Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Mr. President, when this administration came in, the United States court-house at Indianapolis was filled from top to bottom, with a single exception, with soldiers. The United States marshal was a soldier, now he is not; the United States district attorney was a soldier, now he is not; the collector of customs was a soldier, now he is not; the collector of internal revenue was a soldier, now he is not. There was just one of the larger offices there that was filled by a civilian, and that is the post-office, and it is still filled by a civilian.

I am sorry that I have not time to go more fully into this matter. I have in my hand the report of the employment committee of the Grand Army of the Republic for the District of Columbia, signed by Jerome B. Burke, who I understand is a Democrat. He is a Democrat, as the Senator from Illinois [Mr. LOGAN] tells me, and is now the commander of the Grand Army for this department, the District of Columbia. I want to read an extract or two from that and see what these gentlemen outside of the Departments, who gave their time gratuitously in order to secure to worthy soldiers employment in the Departments here, say about the changes under the new administration. They say:

"While the employment committee of former years were principally engaged in securing employment for applicants, and with fair success, the present committee have, we regret to report, owing to conditions that will be mentioned hereafter, received but little encouragement in proportion to the amount of labor expended in this direction. Indeed, this has been an off year' for the class we represent. The gloomy forebodings of Commander Alexander, in his address to the last department encampment, seem to have been realized. But we have the pleasure of knowing, however, that in the few cases where employment was secured much real misery was relieved, and a few homes and firesides made happier.

"By far the greatest amount of our labors for the last year has been expended in seeking the reinstatement of comrades discharged from their positions in the Executive Departments, and in endeavoring to secure the retention in their places of those who had employment.

As far as we can learn there have been seventyeight comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic discharged from Government employ during the last year, also a large number of ex-Union soldiers and sailors who are not affiliated with us, and many of the wards of the Grand Army. Of those comrades who have been discharged or who have been requested to tender their resignations, this committee has been solicited to use its influence in securing a reversal of departmental action in thirty-seven cases, in which we have been successful in ten cases, and this has been effected only by constant and repeated importunity.

[ocr errors]

Knowing that many of our comrades were anxious as to the future, and were fearful that they might lose their places, and thus bring suffering upon themselves and their families by the loss of their monthly stipends, and also knowing that there was an influential element here that was antagonistic to our organization, clamorous for places, and endeavoring to influence those in power to make wholesale discharges, caring nothing for the fact that the 'boys in blue' had earned a right to hold their places under any administration, and that Congress had enacted laws in their interest, we concluded to address the President upon the subject." Then follows a statement of the address and the response of the President.

A few weeks elapsed. They say

"but in the mean time our comrades in the Departments were being rapidly displaced, and feeling that our appeal had not been as effectual as we had a right to expect, we again concluded to memorialize the President and request his official interposition in their behalf."

Again:

"In the present instance it is known that the discharge of our comrades has not been occasioned by a reduction of the force, nor is it believed to have been caused, except in rare instances, by any supposed inefficiency or personal dereliction, for it is doubtful that those who saved a nation are skulkers, shirks, and bummers in these 'piping times of peace." Nor can it

place an obstruction in the way of those holding office at the time of, or at any time since, its passage, provided always that the office-holder was capable, efficient, and honest." It is said further:

"It is estimated that of the total number of employees in the Departments in Washington the soldier element is about 30 per cent, and it is believed that nearly 40 per cent of all who have been discharged come from that class- there is certainly a large percentage against us. It almost, indeed, amounts, in some places, to ostracism and a practical nullification of law."

They say further:

"Nor is this the worst feature of the case, bad as it may be. Not satisfied with looking with disfavor upon the boys in blue,' it has sometimes seemed as if the boys in gray' were to be recognized as prodigal sons returning from their wanderings for whom the fatted calf was to be especially devoted. We have seen a comrade whose army record was of the very best, and whose civil-service record was irreproachable, degraded from a high position that he won by meritorious service, and his place filled by one who was in armed rebellion against the Government."

We have had an illustration of that kind even in our own State, as my colleague knows. General John Coburn, one of the best and most patriotic men who went out on the call of the Governor of that State, has been replaced in his office of Associate Justice of Montana by Mr. C. P. Pollard of Carroll County, Indiana, who was a Confederate soldier.

PART VI.

Public Printer Benedict's Treatment of Union Veterans in the Government Printing Office-Repeated and Outrageous Violations of the Law - Causeless Discharges Ex-Confederate Appointments.

Some months ago the House of Representatives named a special committee to investigate various charges made against Public Printer Benedict in his conduct of the great Government Printing Office at Washington. That committee comprised a majority of Democrats. It recently made its report, and the Republican minority presented its views also. Touching Mr. Benedict's treatment of Union soldiers and their families the Republican members say:

It is but proper to say that the testimony on this point is somewhat conflicting. On the one hand, Capt. W. S. Odell, ex-Vice Commander of the Department of the District of Columbia, Grand Army of the Republic, and Chairman of the Employment Committee of that organization, Capt. Grosvenor, Commander of Burnside Post No. 8 G. A. R., and member of the Employment Committee, Col. J. F. Vinal, ex-commander of Lincoln Post No. 3 G. A. R., and member of the Employment Committee, Capt. Clark P. Crandall, presiding officer of the Veterans' Rights Union, and Dr. Horatio N. Howard, Commander of Farragut Post No. 10 G. A. R., and member of the Employment Committee, all testify, in the strongest possible terms, to repeated and outrageous violations of the law by Benedict, as well as to the falsity of the figures he presented representing the relative number of soldiers employed under the administration of Mr. Rounds and that of himself. In addition to this, many soldiers and soldiers' widows and orphans gave testimony showing discriminations against them, and dis. charges without cause and in violation of the statute. On the other hand, Mr. Benedict testified in his own behalf, indulging in the same recklessness of statement that characterizes his testimony.

The first Grand Army witness who undertook to sustain Benedict was Major J. J. Burke, at the time

ment Printing Office, the position being a sinecure, and evidently given to him as a reward of his treachery to his comrades. To show the utter unreliability of this witness when he afterward, being then in the employment of Public Printer Benedict, swore sub stantially that Benedict had always treated the soldiers well, and had observed the provisions of the statute, we herewith present a letter addressed to Hon. C. F. Manderson, Chairman of the Committee on Printing, United States Senate, dated June 30, 1887, nearly a year after Benedict assumed charge of the Government Printing Office, signed by Fred Brackett, and indorsed by W. 8. O'Dell and J. B. Burke. It will be seen that that letter says: It was the universal opinion of the members of the committee who took part in the interview that Mr. Benedict has violated the law in making discharges, and yet, subsequent to this time, when a place was given this man by the public printer, he "bended the supple hinges of the knee that they might follow fawning," and rushed to the defence of the man whom he had in writing grievously charged with violation of law in his treatment of Union soldiers, their widows, and orphans.

While Benedict swore that the Grand Army presented him with a book containing names of 70 soldiers in the Government Printing Office entitled to protection, the very man who furnished him with the list swears that it contained the names of about 170

soldiers, without reference to soldiers' widows and orphans. That list was called for by the committee, and was actually found to contain the names of 178 soldiers, thus utterly disproving the testimony of Benedict on this point. By simply taking the words of men that they were soldiers, and, as will be seen further on, forgetting to ask in which army (if any) they served, he claims to have in the Government Printing Office a larger number of this class than were employed by Mr. Rounds; but we submit that no proof whatever, that would be regarded as such by fair-minded men, has been offered to substantiate his claim. In making up his list of persons now in the office entitled to protection, he accepted, as we have shown, the most slender evidence. Hundreds of them, according to the slip called for by the committee, based their claims on the fact that their fathers or husbands had been in the Signal Corps, employed in the arsenal, or had been in the emergency commands organized in this city from among the civil employees of the Government, most of whom never left their desks. At least four persons were found on the list of soldiers which Benedict submitted as having been appointed by himself who, on the evidence submitted by themselves on which they were appointed, had been in the Confederate army, and a fair presumption is, that there are many more in the same category.

CHAPTER XIII.

Civil Service Reform.

"When we consider the patronage of this great office, the allurements of power, the temptation to retain public place once gained, and, more than all, the availability a party finds in an incumbent whom a horde of office-holders, with a zeal born of benefits received and fostered by the hope of favors yet to come, stand ready to aid with money and trained political service, we recognize in the eligibility of the President for re-election a most serious danger to that calm, deliberate, and intelligent action which must characterize government by the people."-President Cleveland's Letter of Acceptance, 1884.

"My friends, you will never have any genuine reform in the Civil Service until you adopt the one-term principle in reference to the Presidency. So long as the incumbent can hope for a second term, he will use the immense patronage of the government to procure his renomination and secure his re-election." - Hon. Allen G. Thurman, Columbus, O., 1872.

66

[ocr errors]

We are confronted with the Democratic party, very hungry, and, as you may well believe, very thirsty; a party without a single definite principle; a party without any distinct national policy which it dares to present to the country; a party which fell from power as a conspiracy against human rights, and now attempts to sneak back to power as a conspiracy for plunder and spoils.". George William Curtis.

PART I.

Grover Cleveland's Civil Service Reform
Pledges, both before and after his
Election to the Presidency.

While the Republican National Platform of 1884 declared that

Reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun under Republican administration, should be completed by the further extension of the reform system, already established by law, to all the grades of the service to which it is applicable. The spirit and purpose of the reform should be observed in all executive appoint

[blocks in formation]

We favor honest civil-service reform. In his Letter of Acceptance, August 18, 1884, Grover Cleveland said:

When we consider the patronage of this great office, the allurements of power, the temptation to retain public places once gained, and, more than all, the availability a party finds in an incumbent when a horde of office-holders, with a zeal born of benefit received and fostered by the hope of favors yet to

fitical service, we recognize in the eligibility of the President for re-election a most serious danger to that calm, deliberate, and intelligent political action which must characterize a government by the people. The people pay the wages of the public employees, and they are entitled to the fair and honest work which the money thus paid should command. It is the duty of those intrusted with the management of these affairs to see that such public service is forthcoming. The selection and retention of subordinates in Government employment should depend upon their ascertained fitness and the value of their work, and they should be neither expected nor allowed to do questionable party service. The interests of the people will be better protected; the estimate of public labor and duty will be immensely improved; public employment will be open to all who can demonstrate their fitness to enter it. The unseemly scramble for place under the Government, with the consequent importunity which embitters official life, will cease, and the public departments will not be filled with those who conceive it to be their first duty to aid the party to which they owe their places instead of rendering patient and honest return to the people.

In a letter to George William Curtis, Dec. 25, 1884, Grover Cleveland (prior to his inauguration) said:

I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer, that many of our citizens fear that the recent party change in the national Executive may demonstrate that the abuses which have grown up in the civil service are ineradicable. I know that they are deeply rooted, and that the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately related to success in the maintenance of party organization, and I am not sure that all those who profess to be the friends of this reform will stand firmly among its advocates when they find it obstructing their way to patronage and place. But fully appreciating the trust committed to my charge, no such consideration shall cause a relaxation on my part of an earnest effort to enforce this law.

If I were addressing none but party friends, I should deem it entirely proper to remind them that, though the coming administration is to be Democratic, a due regard for the people's interest does not permit faithful party work to be always rewarded by appointment to office; and to say to them that while Democrats may expect all proper consideration, selections for office, not embraced within the civil-service rules, will be based upon sufficient inquiry as to fitness, instituted by those charged with that duty, rather than upon persistent importunity or self-solicited recommendations on behalf of candidates for appointment.

In his inaugural address, March 4, 1885, President Cleveland said:

partisanship had taught the American people belonged to success, and perturbed with the suspicion, always raised in such an emergency, that their rights in the conduct of this reform had not been scrupulously regarded, should receive due acknowledgment, and should confirm our belief that there is a sentiment among the people better than a desire to hold office, and a patriotic impulse upon which may safely rest the integrity of our institutions and the strength and perpetuity of our Government.

President Cleveland's first annual message, Dec. 8, 1885, also said:

I am inclined to think that there is no sentiment more general in the minds of the people of our country than a conviction of the correctness of the principle upon which the law enforcing civil-service reform is based.

Experience in its administration will probably suggest amendment of the methods of its execution, but I venture to hope that we shall never again be remitted to the system which distributes public positions purely as rewards for partisan service. Doubts may well be entertained whether our Government could survive the strain of a continuation of this system, which upon every change of administration inspires an immense army of claimants for office to lay siege to the patronage of the Government, engrossing the time of public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with the tumult of their discontent.

The allurements of an immense number of offices and places exhibited to the voters of the land, and the promise of their bestowal in recognition of partisan activity, debauch the suffrage and rob political action of its thoughtful and deliberative character. The evil would increase with the multiplication of offices consequent upon our extension, and the mania for officeholding, growing from its indulgence, would pervade our population so generally that patriotic purpose, the support of principle, the desire for the public good, and solicitude for the nation's welfare would be nearly banished from the activity of our party contests, and cause them to degenerate into ignoble, selfish, and disgraceful struggles for the possession of office and public place.

Civil-service reform enforced by law came none too soon to check the progress of demoralization.

One of its effects, not enough regarded, is the freedom it brings to the political action of those conservative and sober men who, in fear of the confusion and risk attending an arbitrary and sudden change in all the public offices with a change of party rule, cast their ballots against such a change.

It was in view, doubtless, of these distinct and unmistakable utterances favoring their The people demand reform in the administration of cause, that in an address to the National the Government and the application of business prin- Civil Service Reform League, at its annual ciples to public affairs. As a means to this end, civil-meeting in Newport, Aug. 3, 1886, George

service reform should be in good faith indorsed. Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influence of those who promise and the vicious methods of those who expect such rewards; and those who worthily seek employment have the right to insist that merit and competency shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of honest political belief.

In a letter, Sept. 11, 1885, accepting the resignation of Civil Service Commissioner Eaton, President Cleveland said:

I believe in civil-service reform and its application in the most practicable form attainable, among other reasons because it opens the door for the rich and the poor alike to a participation in public place-holding. You will agree with me, I think, that the support which has been given to the present Administration in its efforts to preserve and advance this reform by a party restored to power after an exclusion for many years from participation in the places attached to the public service, confronted with a new system precluding the redistribution of such places in its interest,

William Curtis declared that

[ocr errors]

President Cleveland is identified in the public mind with the cause of reform.

In the course of a personal interview with a representative of the Boston Herald, President Cleveland also said:

No, I have tried to be true to my own pledges and the pledges of my party. We both promised to divorce the offices of the country from being used for party service. I have held to my promise, and I mean to hold to it.

And he added:

What I understand by civil-service reform, as I am carrying it out, is, that the office-holders shall be divorced from politics while they fill their positions under this Government. That rule I have meant to stand by.

What more could President Cleveland have said that could bind him more closely to the

PART II.

President Cleveland's Civil-Service Reform Performances - Lists of Sweeping changes in Office.

In the course of a speech in the Senate, Jan. 11, 1888, Senator Hale made the following exhibit of President Cleveland's Civil Service Reform performances.

Whatever may have been the President's intention in the beginning, however honestly he may have intended to carry out his many declarations for reform, the pressure from his party has been too great; the spoilsmen have captured the Administration, and now their talk is of nothing but the renomination and

re-election of the President.

If the fond dream ever possessed the mind of the civil-service reformer that under President Cleveland the Democratic party was to be transformed into a civil-service-reform party, that reformer has seen the baseless fabric of his dream vanish in a rude awakening. I invite the attention of these gentlemen to the fol lowing table, which was carefully made up to June 11, 1887, more than six months ago, from figures furnished by the department as showing how sweeping had been the change in all of the departments of the Govern

ment up to that date:

Offices.

Places Whole filled by number Cleve- of land.

places.

2,359 52,609 33

6

[blocks in formation]

21

Consuls....

138

219

[blocks in formation]

Surveyors of customs

33

Naval officers of customs...

6

[blocks in formation]

This showing, Mr. President, is most amazing. I was not aware of the extent of the change till I looked up the figures; the country has not known or appre ciated it. Certain incidents connected with these changes are startling. It cannot be said in defence of the President, and his party that in most cases the changes were made because of the expiration of the terms of the incumbents or of their resignations. In a very great majority of all these cases, probably nineteen-twentieths of all, the civil officers removed held under no fixed tenure of office, being removable at the pleasure of the President. So far as resignations go, they have been comparatively few, and, in nine cases out of ten, have been extorted under the threat of removal.

eighty-five collectors eighty-four had been removed on In the great bureau of the internal revenue, out of June 11, and the other, I believe, has gone since. Not had expired. The same is true of that large number of officials who are employed in the Indian service as inspectors, in the Land Office, in the Pension Office, in the mints, and in the judiciary of the Territories.

one of these held under a fixed term of office which

It is true of that great army of small officials who are known as fourth-class postmasters; and this class and its treatment deserve some special comment. This class includes the postmasters in the smaller towns and villages and cross-roads throughout all the States and Territories. They represent, more than any other class, the men whose official duties bring them into They are, in most cases, poorly paid, and do their own direct relation and communication with the people. work. Scarcely one of these places can be called a sinecure, and yet such has been the greed of the local Democratic politician for some kind of office that, out of fifty-two thousand six hundred and nine places in this class, forty thousand, as near as the estimate can be made, or as the Postmaster-General, in his report, makes it, between thirty-six and thirty-seven thousand, had been removed up to the early part of last June. do not believe to-day, Mr. President, that ten thousand of the old incumbents in this class remain in office. What is more to the point, I do not believe that out of those that are left three thousand are Republicans, or that, from all those that have been newly appointed, one hundred are Republicans. The Nasbys and the Bascoms and the Gavits of the Democratic party have been put into these places by this civil-service-reform administration.

No man can say, out of this vast mass of patronage, how many local Democratic strikers, who have come to Washington seeking high places in the Government and have gradually beheld their hopes fading, have seek their application strained down from one grade to, another till at last they have rested content as a fourthclass Democratic reform postmaster in a grocery in 9 some country corner.

[ocr errors]

I commend this list to the special attention of the gentlemen of the civil-service-reform associations who still cling to the fond hope that Mr. Cleveland is a reform President. Not one of these removals could 59 have taken place if he had forbidden it. Indeed, between the adjournment of Congress and his departure for the Adirondack Mountains the President appointed two hundred and fifty-three postmasters, of whom but one was appointed to succeed himself, and ninety-one were appointed to succeed postmasters who were re. moved.

56,134

At the time to which this table comes the present Administration had been a little more than two years in power.

The best comment, Mr. President, upon this remarkable table that I can make is to quote the editorial headings of a leading Democratic newspaper, when it exultingly published this sweeping list. Here they are: "The civil service;" "Practical exclusion of Republicans from employment under the National Government;"" Only a small class of public servants protected by the Pendleton act;" "The changes effected with as little derangement of business as possible;" "Spoilsmen not satisfied."

Not "satisfied," Mr. President, till they should have secured possession of the small fraction of offices remaining in Republican hands in June last. Since that time a large portion of the places represented by this small fraction have been filled by Democrats, and I hope in a few days to have the figures which will show how almost complete and exhaustive have been the

The difference between word and deed is clearly shown in the case of Secretary Lamar, who took occasion in April last to commend John C. Calhoun for his opposition to the spoils system, and to congratulate himself upon belonging to an Administration that was engaged in carrying out the policy that Calhoun advocated.

The stern facts are, that in the service over which Mr. Lamar has presided, every Territorial governor has been removed; sixteen out of eighteen pension agents; every single surveyor-general; four-fifths of the local land officers; nine-tenths of the inspectors and special agents of the Indian service; fifty-one out of fifty-nine Indian agents; seventy-nine out of eightythree special agents of the General Land Office; and more than two-thirds of the special examiners of the Pension Office. But Secretary Lamar to-day stands on record as against the spoils system, and takes high rank as a reformer.

If I were not consuming too much time, Mr. Presi

me other Departments of the Government, not covered | by the table which I have presented, showing this conquering march of the Democratic party in pursuit of the offices.

In all the Departments in Washington are found able and honest men who have given their lives to the service of the Government. They have begun as clerks in the lower grades, and have been steadily promoted until they have at last reached the highest places to which they may reasonably aspire. They were found, when the reform Democratic administration came into power, as chief clerks and chiefs of divis. ions. They made the eyes and ears of the Departments, and, one would suppose, should be considered as almost indispensable. In the Treasury Department there are seventy-nine chief clerks and chiefs of divisions, and up to June, 1887, sixty-six of these seven ty-nine had been changed. In not more than half a dozen cases the person appointed was a promoted clerk. The introduction into this force was almost entirely from the outside. Every deputy auditor, deputy comptroller, and deputy commissioner of internal revenue has been changed. In many cases chiefs of divisions have been reduced in grade, and new men, from the outside world, of the Democratic party, have been appointed. In more than one case the head of a division has been reduced to a lower clerkship, and the Democratic politician has been appointed in his place; and the old incumbent, in his reduced grade and at his reduced pay, is performing all his old work, and the new incumbent does practically nothing. But this is civil-service reform.

Mr. President, there is but one thing about this showing that can be offensive to my friends on the other side of the Chamber whose constituents are following them in frantic pursuit for the offices. There are still here and there a few places worth the holding remaining in the hands of Republicans who, instead of "fixing conventions" and mustering the voters at the polls, are attending to the duties of their office; but these cases I must remind my friends are few and all the while becoming less and less.

My friend from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] has seen to it that out of thirty-nine Presidential post-offices in his State but one holds over. I am not sure that he, perhaps, the "late postmaster" at Somerset, has not gone. My brilliant friend from Missouri [Mr. Vest], in association with his indefatigable colleague [Mr. Cockrell], has looked to it that out of seventy-nine Presidential post-offices in his State seventy-five were changed. Either of these Senators can tell better than I whether since October 28, to which time my figures come down, either of the other four has been allowed to stay.

The Senator from Maryland [Mr. Gorman], who marshals his party in the national elections, has been a little more forbearing in his treatment of the postoffices, for, in late October, I find that four of these places remained unchanged. Possibly this may have been in view of the coming election, since when reform may have exhausted itself by completing the sweep. But he has looked more carefully after the Federal offices under the Secretary of the Treasury, as every Presidential appointment, from collectors the port down to local appraisers, has been changed with the exception of the collector of customs at Annapolis. My friend from North Carolina [Mr. Ransom], who will have all the l'residential postmasters in his State, as I hope, in his Senatorial race next year, has quietly proceeded to have every one of them changed, at which none of us, of late, have heard any grumblings from his colleague [Mr. Vance] as to the impracticable theories of the Administration.

South Carolina, out of eighteen Presidential post.

offices, had in October but one holding over, and all of the customs and internal-revenue officers in that State are new.

Louisiana has twelve Presidential post-offices, all being new appointees.

Indiana, under the charge of the eloquent Demo. cratic Senator from that State [Mr. Voorhees], has not been forgotten, and out of eighty-seven Presidential post-offices, only those at Crown Point, Goshen, and Union City remained in October unchanged.

The Florida Senators must be surprised to learn that one Republican postmaster was left at Eustis, out of seventeen Presidential post-offices. I commend this accidental escape to their immediate attention.

Presidential post-offices, a Republican postmaster still holds at Newark, is an anomalous condition yet to be explained.

In the Northern States, where there are no Democratic Senators and but few Representatives in the other branch of Congress, somebody has been equally effective in the cause of reform.

Colorado has twenty-eight Presidential post-offices, only two of which remained unchanged in October. Iowa has one hundred and twenty-four Presidential post-offices, and of these, seven remained unchanged. Kansas has one hundred and ten Presidential postoffices, and out of these the postmasters at Augusta, Cawker City, Frankfort, Hays City, Humboldt, and Lindsborg have escaped the axe.

In my own State, out of thirty Presidential postoffices, five remained unchanged at the date already given.

In Massachusetts the Democratic party has maintained an indifferent, and indeed sullen, attitude toward the Administration, because of the fact, that, out of one hundred and twenty-six Presidential post-offices, twenty-three, up to the date of the last election, remained in the hands of Republicans.

In Michigan, out of one hundred and six Presidential post-offices, fourteen remain.

In Minnesota, out of fifty-one, six remain. In Nebraska, out of seventy, six remain. In New Hampshire two Republicans, out of thirtytwo Presidential post-offices, remain as spared monuments of mercy.

In New York, out of two hundred and nineteen Presidential post-offices, forty-seven remain in Republican hands, or did previous to the last election.

This is not so bad a showing, after all, in the cause of reform; and for the further satisfaction of my friends upon the other side of the Chamber, and for the encouragement of the average Democratic politician in the country, I am glad to be able to say that the Administration has lost no vigor in this work of removal. Indeed, wherever an examination has been made, showing the rate of changes from month to month, it has been discovered, that, although the number of removals to be made is less, the percentage of change is constantly increasing.

The Civil Service Record of Boston, a good authority upon this subject, not long ago investigated the unclassified service in the Interior Department, and reports the rapidity with which the changes have been made, as follows: "On Oct. 1, 1886, the percentage of changes was 71; on Jan. 1, 1887, the percentage was 784; on July 1, 1887, the percentage was 90."

At this rate, it can be easily seen that the remaining small percentage will soon be removed. The cry of "Kill, kill," as in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, grows louder as the number of victims increases. I have said before that I did not claim that all of these changes had been by removals; but a significant fact attending the pledges and promises of this civil-service-reform Administration is, that, as the terms have expired, not one in five hundred of the old incumbents has been reappointed. It goes without saying, and nobody raises a question, that their successors will always be Democrats, notwithstanding the President has said that he will not encourage a horde of office-seekers to besiege the Departments of the Government and his door for rewards for partisan work.

[blocks in formation]

SEC. 11. That no Senator, or Representative, or

« AnteriorContinuar »