VII
liam Mckinley TO a plank in Demo-
cratic platform.
And it is especially interesting in
view of the fact that he ran for the
presidency upon the following plat
form:
The civil service law was placed on the
statute book by the Republican party.
which has always sustained it, and we
renew our repeated declarations that it
shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced
and extended wherever practicable.
President Mckinley in his letter Of
acceptance Endorsed this declaration
lie approved it in his inaugural adj
dress. He has repeated his belief in
civil service time and again.
But the campaign is drawing near.
There are thousands of heelers and
ravenous spoilsmen of whom he
wants to take care at the expense of
the public. So the president forgets
his platform pledges, violates every
opens the door of the public crib to
four regiments of incompetents who
could never draw a dollar of federal
pay if the opportunity depended upon
merit.
But the Enquirer isn't through yet,
and it more than likely expresses the
views of the administration when it
says:
For enc. The Enquirer would like to see
about 1000 of the offices which Cleveland
placed on the civil service lists relegated
70 their Ole position and the Democrats
excused from further service.
Could partisanship be more intense?
Was ever the scandalous spoils policy
of the Hanna regime expressed with
more brutal frankness? Look at the
way the presidents order has been re-
ceived by other Republican organs over
the United States.
The Pittsburg Dispatch says: Pres
ident McKinley's civil service order is
retrograde movement. 1t is a re-
version in the direction of the spoils
system
The Newark Advertiser takes this
view: THE presidents order will do
injury to the public service and it will
not increase the esteem for the presi-
dent in the minds of some of his best
friends"
TIE Providence Journal says: Mr..
Mckinley is the first president of either
party who has authorized any back
ward step in this connection, and it
would seem to be in order for him to
give the country his reasons for doing
what he has done"
This is how the Topeka Journal sees
st: Friends of President Mckinley
real friends, not those who are friends
merely for The favors they can get out
of him-as well as all friends of hon
esty and efficiency in the public SER
vice, will be panied by his surrender to
the spoiismen."
And the Portland Oregonian, almost
as partisan as our Provo contemporary,
expresses the following opinion:
The triumph of the spoilsmen in this
matter is not remarkable. What is re-
srlarkable is that the president should
have thought a formal order OF this kind
at all necessary. He must be supposed
informed as 10 the shameless and fragrant
ok the civil service law in Ore
gon, as elsewhere. all over the country |
Deputies Of rnsrsnals and collectors have |