Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/424

404 This statement seems to indicate that I had a chance for more patronage than I wanted, had I concluded to serve the President at the expense of my convictions of duty. If one of us was in the market, it was not I.

But the abuse of the patronage appeared in its most hideous form when the nomination for the next Presidential term became a matter of urgent interest. In the meantime the demands for civil service reform had arisen with singular force from the people, and found a voice in the press and on the floor of Congress. It threatened to become a popular cry and could not with safety be disregarded. The President took it up, and reform was promised. A commission was appointed, a gorgeous array of rules and regulations drawn, the reform was solemnly and with a grand flourish announced to commence on a day certain. And now look at the condition of the civil service! General Butler, one of the President's fastest friends, declares that civil service reform is a humbug. The General does not surprise me, for this civil service reform is certainly a humbug as great as General Butler can make it.

Show me the oldest man among us. Does he remember a time when the civil service of the country was more completely a political machine than it is now? Does he remember a time when the service appeared more like a thoroughly drilled and disciplined organization of political agents than to-day? Does he remember a time within the whole range of his recollection when the public interest was more shamelessly overruled by political exigencies? Some time ago the President, forced by the public voice to make a show of decency, permitted it to go out that his brother-in-law Casey, the collector of customs at New Orleans, notoriously one of the worst officers in the service, had been requested to resign. The heart of the country was touched by so unheard of a