Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/403

Rh men in power will yield to it sometimes, and that weaker men succumb to it habitually; that every appointment made in obedience to such pressure means that somebody got an office owing to the favor, personal or political, of some influential person; that wherever an office is bestowed by favor, persons of superior merit and fitness who may aspire to it are thereby wrongfully deprived of their chance. And you will certainly not deny that distributing offices by favor is an essentially aristocratic practice. I am therefore right in speaking of the spoils system as the rule of an aristocracy of influence.

Opponents of the competitive merit system are fond of pretending that it removes the offices from the reach of the people. But are not under the spoils system the offices open only to those of the people who have the aristocracy of influence at their backs? Can it be said that the offices are open to the people if they are open only to the favored few? Here is an object lesson. A few days ago District-Attorney Olcott in New York City appointed seven subpoena servers and one messenger after a non-competitive examination. All these appointments were made on the recommendation of the Republican county committee. Were these places open to the people? No—only to such of the people who had the influence of the county committee at their backs. I maintain that an honest competitive system breaks the aristocracy of influence distinctly for the benefit of the people to—secure justice to the people. Only when public places are to be reached by free and open competitive tests accessible to all, and are conducted with honest impartiality—that is, when the element of personal or political favor or influence is entirely excluded from selection for office, when the favor of the millionaire and of the party chief combined weigh nothing against a simple demonstration of merit—only then will the poor man, the man