Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/399

Rh appointing power within narrow limits. This is not a mere incidental effect, but it was the original design.

It has a plausible sound when we are told that the head of a public department knows best what kind of men he needs for the work to be done. In private business, where political pressure is unknown, this rule indeed holds good. But we, you and I, and many of those here present, who have the experience of public life, know but too well that, even if the head of a public department does possess that knowledge, he will, so long as he is exposed to political pressure, not be left free to act upon it. We know but too well that this independent and enlightened discretion of the appointing officer to be freely exercised for the good of the service is a myth.

Permit me to tell you why I speak of this with so much assurance. I am not a mere theorist in this matter. During the forty years I have been more or less actively connected with public life, I have witnessed and taken part in a great many things. I have served my apprenticeship as a practical politician. I started under what is currently called the spoils system, when the distribution of offices as rewards for political or personal service was the recognized rule, and the present civil service reform was not yet thought of. I swam with the current for a considerable period, until I saw where that current would carry us. My ideas about the evils flowing from the spoils system are, therefore, not merely evolved from my inner consciousness. They have been the product of personal observation, aye, of personal participation. I saw those evils with my own eyes; I touched them with my own hands.

As to the point here in question, I not merely believe, I know that the plea for the discretion of the heads of public departments in making appointments is clap-trap of the most deceptive sort. I know that heads of