Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/181

Rh can you do? What qualifications have you for serving the people? Have you more than other candidates for the place?” On the one side, under the spoils system, the aristocracy of influence—and a very vulgar aristocracy it is—robbing the man who has only merit unbacked by power, of his rightful chance. On the other hand, civil service reform, inviting all freely to compete, and then giving the best chance to the best man, be that man ever so lowly, and be his competitor ever so great a favorite of wealth or power. On that side the aristocracy of “pull,” on this the democracy of merit.

This is the true democracy, and, as a civil service reformer, I have a right to say, “I am a Democrat,” Senator David B. Hill to the contrary notwithstanding. But what are you, spoilsman? You may be whatever else, but as a Democrat you are an impostor.

The spoils politician is fond of objecting that civil service examinations do not always point out the fittest man for the place. Perhaps not always. The best marksman does not hit the bull's-eye every time, but he misses it rarely. The civil service examinations may have a small record of failures. But what the system fairly conducted always does is to snatch public office from the undemocratic control of influence and favoritism. And there is the point which stings the spoils politician. It would trouble him little whether or not the fittest man is put in the proper field of action. That is not what he cares for. But that the reformed system so effectively repels the demoralizing touch of political favor, that it so thoroughly takes away from the office the character of spoil, that it does not tolerate public place to be a means of bribery and an article of barter—this the spoils politician will never forgive us, for it destroys his trade. The very democracy of civil service reform makes the spoilsman's heart sore with sorrow, and in the bitterness of his soul he wildly