Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/414

390 utterly to ruin and destroy the system? Must you needs burn down the whole house to make a chimney draw? What do you complain of? That the questions asked in the examinations are too scholastic? That no sufficient means are employed to ascertain character? That the interests and wishes of the several departments are not sufficiently regarded in the purview of the examinations? Why, sir, if these complaints were well founded, you as governor have the amplest power to rectify all this in the simplest way. The law gives you the power to approve or disapprove, aye, virtually to make the rules in accordance with the constitutional mandate, and to modify in a general sense the methods of proceeding of the civil service boards. And so have the mayors of the cities the power. All that is required is that you should sit down and, with such expert aid as you can abundantly command, go over the rules and over the records of the examinations. You can say: Here is a rule that seems to be too broad or too narrow, and I order it to be changed thus and so; or, I fail to find here proper methods for the ascertainment of character or of practical skill or experience, and I direct that such methods be adopted, or that the departments be consulted as to the line the examinations should follow. You, as governor, can do all this. You can do everything consistent with the fundamental principle of the constitutional mandate. There is absolutely no obstacle in your way—and we shall all be happy to aid you in making the system more effective and beneficial.

Now, since you can do all this by a simple exercise of your executive power, why, in the name of common-sense, why this bill? Why this unheard of and ridiculous pettifoggery about the difference between “merit” and “fitness”? Why this multiplication of examinations, this trotting around of hundreds or thousands of candidates