Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/343

Rh where is it? Is it in the rich men's Manhattan Club, or in Tammany Hall or anti-Tammany in New York, among the “swallow-tails” or the “short-hairs”? Or is it among the old State-rights Democrats, East and West? Or among the Confederates in the South? Or among the Irish population or the Roman Catholic Democrats generally? If there is in any section of the Democratic party any desire for a genuine reform of the civil service, anything but a demand for a new deal of the spoils, show it to me. I shall certainly be the last man to deny that there are many good, honest, patriotic, well-meaning and able citizens in the Democratic organization and among its leaders. I count among them not a few valued and trusted personal friends. But where are the advocates of genuine civil service reform among them? As far as I know, we have heard only the solitary voice of Senator Gordon, who submitted in the last session of Congress a commendable proposition for the reform of the revenue service; but the commendation it received in the organs of public opinion came almost exclusively from the Republican or independent side. And now will Governor Tilden, if elected, without support in his own party, at the risk of his popularity with his own friends, brace himself up against the furious onset of hungry patriots, and say: “The interests of the service, the cause of reform, demand that the offices of the Government be no longer looked upon as the spoils of party victory; I shall, therefore, keep in office all faithful and efficient officers no matter whether they are Republicans, and turn out only the unworthy ones; go home, my Democratic friends, that I may judiciously discriminate at leisure”? Or will he tell Democratic Congressmen: “The principles on which the civil service is to be reformed demand that I should not permit any Congressional interference with the responsibilities of the appointing power; therefore