of question in finding a successor. For instance, this Administration has seen fit to remove Mr. Henry White from the position of First Secretary of Legation at London. Mr. White has held the office a long time and has filled it most faithfully and admirably. If Mr. Bayard, who has succeeded Mr. Lincoln as our Ambassador, preferred to have Mr. Roosevelt Roosevelt try his hand at the desk of the First Secretary, it was entirely right that the change should be made in the London office. But if Mr. White had been connected with the diplomatic service of any other government on earth except ours, he would have been transferred and promoted. Why should he not have been sent to Rome as Ambassador? His dismissal from the public service is a disgrace and an outrage. The emphasis has been put at the wrong place by the critics of Mr. Van Alen's appointment. It is in the exercise of the removing power, rather than in that of the appointing power, that the offense chiefly lies. In the removal of Henry White, the Administration virtually serves notice on every young American of talent, industry and ambition, to the effect that trained ability is not wanted in our diplomatic service, and that the idea of finding a career in this branch of public employment is not to be entertained for an instant. Nothing would be easier, with the men Need of an Expert now available, than the speedy developService. ment of an American consular and diplomatic service, wholly removed from politics and personal favoritism, that would be at once a source of credit and of great benefit to the country. There is so much of importance for our consuls, especially, to do at the principal foreign posts, that it is nothing less than a fraud upon our commercial interests and our whole people for the recurring administrations at Washington to use these places as personal and party spoils. If the people really understood the enormity of this wrong they would not endure it. President Cleveland's course, it should be said, in dealing with the foreign service, is not essentially worse than that of President Harrison. Neither of these Presidents has had any personal liking for the spoils system. It is fair to assert that both of them would have been delighted to let the diplomatic and consular service alone, making changes only for good reasons. But they were not able to resist the office-seeking pressure, and the foreign posts afford a comparatively easy opportunity to reward friends and satisfy the imperious demands of party henchmen. The writer made the round of various European and Asiatic consulates at the time when in 1889 Mr. Harrison and Mr. Blaine were "cutting off the heads" of the Democratic incumbents who had succeeded the men that Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Bayard decapitated in 1885. It happens that again in 1893 he visited a number of European consulates and witnessed the effects of another "clean sweep." Almost invariably he found that four years of service had given an official enough training to make him useful. Many of the consuls rudely displaced by Mr. Harrison were rendering splendid service, were absolutely free from any display of "offensive partisanship," and ought by every rule of good business sense, of fair play and of public and private morality, to have been retained. To some of them the recall was a pathetic hardship. The situation was not different in the year just ended. Many difficult investigations had been committed to our consuls, having to do with trade and commerce, with agriculture, with public improvements, with municipal government, with emigration, with pauperism, with the public health, and with various other topics. A fine morale had been developed, for the most part, and the service had begun in the last year of the Harrison Administration to show signs of a commendable average efficiency. But a majority of the voters of the United States were opposed to the McKinley tariff; and therefore hundreds of our agents in all foreign countries must be discharged, and the whole service must be reduced to the kindergarten stage once more, to the serious detriment of every permanent interest that is served by a regular, experienced body of foreign representatives. It is a state of affairs that calls for righteous wrath. It would not appear advisable to put the diplomatic and consular service upon the same basis as the army and navy; but there ought to be promotions within the ranks, and every presumption ought to be against the dismissal of a distinctly valuable officer who wishes to remain in the service. Civil Service Reform, Its Progress. The report of the Civil Service Commission shows that in some respects, at least, the country is making progress in the direction of a businesslike management of its affairs. Under the last Administration, the railway mail clerks were exempted from the domain of the spoilsman's axe. All vacancies must now be filled on the examination and merit system. Moreover, this system has been extended throughout the free delivery post-offices of the country. Heretofore it applied only to those offices which employed as many as fifty clerks. There is a crying need for its application in several other departments. For example, we have within a few days received a letter from the Superintendent of an Indian Training School in the far West, informing us of his discharge to make place for a man from the Southeastern State of————. The discharged official was a successful and honored city Superintendent of Schools in the West before he accepted the charge of an Indian school. His qualifications were admirable. He was in no sense a politician, but was a practical educator. He is thrown out of employment at a time of the year when an educational man cannot hope to obtain a position; and the sole reason would seem to be that the Hon. Hoke Smith, Secretary of the Interior, wishes to find a job for a friend of his, or for a friend's friend. It would be far better,-if the Secretary's friends have to be cared for at public expense,-to make several hundreds of nominal offices, to be entitled, for example, Commissionerships to the Planets and Other Heavenly Bodies, allowing each Cabinet Administrators. The Civil Service The Civil Service act, which brings Act and Its under the merit system some ten thousand clerks in public offices at Washington and also protects the employees of the principal post-offices and custom houses of the country, was adopted by Congress soon after the spoils system had, indirectly, led to the assassination of President Garfield. It ought by this time to have been extended, by successive amendments, to the protection of scores of thousands of public servants whose places are still at the mercy of the spoilsmen. But at least its worth is now fully realized, its experimental stages have been outlived, and it has given birth to a reform system that will grow in spite of all opposition. Its administration is in the hands of a commission of three members representing both great parties. Messrs. Lyman and Theodore Roosevelt continue to hold their positions. They have served for years with eminent fairness, and with zeal for a public service conducted on business principles, rather than with party bias. Until very recently Mr. Geo. D. Johnston has been associated with them, but his views have been different enough to interfere with harmonious action, and President Cleveland has now appointed in his place Mr. John R. Proctor, of Kentucky. This gentleman was formerly State Geologist, and his record shows him to be sufficiently free from the spoils view of public office to make an impartial commissioner, while having the requisite force and firmness. The commission as at present constituted deserves the respect and confidence of the country. Mr. Lyman may be said to be a specialist in the organization and working of a merit system of appointment to office, rather than a representative of any political body, while Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Proctor respectively belong to the best element of the Republican and Democratic parties. A New Abolition Movement. The moment is auspicious for a people's uprising to secure the total abolition of the spoils system. Every man in the country, rich or poor, is to some extent defrauded and swindled by the system which uses public offices, whether local or national, as rewards for party services and as spoils to be distributed by professional politicians. The spoils system is no necessary appendage of strong party organization or of effective political activity. Political life is just as intense in England, France, and other countries as in the United States, but the success of one party or the other in those countries does not involve any change in the office-holding ranks. In order to consolidate American sentiment in favor of this righteous cause, there is just now forming a new National League for the complete abolition of the spoils system. The following is a reduced fac-simile of the card issued by the new organization : THE ANTI-SPOILS LEAGUE. CARL SCHURZ, President WILLIAM POTTS, Secretary. SILAS W. BURT, Treasurer OFFICE, 54 WILLIAM ST., NEW YORK, We hereby declare ourselves in favor of the complete abolition of the Spoils System from the public service,-believing that system to be unjust, undemocratic, injurious to political parties, fruitful of corruption, a burden to legislative and executive officers, and in every way opposed to the principles of good government. We call upon all in authority to extend to the utmost the operation of the present reform laws; and by additional legislation, to carry the benefits of the Merit System to the farthest possible limits under our national, state, and municipal governments. City, there has gone quietly forward an educational reform destined, in all probability, to effect more for the future well-being of the metropolis than any other social agency whatsoever. We refer to the movement for the establishment of free kindergartens. The president of the New York Kindergarten Association is Mr. Richard Watson Gilder. In his recent address at the annual meeting of the society he made the following statement: "The association has had four years of active existence. In the report of 1891 two kindergartens are recorded as under its charge: in 1892, three; in the report for 1893, eleven; and now there are fourteen in all; while the Board of Education of the city of New York, acting in sympathy with our movement, has incorporated the kindergarten into the system of municipal instruction." The real object, as Mr. Gilder has more than once explained, of the New York Kindergarten Association has been to show concretely that the kindergarten should become an inherent and universal part of the public school system not only of New York but of every other city and town in the country. In 1892 the New York School Board, by a vote of eighteen to one, decided to make a beginning with the kindergarten system, and thus far the kindergartens have been established in seven of the city's schools. President Sanger states that an increased appropriation may be confidently expected for next year, so that at its close there will be in successful operation free kindergartens in fifteen of the primary schools. This is a very small number, but it means unquestionably that New York is now committed to the system and will rapidly extend it in the future. There have been and are, it is needless to say, many excellent kindergarten classes under the auspices of churches and charitable organizations in addition to those provided by the New York Kindergarten Association and the public schools. The founder of this association was Mr. Daniel S. Remsen, whose unremitting and unselfish efforts in behalf of the work are worthy of the highest praise, and who holds the office of corresponding secretary. Mr. Gilder has for several years served with enthusiasm and energy as president of the society, and Mrs. Grover Cleveland, Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin, and Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie are vicepresidents. The board of managers and the various committees are composed of ladies and gentlemen to whom also much credit is due. Other cities began earlier than New York to create a widespread public sentiment in favor of kindergartens for the children of the people; but it is gratifying to note that New York is likely a few years hence to have removed much of the reproach under which it has heretofore stood for its neglect of the little ones. cially the kindergarten system has been very generally adopted. For instance, the city of Toronto has a kindergarten department in every one of its thirty or forty public school buildings, and the system is well supervised and firmly planted in that enterprising community. Hamilton, also, is especially entitled to feel pride in the thoroughness with which the kindergarten has been established throughout its public schools. It has some seventeen kindergarten classes, and one-tenth of the total membership of the public school system is found in the kindergarten grade. The town of London has eight kindergartens connected with its public schools, and proposes to extend the system still further. We have received a MR. DANIEL S. REMSEN, very satisfactory account of the system in that community. The kindergarten department of the public schools of Ottawa is of comparatively recent establishment, but there are now five kindergartens under the care of the public school board, and the system will doubtless have very early extension. It should be remembered that these Canadian towns are neither large nor rich when compared with a long list of American places. In many things the municipalities of Ontario are decidedly in advance of those of the United States; and the same observation would apply to a number of Canadian towns in other provinces. Tammany Hall as the persistent and terrific onslaughts of the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, who, in his capacity as President of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, has undertaken to demonstrate and to break up the long-existing system of paid police protection, under which all kinds of vice, disorder and criminal immorality have abnormally flourished in New York. No one can predict what permanent gains for private morality may result from Dr. Parkhurst's crusade" against the Tammany police organization; but almost every thoughtful citizen has reached the conclusion that the shaking-up can but contribute handsomely to the causes of good government and public decency. Such sustained energy, such high courage, and, upon the whole, such discretion and tact as Dr. Parkhurst has shown, are not MAYOR SCHIEREN, OF BROOKLYN. The Brooklyn winning universal commendation,-among all whose good opinion is worth having,-by disregarding politics altogether in his appointments. charter makes the Mayor an autocrat. He chooses the heads of the principal executive departments; and, accordingly as he chooses well or badly, the city of Brooklyn will have good or bad government. When the Hon. Seth Low, now president of Columbia College, was Mayor, Brooklyn enjoyed a model government. Under Mr. Boody, the retiring Mayor, it has been shamefully misgoverned. For the period of Mayor Schieren's term it is to have a good administration, because the responsible heads of departments are known to be high-minded, public-spirited citizens, and as capable as they are well disposed. The people of Brooklyn arose in their might and defeated a corrupt ring of local bosses. The citizens of New York may now have the instructive object lesson, near at hand, of a great city administered on civil-service-reform principles. New York City In New York City, although it was not and the year for electing a Mayor, there were Its Politics. issues at the polls that presented some significant tests; and the evidences of reaction against Tammany Hall and of an awakening in favor of good government are very gratifying. The City Club, with its affiliated Good Government clubs, is showing itself to be a permanent centre of municipal reform influence and activity that can but avail very much in the end. Its members belong to all parties, but are pledged to the non-partisan principle in municipal affairs. Its secretary and energizing spirit is Mr. Edmond Kelly, and its president is the distinguished lawyer, Mr. James C. Carter. Probably nothing else of late has done so much to create a sentiment against From a copyrighted photograph by Sarony. REV. DR. CHARLES H. PARKHURST. often witnessed. His task has required the greater faith and courage because so very many of the best people have all along been too doubtful both as to his plan of operations and as to any valuable results to accrue, to lend even their unqualified encouragement. Dr. Parkhurst's agitation has convinced New York City that vice is regularly protected by Tammany and the police, for a large share in the profits. To have aroused public opinion in this fashion is a great achievement. There remains a great work to be done along other lines; but it now seems clear that this preliminary upheaval was necessary. Utah's One of the most noteworthy events of Approaching December was the passage through the Statehood. House of Representatives, without a single dissenting vote, of the bill for the admission of the territory of Utah as a State. Utah had long ago reached the point in population and wealth which has generally been regarded as sufficient to entitle a territory to full-fledged membership in the Union. But Mormonism and its objectionable peculiarities have heretofore been regarded as so serious a disqualification that Utah's demand for admission has never been strongly supported in Congress. At length it is conceded on all hands that Mormon polygamy is a thing of the past, dead and buried beyond all danger of resurrection. It is also better understood now than it has been heretofore, that the Mormon population as a whole is made up of honest and thrifty people, before whom as American citizens there lies a worthy and an important future. It happens that both of the great political parties have strong hopes of being able to secure ascendency in the new State. In view of the unanimous action of the House it is safe to predict that neither the President nor the Senate will offer any serious obstacle to Utah's early achievement of Statehood. The fact that two United States Senators from Utah are to be expected in the early future gives interest to the statement that the Mormons as a class are very conservative on the financial question, and that they have always been disposed to favor the doctrine of a protective tariff. As to the proposals to admit New Mexico and Arizona also at this time, the argument is not so convincing. New Mexico has a larger population than many existing States had at the time of their admission, but its people are largely of Mexican origin, unacquainted with the English language and unfit as yet for the intelligent, exercise of the duties of American citizenship. It would seem, moreover, that Arizona is hardly mature enough to justify admission. in Brazil. The reason why the news concerning the The Struggle so-called revolutionary war in Brazil is so vague and unsatisfactory can now be better explained than it could a few weeks ago. The simple fact is that the indefinite reports grow out of a wholly indefinite condition. Bishop Peterkin, of the Episcopal church, who has just returned from a tour of missionary inspection in Brazil, gives us a very considerable access of light upon the situation, when he asserts that there was absolutely no public sentiment one way or the other among the citizens of Rio Janeiro. There appeared to him to be a general understanding that the city was not to be bombarded or seriously molested. The contest lay chiefly between the army on the one hand and the navy on the other. The expulsion of the old emperor Dom Pedro and the overthrow of the monarchy was effected by the leaders of the army. Bishop Peterkin states as a significant fact that to-day twenty of the twenty-one governorships of the States which compose the federal republic of Brazil are held by officers of the regular Brazilian army. Nominally the people of the provinces elect their own governors freely. But as a matter of actual fact, the federal army exercises so undue an influence as to succeed, against the probable wishes of the people, in keeping in its own hands the administration of all the constituent States of Brazil. Peixoto, the President, it should be remembered, is himself a leading general of the Brazilian army. The whole country, therefore, has since the expulsion of the Emperor been taken possession of by the military. The long-standing revolution in the great Southern State of Rio Grande do Sul is said to be due chiefly to the fact that the people arose in organized revolt against a military governor, while Peixoto and the federal forces insisted upon sustaining that military executive in the exercise of authority over the province. |