The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-04-27
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 1904.
REFORM NOT RESPONSIBLE.

Seldom does one meet more tiresone
stuff than the arguments for and
against the civil service reform system
that are heard annually in congress.
One man gets up and abuses the clas-
sified service, declares himself a spOils-
man, points to existing abuses as proof
that the sO-called reform is no better
than the arrangement that it succeeded
and calls for an abolition of the entire
complicated and costly humbug. A
man on the other side strikes an i'm
posing attitude, declares that the coun-
try will never go back from its great
reform achievement, denounces the
spoils idea as a source of all corruption
and defies anyone to challenge the in
dignation of the country by destroying
the present civil service law.
Now all this is mostly buncombe on
both sides. Let US get few facts
about the so-called reform system
straight. The first of these is that no
system, reformed or unregenerate, will
ever make a competent and honest
public service. That depends on the
men at the head. An INSCRIPTIONS
politician relying upon the system of
graft can corrupt an entire service in
few years, regardless of any laws
that might be passed. An honest exec
= utive, willing to risk his whole political
future on the selection of the ablest
and purest men he can find for public
service, will build up one better than
the most rigid law can create. This is
the first and great commandment, on
which hang all the fate and future OF
any reform.
According to this we find, as we
might expect, bad men in office who
obtained place under civil service and
good men whose tenure really is de-
rived from political pull. All this
proves simply nothing. The depart
ments at Washington are full of cor
ruption at present, for example. be-
cause they are being run solely for DO
litical ends. The postofice is the hot
bed Of these infamies, because it IS
commonly understood that Postmaster
General Payne looks upon them with
an unreproving- eye, and that President
Roosevelt needs Mr.. Payne in his busi-
ness. The spoils system in its worst
form is now all powerful at the nation
al capital, as witness the inability of
any man to secure a share of public
patronage in the states without the in
dorsement of his congressman and SEN
ators, and the enormous distribution Of
pIunder that has been made from the
postoffice solely on requisition of mem
bers Of the two houses.
The spoils system is always attacked
from the wrong end. The evil Of it was
not so much that it made bad Dublic
servants, as that it made bad congress-
men, senators, cabinet officers and
president. The very worst of its eff
1ects were spent upon them. The fact
mat they had these brides at their dis
posal lowered the moral tone Of the
whole government. The spoils system
was taken away in the classified serv-
Ice as far as it was destroyed. not
primarily for the benefit of the service
where it is acknowledged that ef7cion
cy IS about the same under one rr1o nc
under another, as for the banaat %
congress itself.
No wonder that benefit is unrea1izad
when the spells system has been ra.
stored under two Republican adn,inis-
tratiohs by official winking at it, and
carried to excess and abuses unknown
before the passage of any civil service
law In attacking, as we nay do Justly
existing conditions in the government