Year: 1872

cringing in the ante-roOms at the Capt.
tol, doing the dirty work of office bro
kers in pay of the services rendered
them, in their nomination and election,
by the professional lobbyist that con-
troll the wards and townships.


In this trading and scrambling, what
earthly guarantee have wei do not
say for improvement or reform, but for
maintaining things, even in as good con-
dition as they are?


If am asked to justify this predic-
ton, 1 do it upon the general expecta-
ton among Democrats themselves, as
manifested in the zeal and unanimity
with which, fiinging to the winds the
principles, traditions and prejudices of
their historical party, they rush to the
embrace of the candidacy which gives
the lie to every profession ever made in
the Democratic name. By what token
can this be accounted for, except that
every other good is embraced in the op-
portunitv of official power, and the
guaranteed right to name, after but a
single term, Mr.. Greeley's successor.


There is no need Of further evidence
than what we see and hear and know
as going on daily in our very presence.
If there were, it is abundantly furnish
ed by Mr.. Greeley's own avowals.


What is his promise and programme
of civil service reform? 1t consists of
two particulars:


l. That in making appointments he
will make no discrimination among his
supporters OH account of their antece-
dent politics. That is, he will not re-
gard it as an objection to any applicant
that he had been Il Democrat, provided
he has supported Mr.. Greeley.


2. That he will not be candidate for
reelection.


And this last is gravely put forth, as
if we were mere children, as panacea
for all the evils of our politics.


1t is, in fact, but cunning piece of
strategy, and all implied promise to
whet the eagerness of Democratic sup
port, that if he shall be elected once,
Democrats shall have their proportion
of offices from the first, and i'm that way.
possession of the patronage to assist in
the election or Democratic successor.
| And this is the feast to which we are
invited in the name of civil service re-
form. And this is to be the issue of
our hopes and dreams of Liberal and
Reform Republicans. For one, l shall
not sit down at that banquet, nor be a
guest in that company.


The disastrous result of disappoint-
ment of all hopes of a true civil service
reform involved in the election of Gree
ley is not, as view it, merely an Incl
dent to the situation. If it were that
alone, it would be enough to condemn
it. But in my opinion it is nothing
more and worse. 1t is the purpose for
,ohich the situation ,oas brought about.
My belief is that Greeley and Brown
were nominated by the Cincinnati Con-
vention , and that nomination ratified
republished at Baltimore by the Demo-
cratic party, because it had been ascer-
tanned and was known that they could
be used for the purpose which 1 have
specified. The Cincinnati Convention,
called and convened in the interest eff a
Republican reform, had before it that
ideal statesman, so magnificently des-
cribed by the Chairman, Senator Schurz,
and which evoked without a name, the
image present to the mind of every del
egate, and for months previously in the
heart of every one who felt an aspira-
ton for an elevated, and lofty, and
statesmanlike public life, of the only
man who approximated its standard.
His name was Charles Francis Adams.
lie was nominated. Why? There is
some evidence of an antecedent intrigue
to which Mr.. Greeley was personally a
party. | know not whether it be true
or not. 1t is morally certain that to the
utter defeat of every just expectation,
that convention, bargain was consum-
mated which insured the nominations
made, proclaimed substantially, though
not in terms, when the next morning
Gratz Brown, in violation of the rules
of the convention, under the preteXt of
Withdrawing his name from the list of
Presidential candidates gave the pre-
concerted signi that the bargain had
been made and would be carried out, by
which he had purchased for himself the
second place upon the ticket.


The object of a reform of the civil
service is to make party conventions
free and responsible, and deliver them
from the corrupt manipulations of pol
iticians and political combinations
formed with reference to the distribu-
tion of the public patronage. How is
it possible for such reform to emanate
from a convention so handled and man
aged, and as the result of nominations
so produced? A good tree cannot bring
forth corrupt fruit, neither can cor
rupt tree bring forth good fruit. BY
their fruits ye shall know them.


CONCLUSION.


What the country now needs is rest
from fruitless contentious; peace from
angry controversy; repose from strife,
wickedly aroused and foolishly kept
alive; settled policy in public affairs,
freed from disturbance and reversal by
fear of political change; quiet progress
in its adopted path industry and trade
left to flow, unveNed by hallucinations,
in the channels to which they are now
accustomed /; private enterprise inspired
to engage in works of public benefit,
without apprehension of being arrested
by new policies and crude experiment.


Ii needs at the helm of State man.
if not the embodiment of the genius of
craftsmanship, who has been tried in
difficult emergencies and not found
wanting; steady, consistent, seli-con-
tanned, not thinking of himself too
highly, ready to be advised, who sees
things as they are, and not as his imag-
ination colOrs and transfigures them; a
man filled with the practical sasacity
of common sense; not too fertile in i'm