Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/296

270 the last few years a serious movement in favor of a thorough reform in the civil service has taken place within the Republican party; this movement has been fruitless. Why? Hardly so much because the politicians who go for spoils in Congress have not been willing to give up their patronage and the party leaders their “machine,” but especially because the President, who is called upon to play the leading part in this reform, never properly knew what civil service reform meant; and since his personal friends and associates, as well as other interests, lay so much nearer to his heart, was glad to conceal himself behind the opposition in Congress in order to defeat the reform. I have always been convinced that if the President had been sincere the opposition might have been overcome, and the reform have been carried out within the entire scope of the Executive power. If he had done so much, Congress, under the pressure of a public opinion invoked by the President, would finally have accommodated itself to legislative measures in the same direction. The better wing of the party would therein have actively seconded the President, and Mr. Hayes in his struggle for the fulfilment of his program, would have found a powerful support in the same element; for this element will be particularly effective, when it finds itself naturally advocated in the first Executive officer. I have no recollection of any similar effort on the Democratic side, with the exception of a single speech of Senator Gordon on the revenue service, and a letter of Mr. Clarkson Potter, which however, contained propositions of very dubious value. What is understood as civil service reform in the Democratic camp has been shown by the Democratic majority of the present House of Representatives, which, without provoking an expression of dissatisfaction from a single one of its members, simply replaced all Republican officials without distinc-