Carl Schurz

“ And this is the feature of civil service reform which I would commend for the especially earnest consideration to our young men. They must look forward to the day when their duties as citizens will call them to the field of public activity. It must be their desire, as it certainly is their interest, that they should enter that field under conditions encouraging a pure and high-minded devotion to the public good; conditions permitting them to rise without imposing any tax upon their self-respect ”

“ I mean to say further that, as we know from long experience, under the patronage or spoils system, many men rise to great political influence and power without distinguishing themselves by ability or character or public usefulness—men who simply know how to speculate upon other people's selfishness, who are only skillful in organizing a personal following among those who want to be fed at the public crib, and in building up a party machine mainly officered by placeholders and composed of men eager to become such ”

“ WHAT I am going to say to you is not new, but it cannot be repeated too often, especially before the young men of America. There is a widespread impression that it is the only aim of civil service reform to provide the government with a more efficient class of public servants. ”

“ Such conditions the elimination of spoils politics from our public life will powerfully help to secure; and we may all say, therefore, that civil service reform is prominently the cause of the young American who hopes to serve the republic with honor to himself and profit to the country. ”

“ In other States the development has not been so complete. It is true, the bosses were sometimes baffled by revolts of public sentiment, and occasionally by a spirited President, who showed them his teeth in repelling their dictatorial demand for the absolute control of the federal patronage, or by some dutiful governor, who had a sense of higher obligation and a will of his own. ”

“ But you may safely take it that wherever a party machine exists, mainly held together by what has picturesquely been called “the cohesive power of public plunder”, it will, by a natural process, tend to evolve that bossdom I have described—here a little more rapidly, there a little more slowly, as local conditions may be more or less favorable to it.
Wherever it exists, even in comparatively small beginnings, it will tend to grow in extent and rapacity of power ”