The New York Times/1897/9/9/Senator Gallinger's Reply

New Hampshire Man Makes Public an Open Letter to Carl Schurz on Civil Service Reform.

CONCORD, N. H., Sept. 8. &mdash; Senator J. H. Gallinger of New Hampshire has made public an open letter in reply to a communication from Carl Schurz, recently published, in which Mr. Schurz took issue with Mr. Gallinger on statements made by the latter bearing on civil service reform.

Mr. Gallinger's letter contains long quotations from James G. Blaine and others, giving, as Senator Gallinger says, the estimate of contemporaries in public life of Mr. Schurz, of the latter's “character and fidelity to principle,” each of which contained many cutting references to Mr. Schurz's political career.

Continuing, Senator Gallinger speaks of himself in much the same strain, and charges Mr. Schurz with many acts of political disloyalty.

“In regard to civil service reform,” Senator Gallinger says, “as the Republican Party gave to the country the civil service law, that party is its best interpreter.

“At best the present interpretation of the present civil service law is not a fundamental political tenet, but simply a question of opinion.

“If you will carefully read the plank in the last Republican platform, which you quote in your letter, you will observe that it demand that ‘it (the civil service law) shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced.’ That is the very issue I have raised. I have contended, and still contend, that Grover Cleveland did not honestly enforce the law, but prostituted it to partisan ends, amid the applause of men who claim superior morality in public affairs over that professed by their neighbors.”


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