Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/168

144 civil service rules by Executive action. Thus the great customhouse of New York is out of politics no longer; and the same may be said of other large or small Government establishments.

The contemptuously sportive view of the civil service law which at present is taken here and there has, of course, been very much encouraged by an opinion delivered by the Comptroller of the Treasury, Mr. R. J. Tracewell, as to whether persons shown to have been appointed in violation of the civil service rules should, nevertheless, be paid their salaries. The question having been referred to him by the Secretary of the Treasury, Comptroller Tracewell decided that inasmuch as the President has, under the law, made the civil service rules, if not directly then at least by his approval, he could also suspend them or sanction their suspension by his agents or subordinate officers; and that if the rules were thus suspended in individual cases by the appointment of persons in violation of them, the Comptroller has no choice but to accept the certificate of appointment as conclusive and to sanction the payment of the salaries of the persons so appointed. This decision looks like a huge jest at the expense of the civil service law; and we might conclude that it was intended as such when we read the following sentence which forms part of that important document: “If this ruling has a tendency to muddy the stream of civil service reform, which should always flow pure and clean from its fountain throughout its course, I can only answer that it would be as futile for me to attempt with my limited jurisdiction to purify this stream as it would be to bail the ocean of its waters with a pint cup.” Mr. R. J. Tracewell, who owes his appointment as Comptroller not to a civil service examination, but to the so-called free discretion of the President, has, it may be said by the way, furnished by this elegant