Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/76

50 maintained without tempting many of its members to avail themselves for their selfish advantage of the opportunities of power and party protection, and without attracting a horde of camp followers, professing principle, but meaning spoil. It has always been so, and the American Republic has not escaped the experience.

Neither Mr. Sumner nor many others could in our circumstances close their eyes to this fact. He recognized the danger early, and already, in 1864, he introduced in the Senate a bill for the reform of the civil service, crude in its detail, but embodying correct principles. Thus he may be said to have been the earliest pioneer of the Civil Service Reform movement.

The evil grew under President Johnson's Administration, and ever since it has been cropping out, not only drawn to light by the efforts of the opposition, but, voluntarily and involuntarily, by members of the ruling party itself. There were in it many men who confessed to themselves the urgent necessity of meeting the growing danger.

Mr. Sumner could not be silent. He cherished in his mind a high ideal of what this Republic and its Government should be: a Government composed of the best and wisest of the land; animated by none but the highest and most patriotic aspirations; yielding to no selfish impulse; noble in its tone and character; setting its face sternly against all wrong and injustice; presenting in its whole being to the American people a shining example of purity and lofty public spirit. Mr. Sumner was proud of his country; there was no prouder American in the land. He felt in himself the whole dignity of the Republic. And when he saw anything that lowered the dignity of the Republic and the character of its Government, he felt it as he would have felt a personal offense. He criticized it, he denounced it, he remonstrated against it, for he could