CHAPTER VI. REFORM OF THE CIVIL SERVICE. Hon. WILLIAM R. Cox, Late Chairman of the Committee on Civil Service, "HONEST reform in the Civil Service has been in augurated and maintained by President Cleveland, and he has brought the public service to the highest standard of efficiency, not only by rule and precept, but by the example of his own untiring and unselfish administration of public affairs."-Dem. Nat. Platform, 1888. An eminent author says: "Examine History, for it is Philosophy teaching by Experience." It is proposed to apply this test in a brief presentation of the treatment of Civil Service Reform by the Republican and Democratic parties and thus demonstrate which has been true to its professions in its dealings with the public. At the close of the late war the Republican party was panoplied with all the power and machinery of the general government. The public expenditures had been greatly augumented; the multiplication of offices needlessly increased; and the wild hunt after office had introduced demoralization and corruption into all departments of the government. Soon the common sense of the American people, whose discriminating mind and unimpassioned judgment, (374) which have ever proved their shield in time of danger, demanded changes in the administration of their governmental affairs. They at first naturally sought to secure these necessary reforms through the agency of the party then in power. So universal was the demand for reform that the mere politician and place-man were unable to resist it. Therefore, every National Republican Convention and every President elected by this party gave prompt assurance of a ready compliance with this popular demand. In 1871, a law was enacted by Congress which provided for the appointment of a Civil Service Commission, which was clothed with ample power to make all needful rules and regulations for carrying the law into effect. But this act, like Dead Sea fruit, proved a delusion and a snare, for two Congresses refused to make any appropriation for its execution, while, in the meantime, the public service became more and more corrupt. The tendencies of the Republican party were never more forcibly illustrated than by a distinguished member of their own party whose arraignment was made, we must suppose, after careful consideration of their damaging character and prompted alone by a high sense of duty. They should never be forgotten by an outraged but too confiding public. On the trial of Belknap, Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, employs the following language in a speech he then delivered: "My own public life has been a very brief and insignificant one, extending little beyond the duration of a single term of senatorial office; but in that brief period, I have seen five judges of a high court of the United States driven from office by threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministration. I have heard the taunt, from friendliest lips that when the United States presented herself in the East to take part with the civilized world in generous competition in the arts of life, the only product of her institutions in which she surpassed all others beyond question was her corruption. I have seen in the State of 'the Union, foremost in power and wealth, four judges of her courts impeached for corruption, and the political administration of her chief city become a disgrace and a by-word throughout the world. I have seen the Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House, now a distinguished member of this court, rise in his place and demand the expulsion of four of his associates for making sale of their official privilege of selecting the youths to be educated at our great military school. When the greatest railroad railroad of the world, binding together the continent and uniting the two great seas which wash our shores, was finished, I have seen our national triumph and exultation turned to bitterness and shame by the unanimous reports of three Committees of Congress-two of the House and one here that every step of that mighty enterprise had been taken in fraud. I have heard in the highest places the shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office that the true way by which |