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that he might be lacking in the executive faculty. His disposition of
business was orderly and rapid. His power of analysis, and his skill in
classification, enabled him to despatch a vast mass of detail with
singular promptness and ease. His Cabinet meetings were admirably
conducted. His clear presentation of official subjects, his well-
considered suggestion of topics on which discussion was invited, his
quick decision when all had been heard, combined to show a
thoroughness of mental training as rare as his natural ability and his
facile adaptation to a new and enlarged field of labor.
With perfect comprehension of all the inheritances of the war, with
a cool calculation of the obstacles in his way, impelled always by a
generous enthusiasm, Garfield conceived that much might be done
by his administration towards restoring harmony between the
different sections of the Union. He was anxious to go South and
speak to the people. As early as April he had ineffectually endeavored
to arrange for a trip to Nashville, whither he had been cordially
invited, and he was again disappointed a few weeks later to find that
he could not go to South Carolina to attend the centennial
celebration of the victory of the Cowpens. But for the autumn he
definitely counted on being present at three memorable assemblies
in the South, the celebration at Yorktown, the opening of the Cotton
Exposition at Atlanta, and the meeting of the Army of the
Cumberland at Chattanooga. He was already turning over in his
mind his address for each occasion, and the three taken together, he
said to a friend, gave him the exact scope and verge which he needed.
At Yorktown he would have before him the associations of a hundred
years that bound the South and the North in the sacred memory of a
common danger and a common victory. At Atlanta he would present
the material interests and the industrial development which
appealed to the thrift and independence of every household, and
which should unite the two sections by the instinct of self-interest
and self-defence. At Chattanooga he would revive memories of the
war only to show that after all its disaster and all its suffering, the
country was stronger and greater, the Union rendered indissoluble,
and the future, through the agony and blood of one generation, made
brighter and better for all.
Garfield’s ambition for the success of his administration was high.
With strong caution and conservatism in his nature, he was in no
danger of attempting rash experiments or of resorting to the
empiricism of statesmanship. But he believed that renewed and
closer attention should be given to questions affecting the material
interests and commercial prospects of fifty millions of people. He
believed that our continental relations, extensive and undeveloped as
they are, involved responsibility, and could be cultivated into
profitable friendship or be abandoned to harmful indifference or
lasting enmity. He believed with equal confidence that an essential
forerunner to a new era of national progress must be a feeling of
contentment in every section of the Union, and a generous belief that
the benefits and burdens of government would be common to all.
Himself a conspicuous illustration of what ability and ambition may
do under republican institutions, he loved his country with a passion
of patriotic devotion, and every waking thought was given to her
advancement. He was an American in all his aspirations, and he
looked to the destiny and influence of the United States with the
philosophic composure of Jefferson and the demonstrative
confidence of John Adams.

THE POLITICAL CONTROVERSY.

The political events which disturbed the President’s serenity for

many weeks before that fatal day in July form an important chapter
in his career, and, in his own judgment, involved questions of
principle and of right which are vitally essential to the constitutional
administration of the Federal Government. It would be out of place
here and now to speak the language of controversy, but the events
referred to, however they may continue to be source of contention
with others, have become, so far as Garfield is concerned, as much a
matter of history as his heroism at Chickamauga or his illustrious
service in the House. Detail is not needful, and personal antagonism
shall not be rekindled by any word uttered to-day. The motives of
those opposing him are not to be here adversely interpreted nor their
course harshly characterized. But of the dead President this is to be
said, and said because his own speech is forever silenced and he can
be no more heard except through the fidelity and the love of
surviving friends. From the beginning to the end of the controversy
he so much deplored, the President was never for one moment
actuated by any motive of gain to himself or of loss to others. Least of
all men did he harbor revenge, rarely did he even show resentment,
and malice was not in his nature. He was congenially employed only
in the exchange of good offices and the doing of kindly deeds.
There was not an hour, from the beginning of the trouble till the
fatal shot entered his body, when the President would not gladly, for
the sake of restoring harmony, have retraced any step he had taken if
such retracing had merely involved consequences personal to
himself. The pride of consistency, or any supposed sense of
humiliation that might result from surrendering his position, had not
a feather’s weight with him. No man was ever less subject to such
influences from within or from without. But after the most anxious
deliberation and the coolest survey of all the circumstances, he
solemnly believed that the true prerogatives of the Executive were
involved in the issue which had been raised, and that he would be
unfaithful to his supreme obligation if he failed to maintain, in all
their vigor, the constitutional rights and dignities of his great office.
He believed this in all the convictions of conscience when in sound
and vigorous health, and he believed it in his suffering and
prostration in the last conscious thought which his wearied mind
bestowed on the transitory struggles of life.
More than this need not be said. Less than this could not be said.
Justice to the dead, the highest obligation that devolves upon the
living, demands the declaration that in all the bearings of the subject,
actual or possible, the President was content in his mind, justified in
his conscience, immovable in his conclusions.

GARFIELD’S RELIGION.

The religious element in Garfield’s character was deep and earnest.

In his early youth he espoused the faith of the Disciples, a sect of that
great Baptist Communion which in different ecclesiastical
establishments is so numerous and so influential throughout all
parts of the United States. But the broadening tendency of his mind
and his active spirit of inquiry were early apparent and carried him
beyond the dogmas of sect and the restraints of association. In
selecting a college in which to continue his education he rejected
Bethany, though presided over by Alexander Campbell, the greatest
preacher of his church. His reasons were characteristic: first, that
Bethany leaned too heavily toward slavery; and, second, that being
himself a Disciple and the son of Disciple parents, he had little
acquaintance with people of other beliefs, and he thought it would
make him more liberal, quoting his own words, both in his religious
and general views, to go into a new circle and be under new
influences.
The liberal tendency which he had anticipated as the result of
wider culture was fully realized. He was emancipated from mere
sectarian belief, and with eager interest pushed his investigations in
the direction of modern progressive thought. He followed with
quickening step in the paths of exploration and speculation so
fearlessly trodden by Darwin, by Huxley, by Tyndall, and by other
living scientists of the radical and advanced type. His own church,
binding its disciples by no formulated creed, but accepting the Old
and New Testaments as the word of God, with unbiased liberality of
private interpretation, favored, if it did not stimulate, the spirit of
investigation. Its members profess with sincerity, and profess only,
to be of one mind and one faith with those who immediately followed
the Master, and who were first called Christians at Antioch.
But however high Garfield reasoned of “fixed fate, free will,
foreknowledge absolute,” he was never separated from the Church of
the Disciples in his affections and in his associations. For him it held
the ark of the covenant. To him it was the gate of Heaven. The world
of religious belief is full of solecisms and contradictions. A
philosophic observer declares that men by the thousand will die in
defence of a creed whose doctrines they do not comprehend and
whose tenets they habitually violate. It is equally true that men by
the thousand will cling to church organizations with instinctive and
undenying fidelity when their belief in maturer years is radically
different from that which inspired them as neophytes.
But after this range of speculation, and this latitude of doubt,
Garfield came back always with freshness and delight to the simpler
instincts of religious faith, which, earliest implanted, longest survive.
Not many weeks before his assassination, walking on the banks of
the Potomac with a friend, and conversing on these topics of
personal religion, concerning which noble natures have an
unconquerable reserve, he said that he found the Lord’s Prayer and
the simple petitions learned in infancy infinitely restful to him, not
merely in their stated repetition, but in their casual and frequent
recall as he went about the daily duties of life. Certain texts of
scripture had a very strong hold on his memory and his heart. He
heard, while in Edinburgh some years ago, an eminent Scotch
preacher who prefaced his sermon with reading the eighth chapter of
the Epistle to the Romans, which book had been the subject of
careful study with Garfield during his religious life. He was greatly
impressed by the elocution of the preacher and declared that it had
imparted a new and deeper meaning to the majestic utterances of
Saint Paul. He referred often in after years to that memorable
service, and dwelt with exaltation of feeling upon the radiant promise
and the assured hope with which the great apostle of the Gentiles
was “persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor
powers nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The crowning characteristic of General Garfield’s religious
opinions, as, indeed, of all his opinions, was his liberality. In all
things he had charity. Tolerance was of his nature. He respected in
others the qualities which he possessed himself—sincerity of
conviction and frankness of expression. With him the inquiry was
not so much what a man believes, but does he believe it? The lines of
his friendship and his confidence encircled men of every creed, and
men of no creed, and to the end of his life, on his ever lengthening
list of friends, were to be found the names of a pious Catholic priest
and of an honest-minded and generous-hearted free-thinker.

THE ASSASSIN’S BULLET.

On the morning of Saturday, July 2d, the President was a

contented and happy man—not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully,
almost boyishly happy. On his way to the railroad station to which he
drove slowly, in conscious enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with
an unwonted sense of leisure, and a keen anticipation of pleasure, his
talk was all in the grateful and gratulatory vein. He felt that after four
months of trial his administration was strong in its grasp of affairs,
strong in popular favor and destined to grow stronger; that grave
difficulties confronting him at his inauguration had been safely
passed; that troubles lay behind him and not before him; that he was
soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now recovering from an illness
which had but lately disquieted and at times almost unnerved him;
that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most cherished
associations of his young manhood, and to exchange greetings with
those whose deepening interest had followed every step of his
upward progress from the day he entered upon his college course
until he had attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his
countrymen.
Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of
this world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well
have been a happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no
slightest premonition of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was
upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong,
confident, in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next
he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of
torture, to silence and the grave.
Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in
the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness by the red hand of
murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world’s interest, from
its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of
death—and he did not quail. Not alone for one short moment in
which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its
relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks
of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear
sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight
and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell—what brilliant,
broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of
strong, warm, manhood’s friendship, what bitter rending of sweet
household ties! Behind him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of
sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full,
rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose
whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood’s
day of frolic; the fair, young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing
into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day
rewarding a father’s love and care; and in his heart the eager,
rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation and great
darkness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled
with instant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his
mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation’s love, enshrined
in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could
not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With
unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took
leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin’s bullet he
heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the
Divine decree.
As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The
stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of
pain, and he begged to be taken from his prison walls, from its
oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness.
Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to
the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will,
within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold
voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze,
he looked out wistfully upon the ocean’s changing wonders; on its far
sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling
shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red
clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and
shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a
mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let
us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great
waves breaking on a further shore and felt already upon his wasted
brow the breath of the eternal morning.

AFTER THE ORATION.

The eulogy was concluded at 1.50, having taken just an hour and a
half in its delivery. As Mr. Blaine gave utterance to the last solemn
words the spectators broke into a storm of applause, which was not
hushed for some moments. The address was listened to with an
intense interest and in solemn silence, unbroken by any sound
except by a sigh of relief (such as arises from a large audience when a
strong tension is removed from their minds) when the orator passed
from his allusion to differences existing in the Republican party last
spring. Benediction was then offered by the Rev. Dr. Bullock,
Chaplain of the Senate. The Marine Band played the “Garfield Dead
March” as the invited guests filed out of the Chamber in the same
order in which they had entered it. The Senate was the last to leave,
and then the House was called to order by the Speaker.
Mr. McKinley, of Ohio, offered the following resolution:
Resolved, The Senate concurring, that the thanks of Congress are
hereby presented to the Hon. James G. Blaine for the appropriate
memorial address delivered by him on the life and services of James
A. Garfield, late President of the United States, in the Representative
Hall, before both houses of Congress and their invited guests, on the
27th of February, 1882, and that he be requested to furnish a copy
for publication.
Resolved, That the Chairman of the Joint Committee appointed to
make the necessary arrangements to carry into effect the resolution
of Congress in relation to the memorial exercises in honor of James
A. Garfield be requested to communicate to Mr. Blaine the foregoing
resolution, receive his answer thereto and present the same to both
Houses of Congress. The resolution was adopted unanimously.
Mr. McKinley then offered the following:
Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the
deceased President of the United States the House do now adjourn.
The resolution was unanimously adopted, and in accordance
therewith the Speaker at 1.55 declared the House adjourned until to-
morrow.
CIVIL SERVICE.
 Improvement of the Subordinate Civil
Service.

Speech of Hon. George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, in the Senate of the

United States, Tuesday, December 12, 1882.
On the bill (S. 133) to regulate and improve the civil service of the
United States.
Mr. Pendleton said:
Mr. President: When I assented yesterday that this bill should be
informally laid aside without losing its place, I had no set speech to
deliver, nor had I the intention of preparing a speech for to-day. I did
not intend to hold up the bill here as an obstruction to any business
before the Senate, or as an aid in passing any measure that might
receive my approbation, as my good Friend, the Senator from Kansas
[Mr. Plumb], so politely intimated. The bill providing for a bankrupt
law was very speedily, and to me unexpectedly, disposed of
yesterday, and this bill was called up several hours earlier than I
supposed it would be, and I thought the convenience of the Senate as
well as of myself would be subserved if I had an opportunity to
condense what I had to say on the subject.
The necessity of a change in the civil administration of this
government has been so fully discussed in the periodicals and
pamphlets and newspapers, and before the people, that I feel
indisposed to make any further argument. This subject, in all its
ramifications, was submitted to the people of the United States at the
fall elections, and they have spoken in no low or uncertain tone.
I do not doubt that the local questions exerted great influence in
many States upon the result; but it is my conviction, founded on the
observation of an active participation in the canvass in Ohio, that
dissatisfaction with the methods of administration adopted by the
Republican party in the past few years was the most important single
factor in reaching the conclusion that was attained. I do not say that
the civil service of the Government is wholly bad. I can not honestly
do so. I do not say that the men who are employed in it are all
corrupt or inefficient or unworthy. That would do a very great
injustice to a great number of faithful, honest, and intelligent public
servants. But I do say that the civil service is inefficient; that it is
expensive; that it is extravagant; that it is in many cases and in some
senses corrupt; that it has welded the whole body of its employès into
a great political machine; that it has converted them into an army of
officers and men, veterans in political warfare, disciplined and
trained, whose salaries, whose time, whose exertions at least twice
within a very short period in the history of our country have robbed
the people of the fair results of Presidential elections.
I repeat, Mr. President, that the civil service is inefficient,
expensive, and extravagant and that it is in many instances corrupt.
Is it necessary for me to prove facts which are so patent that even the
blind must see and the deaf must hear?
At the last session of Congress, in open Senate, it was stated and
proven that in the Treasury Department at Washington there were
3,400 employès, and that of this number the employment of less
than 1,600 was authorized by law and appropriations made for their
payment, and that more than 1,700 were put on or off the rolls of the
Department at the will and pleasure of the Secretary of the Treasury,
and paid not out of appropriations made for that purpose but out of
various funds and balances of appropriation lapsed in the Treasury
in one shape or another, which are not by law appropriated to the
payment of these employès. I was amazed. I had never before heard
that such a state of affairs existed. I did not believe that it was
possible until my honorable colleague rose in his place and admitted
the general truth of the statement and defended the system as being
necessary for the proper administration of the Treasury Department.
Mr. President, we see in this statement whence comes that
immense body of public officials, inspectors, detectives, deputies,
examiners, from the Treasury Department who have for years past
been sent over the States for the purpose of managing Presidential
conventions and securing Presidential elections at the public
expense.
 I hold in my hand a statement made before the committee which
reported this bill, showing that in one of the divisions of the Treasury
Department at Washington where more than nine hundred persons
were employed, men and women, five hundred and more of them
were entirely useless, and were discharged without in any degree
affecting the efficiency of the bureau. I read from the testimony taken
before the committee. Every gentleman can find it if he has not it
already on his table. The statement to which I refer I read from page
121 of report of committee No. 576:
The extravagance of the present system was well shown in the examination of
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing by a committee of which I was chairman. Of
a force of nine hundred and fifty-eight persons five hundred and thirty-nine, with
annual salaries amounting to $390,000, were found to be superfluous and were
discharged. The committee reported that for years the force in some branches had
been twice and even three times as great as the work required. In one division—
I beg Senators to listen to this—
In one division a sort of platform had been built underneath the iron roof, about
seven feet above the floor, to accommodate the surplus counters. It appeared that
the room was of ample size without this contrivance for all persons really needed.
In another division were found twenty messengers doing work which it was found
could be done by one. The committee reported that the system of patronage was
chiefly responsible for the extravagance and irregularities which had marked the
administration of the bureau, and declared that it had cost the people millions of
dollars in that branch of the service alone. Under this system the office had been
made to subserve the purpose of an almshouse or asylum.
In consequence of this report the annual appropriation for the Printing Bureau
was reduced from $800,000 to $200,000, and out of the first year’s savings was
built the fine building now occupied by that bureau.
And again, on page 126, this same gentleman says:
My observation teaches me there is more pressure and importunity for these
places—
That is, the $900 clerkship—
and that more time is consumed by heads of Departments, and those having the
appointing power, in listening to applications for that grade than for all the other
places in the Departments combined; and that when it is discretionary with a
Department to appoint a man or a woman the choice is usually exercised in favor
of the woman. I know a recent case in the Treasury Department where a vacancy
occurred which the head of the bureau deemed it important to fill with a man. It
was a position where a man’s services were almost indispensable; but the
importunity was so great that he was compelled to accept a woman, although her
services were not required. In consequence of this importunity for places for
women a practice has grown up in the Treasury Department of allowing the
salaries of the higher grades of clerkships to lapse when vacancies occur, and of
dividing up the amount among clerks, usually women, at lower salaries. In the
place of a male clerk at $1,800 a year, for instance, three women may be employed
at $600. Often the services of a man are required in its higher grade, while the
women are not needed at all; but as the man can not be employed without
discharging the women he can not be had. The persons employed in this way are
said to be “on the lapse.” Out of this grew the practice known in Departmental
language as “anticipating the lapse.”
In the endeavor to satisfy the pressure for place more people are appointed on
this roll than the salaries then lapsing will warrant, in the hope that enough more
will lapse before the end of the fiscal year to provide funds for their payment. But
the funds almost always run short before the end of the year, and then either the
“lapse” appointees must be dropped or clerks discharged from the regular roll to
make place for them. In some instances, in former administrations, the employès
on the regular roll were compelled, under terror of dismissal, to ask for leaves of
absence, without pay, for a sufficient time to make up the deficiency caused by the
appointment of unnecessary employès “on the lapse”. Another bad feature is that
these “lapse” employès being appointed without regard to the necessities of the
work, for short periods and usually without regard to their qualifications, are of
little service, while their employment prevents the filling of vacancies on the
regular roll and demoralizes the service.
In one case thirty-five persons were put on the “lapse fund” of the Treasurer’s
office for eight days at the end of the fiscal year, to sop up some money which was
in danger of being saved and returned to the Treasury.
Mr. Maxey. Do I understand the Senator to say that that
testimony was taken by the Senate Committee on Civil Service and
Retrenchment?
Mr. Pendleton. Yes sir. This testimony was taken in the month of
March, I think, of the present year.

Says this gentleman further—

I have no doubt that under a rigid application of this proposed system the work
of the Treasury Department could be performed with two-thirds the number of
clerks now employed, and that is a moderate estimate of the saving.
Mr. President, a Senator who is now present in the Chamber and
who will recognize the statement when I make it, though I shall not
indicate his name, told me that the Secretary of one of the
Departments of the Government said to him, perhaps to the
Committee on Appropriations, at the last session, that there were
seventeen clerks in his Department for whom he could find no
employment; that he did need one competent clerk of a higher grade,
and if the appropriation were made for that one clerk, at the proper
amount according to the gradations of the service and the
appropriation for the seventeen were left out, he could, without
impairing the efficiency of his Department, leave those seventeen
clerks off the roll; but if the appropriation should be made the
personal, social, and political pressure was so great that he would be
obliged to employ and pay them, though he could find no
employment for them.
Need I prove, Mr. President, that which is known to all men, that a
systematic pressure has been brought upon the clerks in the
Departments of the Government this year to extort from them a
portion of their salary under a system which the President himself
scouts as being voluntary, and that they are led to believe and fairly
led to believe that they have bought and paid for the offices which
they hold and that the good faith of those who take from them a
portion of the salary is pledged to their retention in their positions?
I have said before upon the floor of the Senate that this whole
system demoralizes everybody who is engaged in it. It demoralizes
the clerks who are appointed. That is inevitable. It demoralizes those
who make the appointment. That also is inevitable. And it
demoralizes Senators and Representatives who by the exercise of
their power as Senators and Representatives exert pressure upon the
appointing power.
I repeat that this system, permeating the whole civil service of the
country, demoralizes everybody connected with it, the clerks, the
appointing power, and those who by their official position and their
relations to the executive administration of the Government have the
influence necessary to put these clerks in office.
Mr. President, how can you expect purity, economy, efficiency to
be found anywhere in the service of the Government if the report
made by this committee to the Senate has even the semblance of
truth? If the civil service of the country is to be filled up with
superfluous persons, if salaries are to be increased in order that
assessments may be paid, if members of Congress having friends or
partisan supporters are to be able to make places for them in public
employment, how can you expect Senators and Representatives to be
economical and careful in the administration of the public money?
I am sure there is no Senator here who will forget a scene which we
had upon the last night session of the last session, when the Senator
from Iowa [Mr. Allison], the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, the official leader of the Senate, rising in his place
with the last appropriation bill in his hand, and the report of the
committee of conference, made a statement to the Senate of the
result of the appropriations. He stated that the appropriations that
were made during that session amounted to $292,000,000—I throw
off the fractions—and he felicitated the Senate and himself as the
organ and mouthpiece of his party, that this was an excess of only
$77,000,000 over and above the expenditures of the year before.
Instantly the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Platt] rose in his place
and reminded the Senator that there would be a deficiency in the
Pension Bureau alone of $20,000,000 or $25,000,000. The
honorable Senator from Georgia, who now occupies the chair [Mr.
Brown], inquired of the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations whether there would be any deficiencies in the
expenses of the current year, or whether the statement was supposed
to cover probable deficiencies in addition to the appropriations, and
the honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck], certainly as
familiar with all these subjects as any member of this body, rose in
his place and said that notwithstanding the utmost scrutiny of the
Committee on Appropriations, undoubtedly at the end of the fiscal
year the ordinary deficiencies would be found.
Two hundred and ninety-two millions of dollars of regular
appropriations; $20,000,000 of deficiency in one bureau alone, the
usual deficiencies occurring during the course of the year of
$20,000,000 more! As if this were not enough, my honorable
colleague arose in his place and took up the tale and called attention
to the fact that the permanent appropriations amounted annually to
one hundred and thirty-seven or more millions of dollars. According
to his statement made in that speech, which I am sure nobody will
forget, the expenditures of the Government during this present fiscal
year would amount to $402,000,000 or $403,000,000—nearly $9 a
head for every man, woman, and child in the United States—more
money than was appropriated for all the expenses of the Government
during the first forty years of its existence, I will venture to say,
though I do not speak by the book.
Harbor and river appropriation bills of $18,000,000! Thirty-two
new buildings commenced in the States, almost every one of which
has had buildings before! Two million five hundred thousand dollars
appropriated for the commencement of those buildings, for laying
the foundation! Before they are finished $25,000,000 more will be
needed to complete them! While these enormous appropriations
were being made there came up from the country a demand for a
revision of the tariff, which was confessedly greatly needed; for a
revision of the internal-revenue laws, which was equally necessary;
for a reduction of taxation pressing so heavily upon all the interests
of the country. Our honorable friends upon the other side of the
Chamber chose to answer that demand by a bill repealing the taxes
upon perfumery and cosmetics and bank checks, and met with a
sneer of derision and ridicule every effort that was made on this side
of the Chamber for a reduction of taxation.
Mr. President, it was these methods of administration, it was these
acts of the Republican party, which made it possible for the
Democratic party, and other men who prized their country higher
than they did their party, to elect in Ohio a Democratic ticket by
eighteen or twenty thousand majority, and elect sixteen out of the
twenty-one members of Congress assigned to that State. I say elected
sixteen, perfectly conscious of the fact that thirteen of them only
have received their certificates at present. If three of them, against
whom the aggregate majority is only sixty votes, do not receive
certificates under the action of the returning board or under the
powers of our judiciary which have been invoked, they will be seated,
as they ought to be, at the beginning of the next session of Congress
in the other house.
Under the impulse of this election in Ohio, upon these facts and
influences which I have stated as being of great importance there, it
became possible for the Democratic party and its allies, whom I have
described, to elect a Democratic governor in New York, in
Massachusetts, in Kansas, in Michigan, and various other States in
which there has been none but a Republican governor for many years
past. The same influences enable us, having accessions to our ranks
from Iowa and Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania, to have at
the beginning of the next session of Congress an aggregate of
perhaps sixty or more Democratic majority in the House of
Representatives.
Mr. Hale. Will the Senator from Ohio let me ask him a question
right here? As he is confining himself very closely to the civil service
of the Government, I should like to ask him one question here
relating to that. He has appealed directly to the Chairman of the
Committee on Appropriations, who was not present at the time,
although he has just come in. The Senator from Ohio has alluded to
the remarkable speech made by the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations upon the expenditures of the Government at the last
session, and the wonderful scene that was exhibited there at that
time. In that speech on the expenditures of the Government, by the
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, was the admission
that the aggregate expenditures were seventy-odd millions of dollars
more than the year before—remarkable when in that speech of the
Senator from Iowa, the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, he showed that every dollar was accounted for by
deficiencies on the part of the previous Democratic Congress and by
the increase of pensions and some other matters.
Mr. Pendleton. I remember the speech of the Senator from Iowa
very well; I have quoted it repeatedly from the Record, in which I
found it. I did him no injustice; I know he will not believe I would
intentionally do him injustice at any time. I stated then, I stated a
moment ago, I have stated it on the stump, I repeat it now, that the
Senator from Iowa in that speech said that the appropriations for the
current year were $292,000,000, and that they were $77,000,000 in
excess of those made for the last year: and I might have added if I
chose to make it a partisan affair, that the last Congress was under
Democratic control.
Mr. Hale. And did he not account for every dollar of that
$77,000,000 increase? But I think I will leave it to him, as he is
present now.
Mr. Pendleton. Undoubtedly he accounted for it, for he gave all
the items that went to make up the $77,000,000.
I am confining myself more closely, Mr. President, to the
discussion of the reform of the civil service of the Government than
the Senator seems to apprehend. I was showing to him the causes of
this very remarkable revolution in public sentiment which we have
seen as exhibited by the last election. I attributed that result in great
measure to the defects in our civil-service system and to the
demoralization which, arising there and in its practices, has reached
the other departments of the Government.
Mr. President, I was about to say when the Senator from Maine
interrupted me that I begged gentlemen on this side of the Chamber
and I beg the Democratic party throughout the country not to
mistake this result of last fall as a purely Democratic triumph. It was
achieved by the Democratic party with the assistance of men of all
parties upon whom their love of country sat heavier than their love of
party. It was a protest made by an awakened people who were
indignant at the wrongs which had been practiced upon them. It was
a tentative stretching out of that same people to find
instrumentalities by which those wrongs could be righted.
The people demanded economy and the Republican party gave
them extravagance. The people demanded a reduction of taxation
and the Republican party gave them an increase of expenditure. The
people demanded purity of administration and the Republican party
revelled in profligacy; and when the Republican party came to put
themselves on trial before that same people the people gave them a
day of calamity.
I beg that my colleagues on this side of the Chamber may
remember, I desire that our party associates throughout the country
shall remember, that the people will continue to us their confidence
and increase it, that they will continue to us power and increase it,
just in the proportion that we honestly and fairly and promptly
answer to the demands which the people have made, and which were
thus responded to by the Republican party. They asked revenue
reform and they received none. They asked civil-service reform and
they obtained none. They asked that the civil service of this
Government should not either as to its men or its expenditures be
made the basis upon which political contests were to be carried on,
and they received for answer that that was an old fashion and a good
method of political warfare.
I beg gentlemen upon this side of the Chamber to remember that if
they desire to escape the fate which now seems to be impending over
their adversaries they must avoid the example which those
adversaries have set them.
Mr. President the bill which I have the honor to advocate to-day,
and which is reported by a committee of the Senate, is the
commencement, in my humble judgment, of an attempt to answer
one of the demands which the people have authoritatively made. I
speak advisedly. It is the commencement of an attempt to organize a
system which shall respond to one of the demands which the people
have made.
I suppose the most enthusiastic supporter of this bill will not
pretend that it is perfect. I suppose he will not pretend that upon the
adoption of this bill a system will immediately spring into life which
will perfect and purify the civil service of the Government. But it is
the commencement of an attempt to lay the foundations of a system
which, if it shall answer in any reasonable degree the expectation of
those who by experience and faithful study have framed it, it will in
the end correct the abuses to which I have alluded, and which have
been delineated by no enemy of the Republican party or of the
Administration in the report which I have read to the Senate.
The bill has for its foundation the simple and single idea that the
offices of the Government are trusts for the people; that the
performance of the duties of those offices is to be in the interests of
the people; that there is no excuse for the being of one office or the
paying of one salary except that it is in the highest practicable degree
necessary for the welfare of the people; that every superfluous office-
holder should be cut off; that every incompetent office-holder should
be dismissed; that the employment of two where one will suffice is
robbery; that salaries so large that they can submit to the extortion,
the forced payment of 2 or 10 per cent. are excessive and ought to be
diminished. I am not speaking of purely voluntary contributions.
If it be true that offices are trusts for the people, then it is also true
that the offices should be filled by those who can perform and
discharge the duties in the best possible way. Fidelity, capacity,
honesty, were the tests established by Mr. Jefferson when he
assumed the reins of government in 1801. He said then, and said
truly, that these elements in the public offices of the Government
were necessary to an honest civil service, and that an honest civil
service was essential to the purity and efficiency of administration,
necessary to the preservation of republican institutions.
Mr. Jefferson was right. The experience of eighty years has shown
it. The man best fitted should be the man placed in office, especially
if the appointment is made by the servants of the people. It is as true
as truth can be that fidelity, capacity, honesty, are essential elements
of fitness, and that the man who is most capable and most faithful
and most honest is the man who is the most fit, and he should be
appointed to office.
These are truths that in their statement will be denied by none,
and yet the best means of ascertaining that fitness has been a vexed
question with every Administration of this Government and with
every man who has been charged with the responsibility of its
execution. We know what is the result. Pass examinations have been
tried; professions have been tried; honest endeavors have been tried;
a disposition to live faithfully up to these requirements has been
tried; and yet we know and the experience of to-day shows it, that
they have all made a most lamentable failure. We do now know that
so great has been the increase of the powers of this Government and
the number of officers under it that no President, no Cabinet, no
heads of bureaus, can by possibility know the fitness of all applicants
for the subordinate offices of the Government. The result has been,
and under the existing system it must always be, that the President
and his Cabinet and those who are charged with the responsibility
have remitted the question of fitness to their own partisan friends,
and those partisan friends have in their turn decided the question of
fitness in favor of their partisan friends. The Administration has
need of the support of members of Congress in carrying on its work.
It therefore remits to members of Congress of its own party the
questions of appointment to office in the various districts. These
gentlemen, in the course of their political life, naturally (I do not find
fault with them for it) find themselves under strain and pressure to
secure a nomination or a re-nomination or election, and they use the
places to reward those whose friends and families and connections
and aids and deputies will serve their purpose.
I put it to gentlemen, particularly to my friends on this side of the
Chamber, because you have not the opportunity to exercise this
patronage as much as our friends on the other side, whether or not
the element of fitness enters largely into the questions of
appointment in your respective districts and States. It can not be.
The necessities of the case prevent it. The pressure upon men who
want to be elected prevents it. The demands that are made by
partisan friends and those who have been influential and potent in
securing personal triumph to gentlemen who may happen to be in
such relation to the appointing power that they have the influence to
secure appointment prevent it. The result is as I have stated, that
instead of making fitness, capacity, honesty, fidelity the only or the
essential qualifications for office, personal fidelity and partisan
activity alone control.
When I came to the Senate I had occasion more than ever before to
make some investigation upon the subject, and found to my surprise
the extent to which the demoralization of the service had gone. I saw
the civil service debauched and demoralized. I saw offices distributed
to incompetent and unworthy men as a reward for the lowest of dirty
partisan work. I saw many men employed to do the work of one man.
I saw the money of the people shamefully wasted to keep up
electioneering funds by political assessments on salaries. I saw the
whole body of the public officers paid by the people organized into a
compact, disciplined corps of electioneerers obeying a master as if
they were eating the bread of his dependence and rendering him
personal service. I saw these evils were fostered, encouraged,
stimulated very largely by Senators and Representatives. They had
their friends who lent them a helping hand; and regardless of the
fitness of these friends, of the necessity of their employment, they
insisted on the appointment and had the power, which on
consideration, was found sufficient to secure it.
I believed then, and I believe now, that the existing system which,
for want of a better name, I call the “spoils system,” must be killed or
it will kill the Republic. I believe that it is impossible to maintain free
institutions in the country upon any basis of that sort. I am no
prophet of evil, I am not a pessimist in any sense of the word, but I
do believe that if the present system goes on until 50,000,000 people
shall have grown into 100,000,000, and 140,000 officers shall have
grown into 300,000, with their compensation in proportion, and all
shall depend upon the accession of one party or the other to the
Presidency and to the executive functions, the Presidency of the
country, if it shall last in name so long, will be put up for sale to the
highest bidder even as in Rome the imperial crown was put to those
who could raise the largest fund.
I beg gentlemen to believe that whatever I may have said as to the
relations of parties I do not approach the question of the reform of
the civil service in any mere partisan spirit. It was because I thought
I saw this danger, because I believed that it was imminent, because I
believed then as I do now that it is destructive of republicanism and
will end in the downfall of republican government, that I felt it my
duty to devote whatever ability I had to the consideration of this
subject. It was that which induced me a year or two ago to introduce
a bill which after the best reflection, the best study, the best
assistance that I could get I did introduce in the Senate, and which in
some degree modified, has come back from the Committee on Civil
Service Reform, and is now pending before this body.
The purpose of this bill is merely to secure the application of the
Jeffersonian tests, fidelity, honesty, capacity. The methods are those
which are known and familiar to us all in the various avocations of
life—competition, comparison. Perhaps the bill is imperfect. If so, I
am sure I express the wish of every member of the committee that it
may be improved. There is no pride of opinion, there is no
determination, if suggestions of value are made not promptly to
adopt them. There is no disposition to do aught except to perfect,
and in the best possible way, this bill, the sole object of which is to
improve this great department of our Government.
Mr. President, it is because I believe the “spoils system” to be a
great crime, because I believe it to be fraught with danger, because I
believe that the highest duty of patriotism is to prevent the crime and
to avoid the danger, that I advocate this or a better bill if it can be
found for the improvement of the civil service.
I shall say in passing that I find it no objection to this bill at all that
while I believe it is of great value to the country in all its aspects, I do
not believe it will bring disaster to the Democratic party. There has
been great misapprehension as to the methods and the scope of the
bill. I desire the attention of the Senators while I briefly state them. I
see I have spoken a good deal longer than I intended. The bill simply
applies to the Executive Departments of the Government here in
Washington and to those offices throughout the country, post-offices
and custom-houses, which employ more than fifty persons. I am told,
and I am sure that I am not far out of the way, if I am not exactly
accurate, that the number of such offices does not exceed thirty or
perhaps thirty-five, and that the number of persons who are
employed in them, together with those in the Departments here, will
not exceed 10,000.
I said that this was a tentative effort; that it was intended to be an
experiment, and it is because it is tentative, because it is intended to
be an experiment, that the committee thought it advisable in its
initial stages to limit it, as they have limited it, in the bill. The bill
does not apply to elective officers, of course, nor to officers appointed
by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
nor to the military, nor to the naval, nor to the judicial
establishment. It applies simply now to those officials who are
employed in the Departments here and in the large offices of the
Government elsewhere, first, because as an experiment it was
thought that it gave scope enough to test its value and labor enough
to employ all those who are engaged in putting it in operation until
its merits shall be fairly tried and it shall commend itself either to the
approval or condemnation of the American people.
There was another reason. The heads of offices and bureaus, where
the number of employès is small, can themselves personally judge of
the fitness of persons who are applicants for appointment, knowing
as they do more or less in their narrow communities their
antecedents, their habits, and their modes of life.
The bill does not touch the question of tenure of office or of
removal from office. I see it stated by those who do not know that it
provides for a seven years’ tenure of office. There is nothing like it in
the bill. I see it stated that it provides against removals from office.
There is nothing like it in the bill. Whether or not it would be
advisable to fix the tenure of office, whether or not it would be
advisable to limit removals are questions about which men will
differ; but the bill as it is and as we invoke the judgment of the
Senate upon it contains no provisions either as to tenure of office or
removals from office. It leaves those questions exactly where the law
now finds them. It concerns itself only with admission to the public
service; it concerns itself only with discovering in certain proper
ways or in certain ways—gentlemen may differ as to whether they are
proper or not—the fitness of the persons who shall be appointed. It
takes cognizance of the fact that it is impossible for the head of a
Department or a large office personally to know all the applicants,
and therefore it provides a method by which, when a vacancy occurs
by death, by resignation, by the unlimited power of removal, a
suitable person may be designated to fill the vacancy. It says in effect
that when a vacancy occurs in the civil service everybody who desires
entrance shall have the right to apply. Everybody, humble, poor,
without patronage, without influence, whatever may be his condition
in life, shall have the right to go before the parties charged with an
examination of his fitness and there be subjected to the test of open,
regulated, fair, impartial examination.
Mr. Maxey. If it is agreeable I should like to interrupt the Senator
to ask a question upon that point. In the plan suggested for
examination as to fitness is it to be a competitive examination by the
bill? I ask the Senator if the committee has fallen upon any plan as to
the line of inquiry that should be instituted in that examination, and
if so will he indicate it? That I think is an important consideration.
Mr. Pendleton. I am glad that the Senator has asked that
question, for it gives me an opportunity of saying to him and to the
Senate that if they will examine the report made by the committee,
they will find that this system is not entirely new, but that to a very
large extent in certain offices in New York, in Philadelphia, and in
Boston it has been put into practical operation under the heads of the
offices there, and that they have devised, with the assistance of the
commission originally appointed by General Grant, but largely upon
their own motion, a system which I suppose would, to some extent,
be followed under this bill.
Mr. Maxey. What I desire to know is whether the committee, after
examining the various lines of questions asked in the competitive
examinations, have themselves fallen upon any plan which they
could recommend to the Senate as a proper plan for examination?
Mr. Pendleton. No; the committee have not carried their
investigations to that point for the simple reason that it would be
impracticable for a committee of the Senate charged with the
examination of the general subject to look into the proper
examinations as to every Department of the Government and every
department in that Department. For instance, for a letter-carrier one
series of examinations might be very proper, for an assayer another
system of examination, for an accountant still other examinations,
for a weigher and gauger still another. The examinations must be
adapted to the particular offices which it is sought to fill, and that can
only be by the leisurely and competent investigation of gentlemen
who are charged as an official duty with the determination of what
the needs of all the Departments and offices require.
Mr. Maxey. That may be quite a reasonable view of the case; but
some of the questions which I have seen submitted I am of the
opinion have nothing whatever to do with the examination for a
mere clerkship, but would have something to do perhaps with an
examination in a college or something of that sort.
Mr. Pendleton. The examinations are to be regulated in relation
to the particular offices to be filled. I am not the advocate of any
special system of questions which has been devised. I am not the
apologist for any error which may have been committed. I am not
prepared to say that I have seen any of these series of questions
which might not admit of improvement.
Mr. Maxey. I will state to the Senator that the suggestion he has
himself made is about the best that I have heard. A great many of the
questions which have been submitted I think are nonsensical to be
put to an applicant for a minor clerkship.
Mr. Pendleton. I shall offer some amendments in behalf of the
committee and in behalf of myself before we reach a vote. The details
of the bill are these: The preamble expresses fully the philosophy of
the bill. Read it carefully. It sets forth what common justice demands
for the citizen and for the Government. It sets forth what the
economy, efficiency, and integrity of the public service demand.
Whereas common justice requires that, so far as practicable,
all citizens duly qualified shall be allowed equal
opportunities, on grounds of personal fitness, for securing
appointments, employment, and promotion in the subordinate
civil service of the United States; and
Whereas justice to the public likewise requires that the
Government shall have the largest choice among those likely
to answer the requirements of the public service: and
 Whereas justice, as well as economy, efficiency, and
integrity in the public service will be promoted by
substituting open and uniform competitive examinations for
the examinations heretofore held in pursuance of the statutes
of 1853 and 1855.
Section 1 provides for the appointment by the President of a
commission of five persons, of different political parties, of whom
three shall hold no official place, and two shall be experienced in the
public service.
The second section is in the following words:
Sec. 2. That it shall be the duty of said commission.
First, To devise and submit to the President for his approval and promulgation,
from time to time, suitable rules, and to suggest appropriate action for making this
act effective: and when so approved and promulgated it shall be the duty of all
officers of the United States in the Departments and offices to which any such rules
may relate to aid, in all proper ways, in carrying said rules, and any modifications
thereof, into effect.
Second, And, among other things, said rules shall provide and declare, as nearly
as the conditions of good administration will warrant, as follows:
First, for open, competitive examinations for testing the capacity of applicants
for the public service now classified or to be classified hereunder.
Second, that all the offices, places, and employments so arranged or to be
arranged in classes shall be filled by selections from among those graded highest as
the results of such competitive examinations.
Third, that original entrance to the public service aforesaid shall be at the lowest
grade.
Fourth, that there shall be a period of probation before any absolute
appointment or employment aforesaid.
Fifth, that promotions shall be from the lower grades to the higher on the basis
of merit and competition.
Sixth, that no person in the public service is for that reason under any
obligations to contribute to any political fund, or to render any political service,
and that he will not be removed or otherwise prejudiced for refusing to do so.
Seventh, that no person in said service has any right to use his official authority
or influence to coerce the political action of any person or body.
Eighth, there shall be non-competitive examinations in all proper cases before
the commission, when competition may not be found practicable.
Ninth, that notice shall be given in writing to said commission of the persons
selected for appointment or employment from among those who have been
examined, of the rejection of any such persons after probation, and of the date
thereof, and a record of the same shall be kept by said commission.
And any necessary exceptions from said nine fundamental provisions of the
rules shall be set forth in connection with such rules, and the reasons therefor shall
be stated in the annual reports of the commission.
Third. Said commission shall make regulations for, and have control of, such
examinations, and, through its members or the examiners, it shall supervise and
preserve the records of the same, and said commission shall keep minutes of its
own proceedings.
Fourth. Said commission may make investigations concerning the facts, and may
report upon all matters touching the enforcement and effects of said rules and
regulations, and concerning the action of any examiner or board of examiners, and
its own subordinates, and those in the public service, in respect to the execution of
this act.
Fifth. Said commission shall make an annual report to the President, for
transmission to Congress, showing its own action, the rules and regulations and
the exceptions thereto in force, the practical effects thereof, and any suggestions it
may approve for the more effectual accomplishment of the purposes of this act.
The third and fourth sections authorize the commission to employ a chief
examiner, a secretary, and the necessary clerical force; to designate boards of
examiners, to direct where examinations shall be held; and requires that suitable
rooms shall be furnished for its accommodation in the public buildings in
Washington and elsewhere. They require also the chief examiner to act, as far as
practicable, with the examining boards, and to secure accuracy, uniformity, and
justice in all their proceedings.
The fifth section defines the offenses which are calculated to defeat the just
enforcement of the act, and declares the penalties.
The sixth section requires the heads of the different Departments to make a
more perfect classification of clerks and employès, both in the Departments in the
various offices under their charge, in conformity with the one hundred and sixty-
third section of the Revised Statutes, and to extend and revise such classification at
the request of the President.
The seventh section is in these words:
Sec. 7. After the expiration of four months from the passage of this act no officer
or clerk shall be appointed, and no person shall be employed to enter or be
promoted in either of the said classes now existing, or that may be arranged
hereunder, pursuant to said rules, until he has passed an examination, or is shown
to be specially exempted from such examination in conformity herewith.
But nothing herein contained shall be construed to take from those honorably
discharged from the military or naval service any preference conferred by the
seventeen hundred and fifty-fourth section of the Revised Statutes, nor to take
from the President any authority not inconsistent with this act conferred by the
seventeen hundred and fifty-third section of said statutes: nor shall any officer not
in the executive branch of the Government, or any person merely employed as a
laborer or workman, be required to be classified hereunder; nor, unless by
direction of the Senate, shall any person who has been nominated for confirmation
by the Senate be required to be classified or pass an examination.
Now, Mr. President, recurring to what I have said as to scope of
this bill, to the officers who are embraced in it, to the avoidance of
the question of removal and tenure, I have only to say that the
machinery of the bill is that the President shall call to his aid the very
best assistance, with or without the concurrence of the Senate—for
that is a matter about which gentlemen would differ and upon it I
have no very fixed opinion—that the President shall with the
concurrence of the best advice which he can obtain, form a plan, a
scheme of examination free for all, open to all, which shall secure the
very best talent and the very best capacity attainable for the civil
offices of the Government. The method adopted in the bill is by
competitive examination. That method has been imperfectly tried
throughout the country. I have here the statement of the postmaster
of New York who has given much attention and has had great
experience in this matter. I have here his statement that the business
of his office increased 150 per cent. within a certain number of years,
and the expenses increased only 2 per cent.
To be specific—
Says Mr. Pearson—
while the increase in the volume of matter has been from 150 to 300 per cent.
the increase in cost has only been about 2 per cent.
Mr. Graves, whose testimony I read before, has stated as the result
of the efforts which were made by General Grant during the period
that he was allowed any funds for the purpose of putting this scheme
into operation, that the expenses of the Departments here can be
reduced at least one-third.
I have heard it said that this system of examination proposes to
present only a scholastic test; that it proposes only to give advantage
to those who are college-bred, and have had the advantage in early
life of superior education. The committee investigated that subject to
some extent, and I have here the result in the city of New York. Says
Mr. Burt:
Taking seven hundred and thirty-one persons examined, 60 per cent. of the
appointees selected from them had been educated simply in the common schools
of the country; 33⅓ per cent. had received what they call academic or highschool
education; and 6½ per cent, a collegiate education. In all the statistics in regard to
common school education there is one little weakness resulting from the fact that
we have to throw in that class men who have had hardly any education, men who
will say, “I went to school until I was 11 years old,” or “I went to school in the
winter,” or something of that kind. We have to throw them in that class—
That is the class who have received a common-school education—
and it rather reduces the average standing in that category. As to the matter of
age we have very thoroughly exploded that objection. There have been some young
men of 21 and 22 who have come in, but the average has been above 30, and it is
astonishing that it is the men above 30 who make the best time on examination,
who show a facility to get through work quickly.
He goes on to say:
Yet about two-thirds of the appointees had a common-school education; had not
even an academic education.
Thereupon the chairman of the committee asked:
Is it from that you get the value of the element of experience and natural force
that I spoke of?
Mr. Burt. Yes, sir; it shows itself there apart from the question of elaborate
education.
Of course these examinations must be proper; of course they must
be regulated upon common-sense principles; of course they must be
conducted to test the fitness of the men who are to be appointed to
particular offices. You have tests everywhere. To-day the law requires
that there shall be a test of examination in the various Departments
here in Washington. They are pass examinations; they are imperfect;
they are insufficient; they are not thorough. Mr. Graves himself says
that the only examination in his case was that the superior in the
Department looked over his shoulder while he was writing and said,
“I think you will pass.” That was when he entered the service twenty-
odd years ago.
If you have examinations why not have competitive examinations?
If you have private pass examinations, why not have open
examinations? If examinations are made in the Departments by
subordinates of the Departments, why not have them made by
responsible examiners amenable to the authority of the President
under a system devised by the best intelligence that can be supplied?
I hear the system of competitive examination spoken of as if it
were something extraordinary. Within the last fifteen years it has
gotten to be a custom that I might almost say is universal that when a
member of Congress has the right to appoint a cadet to West Point or
to the Naval Academy he asks his constituents to compete for it.
Formerly it was never done; it was looked on as the mere perquisite
of a member of Congress. I appointed a gentleman to West Point who
graduated at the head of his class, and now is the active and vigorous
spirit of the Military Academy. I appointed him simply upon my own
personal examination and knowledge. It would not be done now; it
could not be done now; the public sentiment is against it. The public
sentiment of the district that I then represented would not permit it;
but open competitive examinations are demanded, and everybody
having the requisite qualifications of age and health and vigor can
compete for the appointment.
Why not apply that system to the Executive Departments of this
Government? What earthly reason can there be why when you desire
to appoint the best and fittest man for the place that is vacant he
should not subject himself to the competition of other people who
desire to have that place? Of course, as I said before, this all goes
upon the basis that there shall be reasonable examinations and
reasonable competition.
Nor are there any aristocratical tendencies about this system, as I
have heard suggested; for while it does not in any wise create an
official caste it does in words and in effect, open up the possibility of
the public service to the poorest and the humblest and least
influential in the land.
Mr. President, I desire to say only one word further. I have spoken
to-day under great disadvantage, and perhaps I may have omitted
things that I shall desire in the course of this discussion to lay before
the Senate.
But I desire, Mr. President, to follow out for one moment the line
of thought which I indicated when I said that I believed this system
would be of great advantage to the country, and that to me it was no
objection, that I believed it would be of great advantage to the
Democratic party. The suggestion has been made here that it might
be better to lay this matter over until after another election, and that
the mutations of parties might fill, under the old system, the various
Departments with members of the faith to which I belong. Aye, Mr.
President, but the next Presidential election may not have that result,
and it will not have the result, in my honest conviction, unless we do