Carl Schurz

“ To put an end to this abominable state of things, there is no other effective means than to deprive the devils as much as possible of their fuel—that is, of their means of bribery; to strip them of their patronage by the greatest practicable extension of civil service reform, and then also to restrict the use of money in elections to the narrowest attainable limits by corrupt practices laws. ”

“ But it remains nevertheless true that the main strength of the enemies of civil service reform is broken, that their arsenals of argument are exhausted, and that in the intelligence and virtue of the people we possess a reserve force growing stronger every day. The attacks we have now to beat back from the ground we have won, are after all those of mere marauding parties seeking lodgment in ill guarded positions of ours, and trying to pick up what there may be within their reach, for a living. ”

“ I believe I can say with perfect assurance that the public opinion of the country has never been so strongly supporting the cause of civil service reform as it is now. Among the great newspapers of the Republic, that is to say among those which have the largest circulations, and command the most influence, there are avowedly opposed to it hardly more than you can count upon the fingers of one hand. ”

“ In his annual address of 1886 he declared:
“This League is the only organized and authentic national representative of the reform sentiment. I challenge any man to show that it has in any degree, or at any time, betrayed the trust voluntarily assumed by it, with the approval of the locally organized friends of reform, of honestly and adequately representing that sentiment, and its criticisms and demands upon political parties and public men. The League has pandered to no personal ambition, to no party purpose. ”

“ We must strive to convince the popular mind that while political parties must have organization, party machines consisting of patronage-mongers and bribe-givers as leaders, with hordes of patronage-hunters and bribe-takers at their command, are not only not necessary to the existence or efficiency of political parties but will deprive parties of their moral vitality, and turn them into mere agencies of general robbery and spoliation. ”

“ I will tell you what has done more than anything else to debauch American politics. It is this civil service reform business. Before the Chinese system came in, whenever you wanted a man to work for you in politics, all you had to do was to promise to find him a place in Washington if you were successful and your party got into power. ”

“ The business men and the commercial bodies that have petitioned and memorialized for the reform of the Consular Service with so much energy, and who were made to believe that by the Olney order at least a beginning of that reform was to be made, must understand that their efforts have so far been in vain, and that, very thinly disguised, the old spoils methods in the appointment of Consular officers are in full flower. ”

“ The finest illustration of the virtues of the merit system is furnished by the American Navy, in its administrative as well as in its fighting force. If there be a person in the land who would favor the injection of spoils politics into that splendid organization, the American people would surely set him down as an idiot, or as a traitor. ”

“ Can there be any excuse that would really satisfy the conscience and the common sense of any patriotic citizen, for not conducting the management of our Revenue service, our Consular Service, our Postal Service, our Land and Forestry Service, our Indian Service, the taking of the Census, and every other branch of our administrative machinery, on the basis of the same simple principle? ”

“ To-day, if you are running for an office, and ask a man in town to round up the voters at the caucus for you, he stands back and asks: ‘What am I to get out of it?’ You cannot give him a place in Washington now, and if this civil service business is allowed to go on the day will come when you cannot give him anything in the line of office anywhere. ”

“ So it is with the government in its administration of the civil service law. One conspicuous dereliction in its enforcement going unpunished will cause a widespread belief that there may be many similar derelictions not so conspicuous, and that the whole system is a hypocritical farce. And such a suspicion is especially dangerous and deplorable in view of the fact that the permanency and the extension of the merit system depend very largely upon the popular belief in the honesty of its advocates and the trustworthiness of its enforcement. ”

“ Is it necessary that the organization and the workers should consist of a lot of mercenaries who put themselves to party work only for the purpose of making politics profitable to themselves personally? Some people will say that only that class of persons can be found willing to devote themselves to the drudgery of party work. This is plausible. But is it true? We have had political parties in this country before the offices were distributed among party workers with every change of administration, and before much money was used in elections to bring out the voters ”

“ On the other hand, recent events have served to put the necessity of the maintenance and of the greatest possible extension of the merit system in a stronger light than ever, and still more to invigorate that patriotic public opinion which, steadily increasing in righteous power, will not only not tolerate any backward step but never cease to press on until the work of reform is wholly accomplished and firmly founded. ”

“ Now I admit that in countries in which spoils politics have never prevailed, as in Germany, or in which, as in England, they have long ceased to prevail so as to have entirely disappeared from the habits and even from the memory of the people, pass-examinations may more easily be maintained in practical efficiency, although even there,—as John Stuart Mill forcibly set forth in a well remembered dissertation—even there they were apt to deteriorate. ”

“ There is not one of those occurrences which, as soon as it came to public knowledge, did not call forth from the enemies of the merit system the customary cry—“See there another proof of what an unmitigated humbug civil service reform is!” Indeed, such cries are extremely unjust; but who will deny that they have a most undesirable effect upon those who do not take the trouble to discriminate? Do we not know that most people judge others rather by their faults than by their virtues, rather by their failures than their successes? ”

“ A useful party worker who is to be provided for, or a person of some local political influence who is the favorite of a powerful political patron, conceives the idea that it would be pleasant to him to have some comfortable salaried position abroad, either because he has no other paying job on hand, or because his wife's health needs a change of climate, or because he wishes his daughters to have good and cheap music lessons, or because he wants to be “vindicated” or raised in the social scale by means of recognition on the part of the Government. ”

“ A large majority of them are advocating and sustaining it with more or less fidelity and force. Discussion on the usefulness of the merit system as it affects the administration of the public business has substantially ceased. On the whole, the spoils politician in assailing civil service reform confines himself to certain hackneyed ribaldries, and to the fierce exclamation that he and his kind must have the offices as a reward for party service. ”

“ The United States Senator from his State, or his representative in Congress, or both, find it desirable for what they call the public interest—that is, their own interest, in keeping their political machine in order—that the ambition of this person should be gratified, and they assail the President with suitable urgency, telling him that the people of their respective States or districts demand just this thing, and that unless it be done the consequences to the party will be awful. ”

“ Can the most inventive ingenuity produce any valid reason why the whole public service—National, State and Municipal—should not be organized upon the simple and self-evident principle which in our Navy has proved so brilliantly successful? ”

“ Nothing could be more deceptive and dangerous than the doctrine that if one party has such a machine, the other one must have one, too, in order to fight the devil with fire. If the observance of this doctrine were carried to its logical consequences, it would turn our party contests simply into something like two or more devils fighting each other with fire. Where two bosses, and the head of two parties respectively, fight one another, this is actually and visibly the case. ”

“ If men of unsuitable character and acquirements must, at the dictation of Senatorial or other bosses, be put into the Consular Service of the country, let it at least be done frankly and courageously under the old spoils flag, and not under the cover of a so-called reform system. ”

“ Now, if the merit system in its fullest development should be considered indispensable for the government of the colonies, in case they come, will there be any hope of obtaining it unless it be considered equally necessary for our home service? ”

“ When the spoils politicians in public place, or public officers who are subject to the influence of spoils politicians, are made to understand that they can trample upon the law and upon the regulations laid down by the Chief Magistrate, without danger of being held to account for it, what can be more natural than that in constantly widening circles the law should become an object of sport for those who desire to circumvent or to subvert it? ”

“ The public obligation to him will of course be much greater if he employs his official influence to the utmost, as I earnestly hope he will, toward accomplishing what the business community of the country has so long and so vainly been praying for—that is a system of examinations for Consular positions that will really rescue the Consular service from the deleterious touch of spoils politics, and bring to it the best attainable ability and character. ”

“ We must not seek to satisfy the mercenary element, but to get on without it. We must not endeavor to attract the mercenary element to political activity, but do everything we can to drive it out of that political life. ”

“ Thus we are asked to return to the spoils system in the interest of the public virtue, and strange to say, I have known cases in which this appeal has had some effect upon otherwise sensible persons. Their reasoning is this. We must have political parties. A party must have an organization. An organization must have workers to get out the vote. The workers must have reward. ”

“ It appears that the smuggling of persons into places subject to competitive examination without such an examination has been developed into a fine art in various branches of the service, and that the “beating” of the law and of the rules is extensively carried on with much ingenuity and system. ”

“ It is therefore necessary that in such surroundings the administration should protect itself with as strong a bulwark as possible against the pressure of influence, and the strongest bulwark as yet discovered is the competitive system of examination, open to all, which gives the best man the best chance for appointment without regard to party affiliations. ”

“ But at present we find ourselves, much against our liking, compelled to recognize the fact that in the year now ending the cause of civil service reform has been less prosperous than in the year which preceded it. ”

“ A man will be less praised for observing nine, than he will be blamed and discredited for breaking one. Nor has he any right to complain of this. The observance of the nine commandments is a simple duty, the performance of which should be regarded as a matter of course. By the breach of one he forfeits his virtue, and lays himself open to the suspicion of being capable of breaking more of them. ”

“ In this respect I can only repeat what I said in my last annual address:
“If our commercial community wants a real reform in the method of appointment to Consular positions, it must insist upon three things: competitive examination for admission to the Consular service; promotion only for merit; and removal only for cause.”
Nor can it be said that competitive examinations are inapplicable to Consular offices, appointments to which are subject to confirmation by the Senate ”

“ We know that in other countries which have constitutional government, and political parties, and elections, but no distribution of offices as party spoil, and no bands of mercenary party workers living on politics, party contests are as energetic as they are here. ”

“ One man cannot run this alone, for one man does not make a Legislature. Hence we must have leaders or ‘bosses’ as you would call them, so that whenever a great corporation wants something which it is willing to pay for, it can go directly to the boss, and he in turn can parcel out the money to such of his followers as are willing in state Legislatures, city Councils, and the national Congress to vote as he directs, or to earn the money. ”

“ The outcome, then, is that an aspirant for political power must either be very rich or must work the corporations which are seeking favors. If he can turn legislative privileges to profit, and so make himself indispensable to somebody, he will have money to do business on. ”

“ The suggestion that under existing circumstances we cannot keep our political parties in effective activity without systematic bribery and corruption of some sort, and the fact that such a theory can be advanced with the expectation of its being accepted by good citizens, should only serve to open our eyes to the frightful character of the condition confronting us. ”