Year: 1877

Inc decision reached by the freSiuenV III
relation to the case Of Naval Officer Cornell
naturally elicits o great deal of comment.
but no part of it can be regarded as COM
| plimentary to Mr.. Hayes. Like every man
in power he has his sycophants, but even
the circumventing astuteness which syco-
plants think they discern in his ac-
ton in this case is not quality
which the American people desire In
their Chief Magistrate The people ap-
preciate steady, straightforward, resolute
adherence to a sense of duty; but man@u-
wiring and finesse in extricating q President
from embarrassments which his sagacity
should have avoided have no tendency to
establish him in the confidence of the
country. When the President discovers
that he has been imprudent or has made
mistake frank and open rectifcation of his
error is more honorable than the most adroit
retreat under cover of artful pretences.


What is claimed for Mr.. Hayes by his
fatterers is that he has executed mastery
stroke of strategy in avoiding direct con-
fict with the contumacious Mr.. Cornell and
putting his threatened removal on different
ground from his open defiance of the OWL
service order. Citizens who have no adj
miration for finesse think the President
should not have quailed and resorted to
subterfuges in the issue forced upon him
by this defiant officer. Had he promptly
suspended Mr.. Cornell and faced the
consequences the country would have
given him credit for sincerity and
political courage, and even the republican
opponents of his civil service order would
have respected his decision of character
But when he shirks the plain issue which
confronted him, postpones action to more
convenient season and threatens to remove
Mr.. Cornell on other grounds than his de-
fant contempt of the civil service order,
the people will be apt to regard it as n con-
fession by Mr.. Hayes that he "has bitten off
more than he can chaw, if we may employ
this homely but forclble phrase.


Does Mr.. Hayes mean to advertise to the
country that if Mr.. Cornell were COM
petent officer he would ignore and condone
his contempt of the civil service order?
Does he intend to have it understood that





obedience of that order unless he can also
accuse them of incapacity or inefficiency in
discharging the duties prescribed to them
by law? IT he has retreated to this position
what respect will hereafter be paid to the
civil service order? If open and defiant
contempt Of it, such as has been exhibited
by Mr.. Cornell is not to be regarded rs Of
itself ground Of removal then the civil SER
vice order is stamped by the President him.
self as mere buncombe manifesto which
may be safely de6ed by any officer against
whom it is not possible to rake up other
charges This is what he virtually declares
by his singular action in the case OF Mr..
Cornell, which is an indirect revocation of
the order if this case is to be regarded as a
precedent Disobedience of tho order is
either cause of removal or it is not. If it
is, no case SO fragrant as that OF Mr.. Cornell
is likely to occur, and he should have
been made an example for warning
and deterring others and for difiusing among
politicians a conviction that the President
is too deeply in earnest to be trifed with on
this subject. But when, instead of promptly
and boldly suspending Mr. Cornell for
public and contemptuous defiance Of the
order, he hesitates and recoils and makes
up his mind to suspend him for another
and entirely different cause, he has no
reason to complain if the public draws the
inference that he dares not make fight on
the issue so distinctly rendered The post
ponement alone is symptom of vacillation;
but the threat of removing Cornell at
future day for an entirely different cause is
equivalent to saying that any officer who
defies the order, but is correct in other
respects, may defy it with impunity.


But the President does not stop even here.
He proceeds to construct still more elabo-
rate defence of the intended removal. Mr.
as an incident to general reorganization of
the Custom House. He is to 60 because the
President has decided that Collector Arthur
Surveyor Sharpe and Appraiser butcher are
also to 60. Why should the civil service
issue be buried and smothered under such
feared that the removal of Cornell alone for
alleged incompetence would be regarded as
pretext for masking the real reason, and that
he is so anxious to have it appear that
Cornells official head is not to be cut off for
defying the civil service order that he puts
him in the same category with other officers
who have not committed this offence. Naval
Officer Cornell is to be removed for precisely
the same reason that Collector Arthur is to be
removed, and for no other This is the most
extraordinary vindication, or rather the most
extraordinary abandonment, of the civil
service order that could have been imagined
An officer who has openly defed it is not
to be meddled with for his defiance,
but is to be put in the same class
and treated in the same manner as