NINTH CHAPTER

THE STRUGGLES FOR EMANCIPATION (conclusion)

I

THE first attempts at legislative reform which sought to remedy the state of things brought about by the development of the party Organizations were aimed at the degradation of the public service by the spoils system. This system, which had made public office an electoral coin for rewarding services rendered to the parties or simply to the bosses, had alike demoralized political life and deteriorated the government. The service of the State was transformed into a sort of feudal tenure in which every official held his post as a vassal did his fief, with the same obligation of serving his immediate lord, who, in his turn, owed service to his suzerain. Patronage was the motive power of government and the principal source of political influence, while, again, skill in electoral wire-pulling and "work" done for the party constituted the sole claim to office, at the expense of real merit and even of honesty. Owing to the practice of rotation, the government departments were periodically upset with every change of the party in power. The President and the heads of the departments with whom the appointment to offices rested as a matter of right, and the members of Congress who had snatched it from them, were all continually exposed to the solicitations of the office-seekers. Unceasingly beset by the applicants, they wasted with them the time which they should have given to affairs of State, even in the gravest conjunctures. Lincoln said, a month after his accession, that he wanted to attend to the Southern question, but that the office-seekers took up all his time. His successors have not fared any better.1 "One

1 The newspapers of August, 1897, described the pursuit of President McKinley by the office-seekers in the following terms: "The scenes of these last three days at the White House were extraordinary. Frantic is the word

third of the working hours of the Senators and the Representatives," as Garfield affirmed when Senator, "is hardly sufficient to meet the demands upon them in reference to appointment to offices." The members of Congress were obliged to pay attention to every aspirant to a place, great or small, who came up to Washington from their State. To countersign his request, to write letters in his favour, was the least of the things which a member of Congress had to do for the first-comer; he had to take personal steps as well, to go and see the head of the department, or even the President, to introduce the applicant personally while often knowing him to be undeserving. In this latter case, a Senator who was conscientious in his fashion would take the additional trouble of destroying the effect of his own recommendation: in presenting an aspirant to the Minister he would pass a glowing eulogium on him after having written a private letter to the Minister the day before telling him not to believe a word of what he was going to say to him in the presence of his enforced protégé. Every aspirant wanted to "interview" the President, even when the appointment was not in his gift. The greedy throng rolled on at Washington, and if some came back empty-handed, others succeeded in carrying off the places by sheer importunity. The Republic was regu

that describes the anxiety that was manifested to reach the President. Months of waiting for recognition culminated in a scramble that was without sense: anterooms and corridors were thronged. Men elbowed each other and forgot good manners in their forlorn hope to obtain the places for which they had been waiting. . . . If Mr. McKinley did not see everybody who called these last three days, it was because human endurance and time both failed. Hour after hour, during the day and until late at night, the President met that never-ending file. He neglected his exercise and his meals."

The dispensers of State patronage are also victims of the fierce tenacity of the office-seekers, as is shown by the following small picture of political manners in the State of Kansas, which I take from the newspapers of December, 1898: "The closest contest of the last three days has been between C. of . . . and S. of . . . for the office of Insurance Commissioner. Mr. C. remained in the city over Sunday and was the first man in the Governor's office to-day. S. came in late Saturday night and was accompanied by Senator B. to the Governor's home. The Governor and his family were dining out at the home of a close personal friend. Mr. S. insisted on following the Governor. When he rang the bell and was announced to the Governor, the latter said: 'I cannot see him now. Tell him to call later.' 'I am here to stay till I see the Governor, S. said, and he stayed. The Governor left the table and the two men went over the situation in rather a warm discussion on the doorstep."

larly looted. "If ever," said Lincoln on this subject, "if ever this free people, if this government itself is ever utterly demoralized, it will come from this wriggle and struggle for office." A few days after the capture of Richmond, Lincoln said to a friend, showing him the crowd of office-seekers who thronged his door: "Look at this. Now we have conquered the rebellion; but here you see something that may become more dangerous to this Republic than the rebellion itself.”

It was absolutely necessary to withdraw the selection of officials from political favouritism, from party influence, but how? The experience of European countries appeared to offer the means in the form of a system of admission to office by open competition. In the mother-country itself favouritism had long flourished and with equally disastrous effects; the patronage of the Crown, which afterwards passed into the hands of members of Parliament, had been but a source of corruption, and at the best made public office an appanage of the privileged few. The competition system introduced into England, from and after 1853, for admission to the lowergrade appointments, had thrown them open to merit. As early as 1864 Charles Sumner, the famous Republican statesman, tabled a proposal in the Senate for setting up a similar system in the United States. But the real promoter of the reform was a modest representative of Rhode Island, Jenckes, who, amid general indifference to the abuse and to the remedy suggested for it, year after year, from 1867 onwards, indefatigably submitted to Congress a series of bills supported by a remarkable array of data. The measure was favourably

received by the better part of public opinion and of the press, led on that occasion by a recently started periodical destined to play a very important and wholesome rôle in the American press-the Nation, of New York. However, Jenckes' bill was rejected in Congress, which held that the existing system of appointment to office was "the best in the world," and that a reform which withdrew the bestowal of places from the influence of the representatives of the people tended to nothing less than the destruction of the republican government and the introduction of monarchy. The places, which cost the members of Congress nothing, provided a large fund with which they could buy electoral services, and they had not the

slightest wish to deprive themselves of this resource, in spite of all the annoyance caused them by the importunities of the office-seekers. From that time a duel began between the politicians, with the members of Congress at their head, who clung to the spoils system, and public opinion, which was gradually won over to "civil service reform" on the plan of competitive examination. This reform, in the eyes of its champions, contained the germ of a veritable revolution in American public life. Its effect was not to be confined to ensuring a better selection of public officials, to introducing more stability into the departments, and to freeing the departmental heads from the intolerable "pressure" of the applicants, but it was also destined to improve political manners and to change the whole economy of the fabric of government and of the party system: favouritism would make way for merit; the public weal would no longer be prostituted to private considerations; public office would cease to be an object of traffic, and would once more become a trust bestowed on behalf of the community and exercised in the general interest; the appointment to offices no longer depending on the good pleasure of the executive, the latter would itself be relieved from the pressure of the members of Congress and would recover its independence, while the legislative, for want of occasion for extra-legal pressure, would be restored to its proper function. Last, but not least, the life of the parties would be thoroughly purified: the Machines would no longer be able to subsist; there being no places to give away, there can be no "workers"; the bosses, being unable to support their men, will be deserted, their creatures will be scattered to the winds, and before long the tribe of mercenary politicians will have perished, from inanition; booty no longer being, because it cannot be, the object of the organized parties, the latter will be able to revert to their proper mission, to reform on the footing of ideas and common principles; at the same time respectable men, who have been driven out of politics by the wire-pullers, will reappear on the scene and resume their position within the free and purified parties. In a word, the tone of political life in general would be raised, the whole political atmosphere would be cleared. Some of the champions of the reform, in their ardent hopes, saw it produce all these effects;

others, less sanguine, modestly aimed at the first results, which were to substitute merit for political favouritism and stability for rotation in the selection of officials. Both occupying common ground, they started, soon after the Civil War, a struggle with the politicians which is going on to this day. The following are the principal phases of this struggle. The original plan of the reform of the civil service dealt with three points: the appointment of the lower-grade officials by competition, the repeal of the law of 1820, which limited the term of office to four years, and the establishment of retiring pensions. But in face of the resistance offered to this plan, the two last proposals were abandoned and all the efforts of the reformers were concentrated on the introduction of competitive examinations. After Jenckes' bill, which was brought in for five consecutive years without success, Congress, being repeatedly requested by President Grant to remedy the abuses in the civil service, adopted the principle of the reform in 1871. A rider inserted in the general appropriation bill empowered the President to make regulations for admission into the civil service conducive to its efficiency, to ascertain the fitness of every candidate, and to entrust the conduct of such enquiries to suitable persons. The President at once appointed a commission under the presidency of G. W. Curtis, that eminent man who to choice gifts as a writer and speaker united a lofty character and the keenest and most disinterested public spirit. The commission drew up a plan of competitive examinations for admission to the subordinate offices, and forthwith put the reform into practice. The agitation for "civil service reform," and the favour with which public opinion appeared to regard it, did not fail to impress the politicians. The latter, always uneasy and anxious to have as many strings to their bow as possible, declared for the reform; on the eve of the presidential election of 1872 several State conventions and all the national conventions inserted it in their platforms. But this was only a show manifestation devoid of all sincerity. As soon as the election was over the politicians resumed their attitude of hostility towards the reform. Grant, who had a genuine wish to see it go through, and who during his first presidency had often recommended it in his messages to Congress, returned to the charge, insisting that the tentative