Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1894 — THE PROGRESS OF THE MERIT SYSTEM. [ARTICLE]

THE PROGRESS OF THE MERIT SYSTEM.

Rev. Hathorn, the late populist candidate for Congress, has moved to Anderson, this state, which is outside the district. Having been paid his SI,OOO by the populists for being their candidate, that ends his interest in the district.

The eleventh annual report of the United States civil service comm ission, says the Indianapolis News, will be very encouraging reading for those who have for almost a generation been fighting the battle for the merit systemThere is abundant evidence to show that, so far as the classified service is concerned, the law is for the most part being fairly and honestly administered; And as its scope is being rapidly widened, it is not to much too say that the day is at hand when the business of this government will be conducted solely upon business principles. As the report shows about onehalf the classified service is made up of the employes in the 610 classified postoffices. In the larger cities where the new system has existed for many years, there is an increasing respect for the law, which means that the more familiar men become with its operations the better they like it. Therefore it is not surprising, though of > course it is gratifying, to learn that in the larger postoffices and also in the departments at Washington, politics has been almost

entirely elimated in making appointments and removals. The trouble has been almost wholly in the smaller towns where the people have never known anything else than the spoils system. It was the same Jway in Indianapolis ten years ago, blit we imagine that there are very few people in this city who would consent to go back to the old order. In the railway mail service the law has been rigidly observed. And in the Indian service, too, “the great majority of appointees have been retained and new appointments have been

made without reference to political considerations.’’ In these cases, as in all others, the reform has worked well. And today one of the greatest arguments for the extension of the system is that furnished by the contrast between the classified and the unclassified service. The American people are not slow to learn by experience and observation. They would be very stupid indeed if they did not know that our postal affairs are much more efficiently managed than is ourconsularbusiness. It must be evident to the dullest mind that, with frequent changes in the political complexion of the national administration, the rail way mail service could not be conducted at all upon the spoils plan. So the reform is making its own way, and making it rapidly. On the whole, therefore, the progress has been satisfactory. Even now, as the commission reports, there are few important branches of the public service which are not classified . The extensions will go on, perhaps not so rapidly as the more ardent and impatient reformers would wish, but it will not te long before the merit system will be the only system known in the United States.