The

There is no necessity whatever for exaggeration. abuses of various descriptions which have made so painful an impression on the public during the later years of our history are fresh in memory: the whiskey frauds, the New York Custom House frauds, the Sanborn contracts, the Indian bureau corruption, the Star route frauds, — all of which have been directly connected with the civil service. It is not, it is true, “the worst on the globe;" for those of Russia and Turkey are, doubtless, capable of surpassing it in these abuses. Nor does it mend matters much to claim, as has been done, with a show of truth, that it is, "for the most part, a bad system in good hands." (Boston Saturday Evening Gazette.) As has been abundantly shown, there is nothing to guarantee its being confined to "good hands."

Nor is it absolutely necessary to look for the immediate and sudden ruin of the country. To quote once more Sir Arthur Helps,2 ,2" When a state has attained a certain amount of force and prosperity," "it takes a long time to break it down. You may heap muddlement upon muddlement, and with a free people, though much mischief is done and much good prevented, still they work on steadily, each an in his private capacity doing something to retrieve the effects of bad or of indolent government."

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"3

Would any lover of his country, however," to quote his next remark, "wish for such a state of things to continue indefinitely," and wish to "leave things alone"?

Not so thought General Garfield, and if any American public man was entitled to be called preeminently a constructive statesman, our late president was. "To reform this service," he wrote, 66 'is one of the highest and most imperative duties of statesmanship."4

1 The writer in the Contemporary Review, already quoted, alludes (Oct. 1881, p. 645), though with evident gratification and surprise, to "the splendid work which has been done in many public departments, both state and national, in America."

2 It is somewhat amusing to notice that certain opponents of civil-service reform in this country have delighted in quoting Sir Arthur Helps as an authority. (See the point cited by Mr. B. F. Butler, when a member of congress from Massachusetts, Congressional Globe, April 19, 1872, p. 2582.) But Sir Arthur's works, if searched, will show that he had an unmistakable sympathy with efforts to improve govern ment administration; and believed that, "if public business is for the future to be better conducted than it is now, the public offices must be intellectually strengthened." -"Friends in council," 2d series, v. 2, p. 159.

8" Friends in council," 2d series, v. 2, p. 15S. 4 Atlantic Monthly, July, 1877, v. 40, p. 61.

CHAPTER VIII.

IT IS NOT OPPOSED TO PUBLIC SENTIMENT.

On the contrary, it is strongly favored by public sentiment. But, it may be demanded, how do we know that? We know that in a certain year public sentiment was in favor of the Whig party, because that party received a vote of 1,275,017; while its antagonist received only 1,128,702. But has any general vote ever been taken to show the strength of the civil-service reform sentiment? Assuredly not; and yet any one who has carefully observed its manifestation will, we think, admit the statement.

Nor is this a fact of slight moment. It is of all-pervading importance. The question as to what the people themselves think and believe is ultimately the significant one. It is this which the English writer last quoted had in mind in his reference to 66 a free people" retrieving the effects of bad government. If it be the case in Great Britain, much more is it in this country, whose government springs directly from the people; and we shall find that in the discussion of the subject during the past few years this phase of it has been frequently uppermost. Senator Dawes, in his letter of July 21, 1881, to the Springfield Republican, expresses himself to the effect that, while the president and congress are undeniably responsible for the reform, yet its speedy accomplishment, or its hindrance, depends on the people themselves, who have it in their power to delay it indefinitely by their pressure for office. Of this attitude of Mr. Dawes, the Springfield

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1 In the course of the hearing before the Pendleton committee, in February, he also said: "I think that for years past, and for years to come, the members of congress have been, and will be, between the upper and the nether millstone." On the one side is the executive, who makes those appointments, and on the other the "people, who have been viciously educated by all parties" "for the last forty years. They have come to believe that this is the way to live; the administration at the other end of the capital conforms to that view, and the members of congress are in the middle." "We cannot get legislation and make it permanent, unless our constituents behind us will support us in it." "We can never make any better laws than in the long run the public behind us sustain." — (Report of Pendleton committee, p. 42.)

Republican remarks: "His disposition to hold the people to their full share of responsibility for a manifest evil is aggressive, but not unhealthy." An ably edited New England daily (the Providence Journal) has returned to this phase of the subject again and again. In its forcible way it remarks:

"The reform needed is a reform of public opinion. No law will be of the slightest effect in the long run, so long as the education of the people is that everybody is fit for every office; and that, if it can be got, the means by which it is obtained do not much matter. Our children have been taught that political office is the symbol and guarantee of public esteem and personal power; and they have seen that out West' mighty mean men have been elected justices of the peace. Why should not everybody go in for the spoils?

Mr. Chace, recently elected to the House of Representatives, from Rhode Island, suggests:

"Let us remember that the rulers of the people are what the people make them. No fountain rises higher than its source. If the people are honest, intelligent, and determined to preserve their own rights and maintain the government in its purity, then they will have honest and intelligent servants."

"That civil-service reform must come in this country is inevitable. That it will come if it is left to the people who dispense the offices it seems to me is very uncertain. The movement must arise with the people."

There is food for reflection in these statements, founded, as 'they are, on universally acknowledged truths.

But they gather fresh significance, considered in connection with the sentiment which has been manifesting itself. It has not always been so. A dozen years ago, to quote from Mr. Curtis's Saratoga address, “To the country, reform was a proposition to reform evils of administration, of which it knew little, and which at most seemed to it petty and impertinent in the midst of great affairs." And if we seck for the reasons underlying the growth of this sentiment, we shall find fresh evidence of the natural and healthy process by which, with very little artificial shaping, it has thus developed itself. Without much doubt the first advance was made when the actual evidence of its practical operation was furnished. The administrations of Secretary Schurz in the Interior Department, and Collector Merritt and Postmaster James at New York, bore stronger testimony than any words,

to the fact that it was possible, practical, and business-like. And the spontaneous recognition of their services by the business community, chambers of commerce, etc., has been dwelt upon elsewhere in this discussion.1 Another advance in public sentiment was connected with the accession of General Garfield to the presidency. It was felt to be significant that a public man who had so conspicuously identified himself with advocating this reform should be placed in the executive chair. It is moreover true that many citizens expected to see him consummate the reform single-handed, and the fact that he, exceptionally equipped for this as he was, was seen not to be able to withstand the pressure, and to be appealing to congress for specific legislation, was a striking lesson as to the necessity of legislation. It will be seen, in fact, that these successive stages of the reform constituted in themselves an education of the public mind.

That the fearful tragedy by which the country was cruelly robbed of President Garfield's precious life and inestimable services has a significant bearing upon the matter, none can doubt. To state with perfect accuracy what its significance is, and to indicate its full extent and comprehensiveness, is a question of much gravity and practical difficulty. We are yet too near the terrible event to judge it without heat. This much, however, is plain, that (to use the language of the Boston Transcript), "this sad event which has befallen the nation, and under the shadow of which it still rests, has directed public attention to civil-service reform as it never was before" directed. Public opinion had been accumulating in volume and in definiteness for the past few years, but the impetus given by this shock was remarkable. To quote Mr. Curtis once more:

"Like the slight sound amid the frozen silence of the Alps that loosens and brings down the avalanche, the solitary pistol shot of the 2d of July has suddenly startled this vast accumulation of public opinion into conviction, and on every side thunder the rush and roar of its overwhelming descent, which will sweep away the host of evils bred of this monstrous abuse. This is an extraordinary change for twelve years; but it shows the vigorous political health, the alert common-sense, and the essential patriotism of the country, which are the earnest of the success of any wise reform."

1 See Chapter 4.

Of the sentiment now existing there are numerous manifestations. Even a casual examination of the daily and weekly press, during the past few years (and particularly the past few months), reveals it. The matter has, within these years, also developed a literature of its own, of less ephemeral nature than the newspaper.1 It has become a subject of earnest and determined discussion in our colleges.2 The voice of the business community has been expressed through the resolutions and addresses of chambers of commerce and boards of trade. With remarkable unanimity the pulpit has expressed it." Congressmen have put themselves on record in the matter, in reported conversations or in letters to the press. Local and state political organizations, in their annual conventions, have voiced the convictions of the party. The national political conventions, in their utterances during the past ten years, have shown an increasing definiteness and emphasis scarcely exceeded by the presidents' messages of the same period, and individual voters of the country, gathered in the "civil-service reform associations," which are now springing up all over the country, have served to crystallize and render more effective the reform sentiment.5

Let us glance for a moment in detail at the gradual rise,

1 See the writer's pamphlet, "The literature of civil-service reform in the United States" (1881).

2 In order more effectually to encourage and to develope this, two prizes, one of $100 and the other of $50, have been offered by the Boston Civil-Service Reform Association, for the best essays on the subject presented by college students. - See Civil Service Record, No. 2, June 18, 1881.

3 At the seventh church congress in the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States, held at Providence, Oct. 25-28, 1881, the subject of civil-service reform was discussed with great vigor. (See Providence Journal, Oct. 26, 1881.)

4 See The Civil Service Record for some of these miscellaneous expressions of sentiment.

5 The most fully organized of these associations are those in New York and Brooklyn, and those in Boston and Cambridge. Their close proximity renders it practicable for the two former to combine with each other, and the two latter to combine with each other, in the issue of publications, the holding of public meetings, the conducting of correspondence, etc.

The publications of the New York Association are:

I.

"Purposes of the Civil-Service Reform Association."

II. "The beginning of the spoils system in the national government, 1829-30." "The spoils system and civil-service reform in the custom-house and postoffice at New York," by Dorman B. Eaton.

III.

The Boston and Cambridge Associations publish The Civil-Service Record, a periodical of which six numbers have appeared.

The Providence Association ("Young Men's Political Club") has published the pamphlet already alluded to, "The literature of civil-service reform in the United States," by W. E. Foster.