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Conservative *
men with whom the average member
spends his time and with whom he con
sults as to the state of ( lie country.
Is it any wonder , then , that he easily
comes to believe that ho hears the awful
voice of the people , when , in fact , it is
only the clamor of the "workers , " who
are always the c.r v , too ?
The Cincinnati Commercial estimates
this class as 1,000,000 , all of whom want
the law repealed , as against (59,000,000 (
of citizens who demand that it bo re
tained and enforced.
I am not responsible for the figures ,
but they are near enough for practical
purposes.
It is fifteen years since the people were
heard at the general elections upon this
subject , and since the congress described
by Mr. Curtis , which had adjourned in
August laughing and sneering at reform ,
heard the thunder of the elections , and
fairly tumbled over itself to vote for the
Pcndleton bill the following December
or January.
Probably the preent congress is not
so different from its predecessor , except
that one was repentant.
The story of these fifteen years , with
their marvelous extension of the merit
system , constitutes one of the most not
able chapters in our history. Civil ser
vice reformers are apt to become impa
tient with the tardiness of its advance.
They arc prone to exaggerate the ob
structive and destructive force of the
influences that oppose its rapid and com
plete supremacy. They sometimes for
get how long the spoils method flour
ished , and what a natural outgrowth it
was in our democratic system of govern
ment ; and in their impatience to pluck
( l
it tip by the roots , and sow the place
where it stood with salt , they forget
that it is sometimes wise to make haste
slowly , that this reform cannot move
successfully any faster than the people.
But , as one of those who have been its
friends from the beginning , I have to
acknowledge that it seems to me as if
the progress this reform which has no
purse to award and no offices to distri
bute has made among the people of the
l United States and in its official service
1Il is simply marvelous.
> * l It is this progress that alarms the poli
ticians and officeseekers. So long as
the classified service did not embrace
any very large proportion of the desir
able places , so long , too , as the law was
inadequately enforced and might , with
the aid of official cowardice and fraud ,
bo evaded or circumvented , at least a
tolerably decent deference to party
pledges and platforms was maintained ;
but , as it has gradually become appar
ent that it is true , as Mr. Jenckcs said
thirty years ago , that this system call
it the merit system , the business system ,
the anti-spoils system , or what you may
will work an entire change iu the ap
pointment to and tenure of office of the
subordinate civil-service of the govern
ment , the significance of the situation
has dawned upon them.
This is the reason of the present dis
turbance in congress , not that the law
does not prove a success , but just be
cause it does prove a success , not that
the people do not approve of it for , if
ever a law was the people's law , this is
such a one but because it restores to
the people their own offices not demo
cratic nor republican offices , but the
people's offices which they have
created for the transaction of the busi
ness of all the people , and which all the
people pay for.
I am not only surprised at the great
progress made by the reform system
during those fifteen years , but I am also
impressed with the wisdom of the men
to whom the responsibility of ina\igur-
ating the now system was intrusted.
In the first classification of places ,
covering the period from 1883 to 1885 ,
only 18,924 were included , simply be
cause they deemed it prudent to pro
ceed with care , and not in any sense for
the pxirpose of limiting the scope of the
law , which by its terms was applicable
to all subordinate places , clerks , and offi
ces in the departments. Mr. Cleveland
in his first term added 1,989 to this clas
sified service , exclusive of the places in
the railway mail service. Yon will re
member that Mr. Cleveland's classifica
tion of that service , made shortly before
his term expired , was suspended by his
successor until May 1 , 1889. During
Mr. Cleveland's second term he classi
fied 86,705 places , not counting 5,216
navy yard employees , who had been
practically classified through the action
of the secretary of the navy in Mr. Har
rison's term. Mr. Cleveland also clas
sified 10,752 places that had always been
regarded as non-political ; that is to say ,
as places which might not properly be
interfered with upon change of admin
istration , and , therefore , as not belong
ing to the spoils-hunters.
These figures I obtain from the testi
mony of Mr. Commissioner Procter ,
lately given before a senate committee ;
and they may bo summarized as follows :
Classified under republican adniinist ra
tions itt,087
Under democratic administrations Ji7,892
Non-political places . 10,752
71,041
By natural growth the classified ser
vice had taken on from 1883 to March
1,1807. . . . . . 15,407
Places , nialdnt , ' the present classified
service , with perhaps Homo slight
modifications since Mr. McKinley'.s
term begun , a grand total of . 87,108
It will be seen from this resume , as
suming that nil the political places clas
sified by the different presidents were
in fact filled at the time of their classi
fication by officials of their own parties
which , of course , wo all know is not
the fact that under republican admin
istrations 82,987 places filled by re
publicans , and under democratic ad
ministration 27,892 places filled by dem
ocrats , have been brought under the
protection of the merit system.
Will any fair-minded republican com
plain of any such result as this 1
And yet nothing can bo clearer than
that the assault iu congress upon this
law has its solo origin in the extension
of the classified service by Mr. Cleve
land during the last year of his official
term.
There is no time in which to enter
upon any detailed consideration of the
arguments presented by the assailants.
They have been abundantly and con
clusively answered by Mr. Brosius , the
very able chairman of the house com
mittee on civil service reform , by Mr.
Johnson of Indiana , by the members
from Massachusetts , and by representa
tives from other states.
Nor can I at all debate the question
whether there may not have been in
cluded in Mr. Cleveland's last extensions
some places that were better excluded.
These are questions of detail questions
of administration , proper to be dealt
with by the executive , and which are
not within the functions of a legisla
tive body.
But , if this debate in congress shall
once and for all dispose of the bugbear
of life tenure and a privileged class and
a civil-service pension , as it is likely to ,
it will not have been in vain.
Gentlemen , I have already spoken so
long that I cannot enter upon the largo
subject of the civil service reform in
the cities and states of this great coun
try.
try.The
The federal government touches the
citizen much less closely iu its official
service than the state and municipal
governments. We feel the former
chiefly when the carrier hands na our
mail. We do not notice where the taxes
come in , because of the indirection of
their levy. But the state and city al
ways have their hands upon us in the
streets , in the schools , in the institutions
of charity , in the courts , everywhere ;
and if the merit system bo a good tiling ,
and the spoils system a corrupting and
offensive thing in the federal offices , it
is equally so in the offices of the city
and the state.
Therefore , if the civil service reform ,
which the spoils orators iu the fifty-fifth
congress pretend to believe was intended
to set apart only a little cluster of places
in the federal departments , and was
never expected to go any farther , be , as
we believe , essential to the well-being
of the republic , it must be essential also
to that of the state and the municipal
ity. In fact , the different jurisdictions
cannot be separated in the consideration
of this subject. When Mr. Jeuckes
brought it first before congress , ho
inaugurated a revolution as far-reaching
as the entire subordinate civil service ,
federal , state and municipal. The prin
ciple involved is one that sooner or
