Civil Service Regulations Endangered: Striking Reversal of the policy of Previous Administrations From Our Own Correspondent.
Washington, May 12.
Té took the friends of good government many years to dislodge the political spoilsman from his position of privilege and to establish the United States Civil Service on a basis of equality of opportunity, promotion by merit and security of tenure. The Jacksonian maxim, "To the victor belong the spoils,'' was strongly entrenched, and the education of the people was slow end tedious. But something more was involved than a mere matter of justice to the employee, and that was the efficiency of the entire government service.
The dismissal of a trained and experienced public servant simply to make place for a man whose qualifications in the way of education and character were entirely subordinate ed to the fact that he had helped a senator or representative to carry his district was unbusinesslike and demoralizing.
But five successive presidents were more or less favourable to what was known as "Civil Service Reform," and while reform came slowly and spasmodically, it did come, and in course of time the advent of a new administration ceased _to inspire terror in the efficient employe who had no political pull. As one Congress succeeded another, there were always new members who had to learn to their sorrow that the public service no longer existed for the purpose of rewarding good Democrats or good Republicans, and that consequently the promises they had made during the campaign that resulted in their election were promises they could never fulfil.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.