The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-12-21

be, but this is only for such form of
obliquity no law has made provision, it
would be equally abhorrent. A presi-
dent or governor who deprives the
country of an upright servant to meet
the views or advance the ends Of sell
fish political intrigues is no less blame
worthy than one who gives them public
money; he may be, indeed, less con-
lived long in an atmosphere of spoils
malaria, but while he has any con-
science or honor left he must and will
feel ashamed of what he does.
The question is as clear in another
aspect All thoughtful men agree that
bribery, more or less direct and open,
as connected with elections is a great
evil. But it is a perfectly legitimate
and logical outcome of the spoils sys-
tenn and cannot be consistently con-
demned by anyone who approves of ap-
pointments to influence political ac-
ton or reward partisan service. Wheth
er a worker is paid by check or a sine
cure, whether a mans vote is bought
for IS or to daWdle two weeks at street
cleaning, makes no difference as to
right or wrong, or rather while the man
is equally guilty, whatever the form of
his reward, it is surely more OdiouS
and more noxious to bride with what is
the peoples than with what is ones
own, to purchase suffrage or influence
at the taxpayers cost, than to pay for
those out of the corruptor'S pocket.
Speaking of what might be done to
put civil service reform into operation,
Mr.. Bonaparte said:
To rid our country thoroughly and
once for all of these dangerous and
noxious counterfeits of statesmen and
to thus make room for the genuine ar
ticle which we produced in good meas
ure hundred years ago, and can still
produce if we try in earnest to do so,
we have only to do away with those in
cidents of public life which have arisen
within these hundred years and too Of
ten have made it no fit career for hon
orable men. Washington, Jefferson,
Adams, Patrick Henry and Alexander
Hamilton grew up from another politi-
cal soil from that which nourishes the
place-mongers of today. If we would
have gain among our rulers leaders in
war and peace such as these, We must
\ thoroughly purge our meadows of that
which has chosen out the good wheat
and gives them over to tares and cock
les. We must do away with sw1n1sh
scuff1e for support at the taxpay er S
tics means to too many of our public
men, and make a political campaign
once more something in which men of
conscience and honor have place.
When we have done this; in other
words. when we have practically APP
piled the essential principle of civil
service reform throughout our federal,
state and municipal governments. we
! shall have again, as We naQ once I'M
der the same conditions. men in public
| life able to consider in proposed
| changes of the law more than the hopes
these may arouse of personal and
party gain.
The real stumbling block to reform is
not ignorance, but the torpOr of the
national conscience. The great mass
of the American people see clearly
| enough that political opinion no more
affects the merits of fitness of an APP
| plicant for non-political Office than
does his religious faith. Macaulay
says: 1.-The points of difference be-
| tween Christianity and Judaism have
| very much to do with a mans fitness
to be bishop or rabbi But they have
no more to do with his fitness to be
| a magistrate, a legislator or minister
of finance than with his fitness to be &
cobbler. Nobody has ever thought OF
| compelling cobblerS to make a decla-
i ration of the true faith of Christianity
/ ANY man would rather have his shoe:
Il nended by a heretical cobbler than by
a person who had subscribed to all the
thirty-nine articles but had never
handled an anvil Men act thus not be
cause they are Indifferent to religion
but because they do not see what re
lligion has to do with the mending O
their shoes. Yet religion has as mucl
to do with the mending of their shoe.
as with the budget and the army reg
ister.'
And politics have as much TODD with
the mending of shoes as with the keep
ing of books or the collection Of tbs