Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1885 — Don Piatt on Civil Service Reform [ARTICLE]

Don Piatt on Civil Service Reform

In an open letter addressed to President Cleveland, says the Indianapolis Sentinel, on the subject of civil-service reform, Don Piatt gives his views. Prom his disinterested standpoint, as well as from Ins presence at Washington for the past ten or twelve years, and his cordial support of Grover Cleveland in the recent election, he ssumes the right and province of an adviser. This open letter on civil-service reform has not that clear and definite delineation of the subject matter as the standard Scotch sermon on the Trinity, or, “the forces requisite for redemption.” Still he doe, advise, and ably sustain the smouldering sentiment of the great bulk of Democrats to place his own construction upon that “offensive partisan” absurdity, and let the Mahone Senate make the most of it. That party has never dared to allow th issue to come up squarely, and the Democracy has never before had the opportunity to compel them, or, as Senator Douglas puts it, “to compel them to let down their milk. ’ ’ When Jefferson be .ame President he found every office fillec with a Pederalist. He turned out none, but in filling the vacancies he selected Democrats; and thus this practice continued, under Madison and Monroe, for twenty-f mr years. By this time the whole of the civil service was in the hands of Democrats, though Jefferson in his eight years said: But few of the Federal officeholders died, and none resigned.” In John Quincy Adams’ brief period of four yea is, he managed to make the change complete, and his successor, G neral Jackson, found no Democrats in office. In the interest of right, in the interest of good government, and with the approval of the entire American people, he turned out the lazy, listless lazaroni incumbents, and put in honest and efficient Democrats. Honest they were, too, in those days. They had to be honest, for they had General Jackson to deal with. The only defaulter in Jackson’s eight years was Swartwout, the Collector of Customs for the port of New York, and so remarkable w r as this solitary instance that t e Whigs tried to change our English word defaulting to Swartwouting. (See Webster’s early Unabridged Dictionary.) This to stigmatize an administration that had no other blemish. Swartwout learned that his accounts in the Treasury Department showed him largely in arrears, and off he fled to Belgium in mortal fear of the old General. There he died.— Years rolled by, and a careful examination of the books showed thirty odd thousand dollars was due to the estate of Swartwout from the Government. True, the Jackson poli -y of having his friends and not his enemies to assist in his administration was loudly denounced. The sequel showed how hypocritical a whole party can be, composed, too, of many good people in everything but politics. As to the expressions “to the victors belong the spoils,” as if it means “to the majority belongs the right to steal,” it belongsfnot to Jackson nor to Secretary Marcy, but to Henry Clay, Jackson’s im-

placable enemy. Clay made his light against General Jackson because he was a General. He portrayed as only a Clay could the dangers to a Republic having a military chieftain at its head.— There are those yet living who can remember this argument from that greatest of forensic orators. Well, Jackson was chosen in 1828, and was again the candidate in 1832, but had shown no sign of military ambition. C’ay had to oppose him before the some hustings, and had that pride of consistency as to try to appear consistent, so he inaugurated the war cry, “Jackson, t e tyrant;” see him turning men out for opinion’s sake, crying “to the victors belong the spoils.” Then, for the first time the land was full of this cry, and every antiDemocrat coached himself to think, and taught his sons to believe, that Jackson was the author. Current political history is largely made in this way, and a book might be written of the systematic methods which originated in Boston long ago by the protectionists; when thpy had succeeded in changing the text in all our colleges on the subject of political economy. Adam Smith was suddenly tabooed and John Stuart Mill substituted. The process still continues, and our subject, Don Piatt, with thousands more gets much of his political history from this impure fountain, He can’t mention Jefferson or Jackson (“St. Andrew” in his letter aforesaid) without a sneer, nor Hamilton without an involuntary genuflection. It is passing strange that he, and so many more, are, from their own unaided force of reasoning, such stalwart Democrats in many of its elementary principles. In a score of places in his Cleveland 1 tter he says there is no difference in ples in politics except the spoils; that the Democrats are a party only out of a sort of party c liesions “ironed down”—“the organized ignorance of the land.” But returning to the Republican wing of the Senate, when compelled to take their stand for the last time on civil-service reform. For forty or fifty years they have, to a man, denounced “removal for opinion’s sake,” and all that time practiced it most sweepingly. Mr. Cleveland has already made removals enough to give them all the license they could desire to clean out every Democ at Mien their turn comes, if such ill fate ever again betides ' us. General Harrison made many speeches in his campaign in 1840, and in every '.me he said solemnly, with his arm outstretched, “Were I the President of the United States, I would that the Almighty sever my right arm from my body, should I consent to the removal of a single officeholder for his opinion’s sake.” He lived as President only thirty days, but in that brief time his cabinet had removed more than did J ackson in four years of his time! Just then the great Whig party went out into utter darkness forever—its scattered fugitives found themselves in the ranks of the freesoilers under a new party flag —the Republican. Was i this civil-service rock that wrecked the old Whig party, or was it not farther back, in a philosophical diagnose of the ease —in the hypocrisy of the mass of the membet-s of that party? There are in the human heart all the elements that go to make hell hideous, yet in most of them hypocrisy is a principal, and the worst ingredient. The hypocrite is not welcome anywhere, and the political party that can mass the greatest number is doing an acceptab e work for the sword of Gideon or Grover. If the President and his Cabinet proceed to fill all the offices as rapidly as the necessary precautions can be taken, it will at once receive the hearty indorsement of every Democrat; the full assent of all the mugwumps except those from Brookside in Utopia, and the frank approval of all the Republicans except their journalist editors, who feel in duty bound to rail.

Don Piatt would like to see Mahone and his ilk of the Senate trying to swallow the per contra of “turn the rascals out.” Uncle Sam would smile from Maine to Mexico, and the Republican party wo’d at least be “rounded up” on this question. Let us have it settled; better now than later. Either require the President to remove as freely as did Harrison, Tavlor et al., or compel him to keep in the rascals until he can land them, one by one, in the penitentiary. Every one thinks Grover Cleveland can reform the civil-service most effectually, and that he will if permitted. The Senate, openly, (Ure not oppose, nor will it try io do it in that way.