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given it by Mr. Eaton, who certainly has not had inferior opportunities for observing the practical workings of such a provision, is thus stated: The true rule is to fix the term of office with stern and sole reference to the most beneficial doing of the public work."1 In another discussion of the subject, the same writer says: Morally and legally there is now no right to remove without good cause." There is also now a plain duty to remove for good cause." Should the proposed legislation make any specific provision, it would either establish a life tenure or one lasting for a specified number of years. The former is objectionable as leaving the government powerless to remove abuses if they originate, and the latter as directly stimulating rotation in office, on the theory elsewhere examined,3 of giving every citizen a chance to hold office. This is strikingly characterized by Mr. Eaton1 as 66 a change for the sake of a change, a theory that could not bring about the justice to which it appeals, even if official tenure was for only a single day."

Mr. Charles Gibbons, in a paper read before the Church Congress, at Providence, R.I., Oct. 25, 1881, touched upon a kindred difficulty:

"The merit system alone cannot bring that relief to members of congress and the president which is so necessary to the public welfare. There seems to stand in the way of that an act of congress passed in 1820, which limits the term of certain offices to four years. Officers now commissioned for four years only are judges of territorial courts, assistant treasurers, principal officers of customs and internal revenue, governors and secretaries of territories, land officers, Indian agents, pension agents, postmasters of the first, second, and third classes, district attorneys and marshals, numbering, perhaps, many thousands.

"So long as this act of 1820 and others like it remain upon the statute book, so long must the president and members of congress be harassed by hordes of their political partisans, demanding positions which the laws open for them, and which they know may be filled by new appointments if the president chooses to make them. If the law operated as a restraint upon the power of removal, there might be some value in it; but it does not. It cannot; because the power is the gift of the constitution, and cannot be taken away by an act of congress. Mr. Webster said of it, 'The law itself vacates the office, and gives the means of rewarding a friend without the exercise of 1 North American Review, June, 1SS1, v. 132, p. 558.

2 Lippincott's, v. 27, p. 584.

3 See p. 6.

4" Civil service in Great Britain," p. 295.

the power of removal at all. Here is increased power with diminished responsibility. Here is a still greater dependence for the means of living, on executive favor, and, of course, a new dominion acquired over opinion and over conduct.'' It was admitted in the debate that

the law had wrought more harm than good, and the senate by a vote of 31 to 16 passed a bill for its repeal. It was at the close of the session, and the bill never reached the other house."

Most persons, we believe, who have followed Mr. Eaton's line of thought, will admit with him (1) that indiscriminate and partisan removals are an evil of such magnitude as to require the interposition of some guard; (2) that the removal, together with the appointment, is most wisely ordered by freeing it from all connection with personal favoritism by the employment of the competitive examinations, and from all connection with party considerations by the 6th rule, above quoted; (3) that an administration of the office on business principles implies and comprehends all the other considerations which require to be observed.

2

In thus stating the provisions of this bill, and representing the present phase of opinion on the subject, let us not be understood as insisting on this or that system as alone entitled to be called "civil-service reform," any variation from which is to be treated as heresy. Such a narrow and unscientific view is unfitting the discussion of any political principle, least of all of one which is so essentially grounded on reasonableness and fitness. That extensive difference of opinion exists as to more than one of the provisions of this bill is to be expected, and it would be strange, indeed, were the case otherwise. Yet, in answer to the objection of indefiniteness which may be brought against the reform, its framers, we believe, are justified in adducing this much in favor of this specific bill: First, it represents more than any other the result of experience in practical administration, it being, as has already been shown, simply the embodiment of the actual experience at the New York offices and the Washington departments," in legal form. Second, it, more than any other, represents the careful study of the most efficient methods of legislative enactment, with a view to ascertaining what the relation of any proposed legislation should be to acts already in force

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1 Speech on the appointing power, Feb. 16, 1835, in his "Works," v. 4, p. 182. 2 See p. 30.

3 See p. 2S.

and to the administrative details. Third, no other has received so wide-spread formal endorsement and recognition from the public at large, from the press, and from the various civil-service reform organizations of the country. The sentiment, not only of the press, but of the public, is well expressed by the New York Evening Post, as follows:

"Among those who have made the condition and need of the civil service a subject of earnest study there is scarcely any difference of opinion as to the desirableness of the passage of such a law."

1 The latter have in most instances passed formal votes of approval, as separate organizations; but besides this, at the Conference of the civil-service reform associations of the United States," held at Newport, R.I., Aug. 11, 1881, it was unanimously

"Resolved, That the bill introduced in the senate by Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, provides a constitutional, practicable, and effective measure for the remedy of the abuse known as the spoils system, and that the associations represented in this conference will use every honorable means, in the press, on the platform, and by petition, to secure its passage by congress."

2 Aug. 12, ISSI.

CHAPTER VI.

IT IS NOT UNNECESSARY.

If

Ir being the case, as has just been stated, that a desirable and practicable system "has been and is now in actual operation," the question is a natural one, Why is any legis lation needed? Is not the reform movement unnecessary? It is needless to say that this is a consideration of the highest importance; since one of the obstacles to progress in any country is unnecessary legislation. But let us see. no legislation be needed, one of two things is true. Either the executive alone is sufficient for the establishment and perpetuation of the reform, or the legislative department alone. What do we find with regard to the executive? Under President Grant an attempt at reform was made. "The adverse pressure," says Mr. Curtis, was tremendous. "I am used to pressure," said the soldier. So he was, but not to this pressure. In a message dated Dec. 19, 1871, he says, "I ask for all the strength which congress can give me to enable me to carry out the reforms in the civil service." (Macpherson's "Hand-book," 1872, p. 31.) - And President Grant's testimony, in his message of Dec. 7, 1874, is noteworthy and significant: "If congress adjourns without positive legislation on the subject of civil-service reform, I will regard such action as a disapproval of the system, and will abandon it." — (Macpherson's (Macpherson's "Hand-book," 1876, p. 54-)

President Hayes came to the presidential chair with the undoubted advantage of having placed himself on record in his letter of acceptance (See Macpherson's "Hand-book," 1876, p. 212) -with unusual directness and emphasis, declaring that the reform should be thorough, radical, and complete." Under his administration genuine advance was made, for which the country is sincerely grateful; yet we find him, in his third annual message, Dec. 1, 1879, speaking (Mac

pherson's "Hand-book," 1880, p. 9) of the "many embarrassments " under which the reform had been conducted.

President Garfield, in the course of a public life devoted to the careful study of the theory and practice of government, and after having declared that "To reform this service is one of the highest and most imperative duties of statesmanship"-(Atlantic Monthly, July, 1877, v. 40, p. 61) — asked, in that part of his letter of acceptance touching the civil service, that “ congress should devise a method that will greatly reduce the uncertainty which makes that service so unsatisfactory."- (Macpherson's "Hand-book," 1880, p. 193.) — And is not the brief four months' experience which this perhaps best equipped of all our presidents had with the office-seeking torrent which discharged itself upon him, in itself the most significant commentary on the powerlessness of the executive to accomplish the reform singlehanded?2 And, though the appointment of government officers is the constitutional duty of the president, it was never intended, to use the language of Mr. Eaton in a recent letter, that "the whole burthen and effort of reform" should be put "upon his shoulders, leaving senators and representatives at liberty, as before, to promise appointments for votes and to torment the president daily because his doctrinaire policy, his competition and his rules, as they have been called, would not allow their cousins, their favorites, and other henchmen, to step into the places they might seek, and for which they are pushed. The people have a right to claim, and they will insist as duty and justice require that senators and representatives, as well as presidents and heads of departments, shall from the beginning share in the responsibility if not in the work." - (Letter in the Springfield Republican of Oct. 7, 1881.)

Supposing, however, for the sake of the argument, that

1And in his inaugural address he declares that "The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law."

2 So obvious was this that a daily newspaper (the Boston Herald), in somewhat striking language, called attention to the spectacle of "a president whose instincts are believed to be honest, and whose intelligence is unquestioned," who is so power. fully acted on that "he feels the need of fixed laws to keep him from going astray from the paths of virtue."

The language is perhaps unjust, but it serves to show the urgency of the case. 8 See Chapter 2.