Year: 1877

To the Editor of the Tribune.


SIR: The one thing at which civil service re-
form and all other reform should above all
things aim is to be straightforward and manly,
to see things as they are, to accept the truth
and admit the truth and speak the truth and
act the truth. In this we may indeed learn a
lesson from England. Says the sturdy Eng
lishman, ''To be Member of Parliament is a
prize well worth any price that can be paid for
it short of wading through dirt and dshonor.
No other great European nation has anything
like it to offer to the ambition, for in no other
great country of Europe has the popular con-
stitution obtained, as with us, true sovereignty
and power of rule. When man lays himself
out to be Member of Parliament he plays the
highest game, and for the highest stakes which
the country affords" These are manly words.
The popular constitution is as sovereign in
America as in England. A member of the
American Congress is as near the heart of the
worlds history as Member of the British Par
lament The path of the American Congress
through history has been.las steadily and sig
nally honorable and bene6cent as that of the
English Parliament; but there is not willing
in newspaper Office from Maine to California
who does not fancy himself to be revealing his
own wisdom and worth and showing his title
of entrance to good society in uttering con-
temptuous words of Congress. In Eogland a
man simply and frankly announces himself as
candidate and gees to work openly to secure
his end. We besmear ourselves with mock
modesty. We are shocked at the spectacle of
man openly declaring himself candidate for
Congress or Office. The Rev. Edward Payson
Hammond bids the Newburyport children 90
home and tell their fathers and mothers how
much they love dear Mr.. Hammond and the
Congregationalist tells its readers what a good
paper it is. and they must pull hard and steady
on the same string and commend the Congre-
gatiOnalist to their friends as they have oppor-
tunity; but Immediately turns over to its po-
litcal column and calls aloud that this coun-
try wants the Office to seek the man and not
the man the office" Yet water does not run
up hill in this country more than in any other.
1t is as true in politics as in religion and educa-
ton and trade that it is he that asketh who re-
ceiveth, and he that seeketh indeth, and to
him that knocketh it shall be opened, The re-
suit is not to prevent men from seeking cffice,
but to tempt them to seek it in roundabout
way; and we have the spectacle of the most
prominent reform candidate for the mogt i'm
portant position in tie country privately stoop-
ing to more and more Objectionable devices
than have ever before been practised, while
growing red in the face with proolaiming
through the land his blushing modesty and the
impossibility of his consenting to take any step
for his own advancement. English civil ser
vice reform says frankly through its exponent
in the Westminster Review:


1t is indispensable that the high posts in the perma-
nent service of the Nation should be left at the
disposal of the Crown. Cabinet is indebted for Iits
existence to its supporters in Parliament; and it
must have at its command the ways and means Of
ments under the Crown are fap priles for
the lower class Of politicians, who may be wanting
in the capacity or the ambition which alone can
force way to the great ministerial posts, and the
supreme control OF administration.


Mr.. Carl Schurz says: "Hayes has shown
great courage in speaking out before his elec-
ton against the system of booty, thus cutting
of to his friends all hope of reward"


The English Reformers are talking sense
and Mr.. Carl Schurz is talking nonsense. The
English Reformers are talking with some
knowledge of human nature, aud Mr.. Carl
Schurz is not. Indeed, l think I give Mr.
Schurz too much credit A man who has
shown so very lively sense of the reward due
to his own merit can hardly claim the in
demnity of the mere theorist in insisting that
all men shall do their duty without any hone
OF reward. The result is not that President
Hayes friends receive no reward, but that a
Thousand devices and excuses and apologies
and exceptions have to be made, which cast
cloud of suspicion and ridcule over the whole
matter. Let US face the fact that men are
inevitably and honorably-at least not dis
honoraply-selfsh, and enlist their selfshness
IN the cause OF good government.


Another fact that should be borne in mind
is that the people are sovereign, that their will
expressed in constitutional way is the law,
and not what they ought to will: that even
where their will is not definitely expressed 1t
is safer and better to study it and execute it
than to sdefy. it. Regarding tenure of Office.
ms ha ana vnrip pofy, Ia hot ffaF
than another, bat it is yet a matter of expert
ment. For myself, have no opinion. 1t
would seem well that man should hold office
as long as he performs his duties well. But
when the people dispense office with their own
hand the number who hold it during life or
good behaviour is very small. My neighbor
has been county treasurer for twenty years. and
his name is as good as the Bank of England's. 9.
1 should be glad if he were elected for life; but
we farmers hold his election over his head
every three years, just as if he were villain.
But whatever may be abstractly true of tenure
OF office, and however logical may be the prin-
ciple OF no appointment except for fitness, and
however fallacious, as Prof. Fiske AYERS, may
De the idea that those who. have served in the
nation s armies have any special claim to posi-
tion in the nations civil SERVICE" it must still
De remembered that the logic of great peo-
pie IS not always to be relied on-is not half so
surely to be relied as its generous but illogical
impulses. Prof. Fiske contradicts himself,
happily, before he has gone two steps, and de-
clares that as between citizen and an ex.
soldier of equal merits the ex-soldier shall have
the place. This of course admits what he has
just pronounced a fallacy, that the soldiers
have special claim, and only makes all posi-
BILE difference between him and the sophists
one of degree. Certain it is that the people
think the soldiers have special claim, and
that fallacy should be respected until the peo :
pie are reasoned out of it. Far distant be that
day, whatever becomes Of our logic.


am happy to believe that Secretary Schurz
utterly mistook the temper of the American
people Whine he allowed any. Civil Service Reform