Chapter LXXVII: Section 1: provides for the appointment by the President of a commission (1)

of five persons, of different political parties, of whom three shall hold no official place, and two shall be experienced in the public service.

The second section is in the following words:

SEC. 2. That it shall be the duty of said commission.

First, To devise and submit to the President for his approval and
promulgation, from time to time, suitable rules, and to suggest
appropriate action for making this act effective: and when so approved
and promulgated it shall be the duty of all officers of the United
States in the Departments and offices to which any such rules may
relate to aid, in all proper ways, in carrying said rules, and any
modifications thereof, into effect.

Second, And, among other things, said rules shall provide and declare,
as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant, as
follows:

First, for open, competitive examinations for testing the capacity of
applicants for the public service now classified or to be classified
hereunder.

Second, that all the offices, places, and employments so arranged or
to be arranged in classes shall be filled by selections from among
those graded highest as the results of such competitive examinations.

Third, that original entrance to the public service aforesaid shall be
at the lowest grade.

Fourth, that there shall be a period of probation before any absolute
appointment or employment aforesaid.

Fifth, that promotions shall be from the lower grades to the higher on
the basis of merit and competition.

Sixth, that no person in the public service is for that reason under
any obligations to contribute to any political fund, or to render any
political service, and that he will not be removed or otherwise
prejudiced for refusing to do so.

Seventh, that no person in said service has any right to use his
official authority or influence to coerce the political action of any
person or body.

Eighth, there shall be non-competitive examinations in all proper
cases before the commission, when competition may not be found
practicable.

Ninth, that notice shall be given in writing to said commission of the
persons selected for appointment or employment from among those who
have been examined, of the rejection of any such persons after
probation, and of the date thereof, and a record of the same shall be
kept by said commission.

And any necessary exceptions from said nine fundamental provisions of
the rules shall be set forth in connection with such rules, and the
reasons therefor shall be stated in the annual reports of the
commission.

Third. Said commission shall make regulations for, and have control
of, such examinations, and, through its members or the examiners, it
shall supervise and preserve the records of the same, and said
commission shall keep minutes of its own proceedings.

Fourth. Said commission may make investigations concerning the facts,
and may report upon all matters touching the enforcement and effects
of said rules and regulations, and concerning the action of any
examiner or board of examiners, and its own subordinates, and those in
the public service, in respect to the execution of this act.

Fifth. Said commission shall make an annual report to the President,
for transmission to Congress, showing its own action, the rules and
regulations and the exceptions thereto in force, the practical effects
thereof, and any suggestions it may approve for the more effectual
accomplishment of the purposes of this act.

The third and fourth sections authorize the commission to employ a
chief examiner, a secretary, and the necessary clerical force; to
designate boards of examiners, to direct where examinations shall be
held; and requires that suitable rooms shall be furnished for its
accommodation in the public buildings in Washington and elsewhere.
They require also the chief examiner to act, as far as practicable,
with the examining boards, and to secure accuracy, uniformity, and
justice in all their proceedings.

The fifth section defines the offenses which are calculated to defeat
the just enforcement of the act, and declares the penalties.

The sixth section requires the heads of the different Departments to
make a more perfect classification of clerks and employès, both in the
Departments in the various offices under their charge, in conformity
with the one hundred and sixty-third section of the Revised Statutes,
and to extend and revise such classification at the request of the
President.

The seventh section is in these words:

SEC. 7. After the expiration of four months from the passage of this
act no officer or clerk shall be appointed, and no person shall be
employed to enter or be promoted in either of the said classes now
existing, or that may be arranged hereunder, pursuant to said rules,
until he has passed an examination, or is shown to be specially
exempted from such examination in conformity herewith.

But nothing herein contained shall be construed to take from those
honorably discharged from the military or naval service any preference
conferred by the seventeen hundred and fifty-fourth section of the
Revised Statutes, nor to take from the President any authority not
inconsistent with this act conferred by the seventeen hundred and
fifty-third section of said statutes: nor shall any officer not in the
executive branch of the Government, or any person merely employed as a
laborer or workman, be required to be classified hereunder; nor,
unless by direction of the Senate, shall any person who has been
nominated for confirmation by the Senate be required to be classified
or pass an examination.

Now, Mr. President, recurring to what I have said as to scope of this bill, to the officers who are embraced in it, to the avoidance of the question of removal and tenure, I have only to say that the machinery of the bill is that the President shall call to his aid the very best assistance, with or without the concurrence of the Senate—for that is a matter about which gentlemen would differ and upon it I have no very fixed opinion—that the President shall with the concurrence of the best advice which he can obtain, form a plan, a scheme of examination free for all, open to all, which shall secure the very best talent and the very best capacity attainable for the civil offices of the Government. The method adopted in the bill is by competitive examination. That method has been imperfectly tried throughout the country. I have here the statement of the postmaster of New York who has given much attention and has had great experience in this matter. I have here his statement that the business of his office increased 150 per cent. within a certain number of years, and the expenses increased only 2 per cent.

To be specific—

Says Mr. Pearson—

while the increase in the volume of matter has been from 150 to 300
per cent. the increase in cost has only been about 2 per cent.

Mr. Graves, whose testimony I read before, has stated as the result of the efforts which were made by General Grant during the period that he was allowed any funds for the purpose of putting this scheme into operation, that the expenses of the Departments here can be reduced at least one-third.

I have heard it said that this system of examination proposes to present only a scholastic test; that it proposes only to give advantage to those who are college-bred, and have had the advantage in early life of superior education. The committee investigated that subject to some extent, and I have here the result in the city of New York. Says Mr. Burt:

Taking seven hundred and thirty-one persons examined, 60 per cent. of
the appointees selected from them had been educated simply in the
common schools of the country; 33⅓ per cent. had received what they
call academic or highschool education; and 6½ per cent, a collegiate
education. In all the statistics in regard to common school education
there is one little weakness resulting from the fact that we have to
throw in that class men who have had hardly any education, men who
will say, “I went to school until I was 11 years old,” or “I went to
school in the winter,” or something of that kind. We have to throw
them in that class—

That is the class who have received a common-school education—

and it rather reduces the average standing in that category. As to the
matter of age we have very thoroughly exploded that objection. There
have been some young men of 21 and 22 who have come in, but the
average has been above 30, and it is astonishing that it is the men
above 30 who make the best time on examination, who show a facility to
get through work quickly.

He goes on to say:

Yet about two-thirds of the appointees had a common-school education;
had not even an academic education.

Thereupon the chairman of the committee asked:

Is it from that you get the value of the element of experience and
natural force that I spoke of?

Mr. BURT. Yes, sir; it shows itself there apart from the question of
elaborate education.

Of course these examinations must be proper; of course they must be regulated upon common-sense principles; of course they must be conducted to test the fitness of the men who are to be appointed to particular offices. You have tests everywhere. To-day the law requires that there shall be a test of examination in the various Departments here in Washington. They are pass examinations; they are imperfect; they are insufficient; they are not thorough. Mr. Graves himself says that the only examination in his case was that the superior in the Department looked over his shoulder while he was writing and said, “I think you will pass.” That was when he entered the service twenty-odd years ago.

If you have examinations why not have competitive examinations? If you have private pass examinations, why not have open examinations? If examinations are made in the Departments by subordinates of the Departments, why not have them made by responsible examiners amenable to the authority of the President under a system devised by the best intelligence that can be supplied?

I hear the system of competitive examination spoken of as if it were something extraordinary. Within the last fifteen years it has gotten to be a custom that I might almost say is universal that when a member of Congress has the right to appoint a cadet to West Point or to the Naval Academy he asks his constituents to compete for it. Formerly it was never done; it was looked on as the mere perquisite of a member of Congress. I appointed a gentleman to West Point who graduated at the head of his class, and now is the active and vigorous spirit of the Military Academy. I appointed him simply upon my own personal examination and knowledge. It would not be done now; it could not be done now; the public sentiment is against it. The public sentiment of the district that I then represented would not permit it; but open competitive examinations are demanded, and everybody having the requisite qualifications of age and health and vigor can compete for the appointment.

Why not apply that system to the Executive Departments of this Government? What earthly reason can there be why when you desire to appoint the best and fittest man for the place that is vacant he should not subject himself to the competition of other people who desire to have that place? Of course, as I said before, this all goes upon the basis that there shall be reasonable examinations and reasonable competition.

Nor are there any aristocratical tendencies about this system, as I have heard suggested; for while it does not in any wise create an official caste it does in words and in effect, open up the possibility of the public service to the poorest and the humblest and least influential in the land.

Mr. President, I desire to say only one word further. I have spoken to-day under great disadvantage, and perhaps I may have omitted things that I shall desire in the course of this discussion to lay before the Senate.

But I desire, Mr. President, to follow out for one moment the line of thought which I indicated when I said that I believed this system would be of great advantage to the country, and that to me it was no objection, that I believed it would be of great advantage to the Democratic party. The suggestion has been made here that it might be better to lay this matter over until after another election, and that the mutations of parties might fill, under the old system, the various Departments with members of the faith to which I belong. Aye, Mr. President, but the next Presidential election may not have that result, and it will not have the result, in my honest conviction, unless we do two things: First, respond to the demands which the people make upon the Democratic party now in its condition of probation; and, second, disarm that great body of officials who as disciplined armies go forth to control the Presidential elections.

I believe, and I am only excused from making this remark because of what I have heard publicly and in private conversation upon the floor of the Senate—I believe if we argue this question upon the lower plane of mere partisan advantage we Democrats ought to support the measure. It has been said that this abandonment of the spoils system will retain in office the appointees of the Republican party. I conceal nothing; I state it in my place in Senate, and before my fellow-Senators who are of the other persuasion, I do not think it. There is no proposition to extend the term of office where it is now fixed, nor in any wise limit the constitutional power of removal from office. The proposition is simply and only that where a new appointment shall be made the element of fitness shall be decisive. Can any Democrat object to that?

How many Democrats are there in office now? How many will there ever be under the spoils system? The Republicans have possession of the Government for two years and more. How many Democrats will be put in office during that time, except on the merit system? Not one. But if this system be fairly inaugurated and administered within one year there will be fifty where now there is one.

It has been said that the abandonment of the spoils system will exclude Democrats from office when the day of our victory shall come. I do not think it. On the contrary, I believe that the adoption of this policy as our party creed will hasten the day of the victory of our party and its adoption as a law will under any administration fill many offices with Democrats. I think it will bring to our aid very many men not hitherto of our political faith who believe this reform a vital question in our politics. I think it will disarm and disorganize and neutralize the trained bands of office-holders who have wrested from us, as I have said, at least two Presidential elections. And finally, repudiating utterly, as I do, that the animating spirit of the Democratic party is the love of spoils, and that its cohesive principle is that of public plunder—repudiating, I say, that doctrine, I think the Democrats throughout this land—I know that in my own State they can—will stand the test of any examination, and in a fair field will not come out second best.

Who shall do them the discredit, who shall do this party, now numbering at least half the people of this country, the discredit to say that they can not stand the test of merit for official position and promotion with any equal number of men in any party of the country.

I have detained the Senate much too long, and yet I must add that the very best aid to any system of reforming the service is in the most rigid application of the democratic theory of the Federal Constitution and Government; that its powers are all granted; that the subjects on which it can act are very limited; that it should refrain from enlarging its jurisdiction, or even exercising admitted but unnecessary powers; that it should scrupulously avoid “undue administration.” Add to this the election by the people to local Federal offices, and there will be little necessity and little room for other methods.

* * * * *

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending question is on the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] to the amendment of the Senator from Iowa [Mr. ALLISON].

MR. PENDLETON. The Senator from Iowa is not in his place at this moment, but gave me authority to withdraw his amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there be no objection, it will be considered as withdrawn for the time being.

MR. PENDLETON. I now move to strike out lines 22 and 23 of section 2, as follows:

Third. That original entrance to the public service aforesaid shall be
at the grade, and appointments thereto.

And to insert in lieu thereof “appointments to the public service aforesaid;” so as to read:

Appointments to the public service aforesaid in the Departments at
Washington, shall be apportioned, as nearly as practicable, among the
several States and Territories and the District of Columbia, upon the
basis of population as ascertained at the last preceding census.

This amendment has been discussed, and I do not care to detain the Senate in the further discussion of it. It opens up the public service in all its grades to competition, not only from those within but those outside of the Departments. The objections to the provision that entrance shall be at the lowest grade, and higher places shall be filled by promotions only, are so strong that I desire to perfect the bill by striking out this clause at this time. At the proper time I shall move to strike out the clause in relation to promotion, if it shall seem necessary to accomplish my purpose. I wish entrance to the public service to be open at all grades to every one whether he may be now in office or not.

The amendment was adopted.

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SENATE AND EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT.

_Speech of Hon. John J. Ingalls, of Kansas, in the Senate of the United
States, Friday, March 26, 1886._

The Senate having under consideration the resolutions reported by Mr. EDMUNDS from the Committee on the Judiciary, relative to the refusal of the Attorney-General to furnish copies of certain papers—

Mr. INGALLS said:

Mr. PRESIDENT: Contemporaneous construction of the Constitution, fortified by long usage and acquiescence, undisturbed for more than seventy-five years, has to my mind incontestably and impregnably established two fundamental propositions: first, that under the Constitution of the United States the power to appoint includes the power to remove, and that both these powers are vested in the President of the United States, subject only to the power of the Senate to negative in cases of appointment; and, second, that where the tenure of an office is not fixed by the Constitution it is held at the pleasure of the Executive.

I therefore take up this argument where the opposition leave it: I begin where they close. I concede all that they demand as to the constitutional power of the Executive upon the subject of appointments to office. If it shall appear that the report of the Committee on the Judiciary is inconsistent with these declarations, that the report and the resolutions to which we are now asked to give our assent in any manner impair or infringe upon, or are in derogation of these admitted high executive prerogatives, then I shall submit to condemnation, for my signature is appended to that report.

So far as I have been able to unravel and disentangle the complicated array of argument by which it has been attempted to destroy the force and effect of the report of the Committee on the Judiciary, I understand that the objections are practically four:

First, that by the action of the majority of the Senate an attempt is made to invade the prerogative of the president by demanding his reasons for the suspensions from office that he has made. To that I interpose upon the threshold and in the vestibule of this argument an absolute contradiction and denial.

The President of the United States in the message that he voluntarily, of his own motion, sent down to this body, starts out with an absolutely unfounded imputation upon the position of the majority. He says that the Senate has been from time to time, in various ways, through committees of the body and by personal importunity, appealing to the Executive to give his reasons for the suspension of officials that have been reported to this body with the designation of others to fill the places thus to be rendered vacant.

Sir, I deny it, and I now challenge from any supporter or adherent of the administration the exhibition of a word, or syllable, or justifiable inference upon which that allegation, so often repeated with so much variety of iteration, can be properly or justly founded.

The effort has been ingeniously made to shift the issue, to darken council by words without wisdom, and to make it appear that there has been a deliberate purpose and intention on the part of the Senate to interfere with the recognized prerogatives of the Executive by demanding his reasons for suspension; and unless I hear some Senator while this debate is now proceeding and while I invite the statement—unless I hear something said in support of that averment, which I deny, and which I affirm has been made for the purpose of clouding this controversy in popular estimation, I shall assume that my denial is not to be met.

Again, sir, it has been alleged in debate, in the public press, by intimation and declaration, and it has been the basis of many studied arguments in this Chamber that there had been demands by the Senate upon the executive for private papers in the cases sent down for consideration. I deny it. I contradict that statement by an appeal to the record; and before that great tribunal by whom this issue is to be tried and determined, I allege that that averment is without foundation. There has never been in form or in substance, directly or indirectly, expressly or remotely, any demand made by any committee of this body upon the Executive or upon the head of any Department for the production of private papers; and I shall be glad in the front of my explicit denial and contradiction if some one of the advocates, some one of the champions of the administration, will point out, before this controversy is concluded, when, where, and how there has been any demand made by the Senate upon the President of the United States or upon any head of a Department for the production of private papers.

That issue was brought in here by the administration. It is said that a guilty conscience needs no accuser. We have been told of those who “fear in every bush an officer.” Sir, it was the interior consciousness of the administration out of which was evolved this phantasy, this farcical allegation, that there was an attempt on the part of the Senate to compel the production of private unofficial papers and communications in the possession of the President of the United States. No Senator doubts that the President occupies an absolutely independent position, and none would desire under any circumstances to interfere with his admitted prerogatives.

I shall strip this controversy of its fallacious incidents. I shall clear away the undergrowth of misrepresentation, sophistry, and false pretenses, that has hitherto obstructed the pathway of our consideration of the real issues that are involved in this contention. With my consent it shall not hereafter be averred before the popular tribunal that is ultimately to decide this question that there has been an indefensible and insolent attempt to impair the constitutional prerogatives of the President of the United States.

Another allegation has been that while this controversy has proceeded the Senate has been inactive, interposing partisan objections to the transaction of executive business, to prevent the execution of his high trusts by the President of the United States. I yesterday had compiled from the records of the executive office, for the purpose of showing what has been done in this particular, a statement, public under our rules, which shows that from the 25th of January, 1886, to the date of the last executive session there had been confirmed by the Senate four hundred and ninety-three nominations of officers sent down by the President. Never in any single instance where there has been a vacancy, occurring by resignation, expiration of term or proper removal upon which we could properly act, has there been an instant of delay. The Senate has not inquired whether the nominee was a Democrat or Republican, but has proceeded vigorously, industriously and steadfastly in the performance of its constitutional duties, and if there has been inaction or non-action upon nominations, I shall show before I conclude my remarks that it has been invited by the administration.

Again, it has been alleged that the action of the majority of the Senate is instigated by the purpose of keeping Republicans in office; that we are moved by partisan considerations to thwart by all means in our power the efforts of the Executive to transfer the official patronage of the Government to the party that was placed in power by the votes of a majority of the people. I am not authorized to speak for others, but for myself and for those who have accredited me here, I cannot submit with patience to such an intolerable accusation.

Mr. President, the Republicans of Kansas are Republicans. They are neither afraid to be so classified nor ashamed to be thus described. They do not covet any qualifying or palliative epithets. Their attitude is neither apologetic nor defensive. They have an unconquerable pride in their political achievements, in the history they have made, in the triumphs they have won. For twenty-five years they have stood upon the skirmish line, neither asking nor giving quarter. They are Republicans not by inheritance, not by tradition, not by accident, but from conviction; and they are as steadfast in defeat as in victory. They are partisans, intrepid, undaunted, uncompromising, and they can give reasons for the faith that is in them.

They believe and I believe that for the past quarter of a century upon every vital issue before the American people, secession, slavery, coercion, the public credit, honest elections, universal freedom, and the protection of American labor, they have always been right and that their opponents have always been wrong; and, while they concede unreservedly patriotism and sincerity to their adversaries, temporary repulse has not convinced them that they were in error. There is neither defection nor dismay in their columns. They are ready, they are impatient to renew the battle. Animated by such impulses, it is not singular that they should feel that no Republican can hold an appointive office under a Democratic administration without either sacrificing his convictions or forfeiting his self-respect.

Accordingly, sir, when a little more than a year ago a Democratic administration was inaugurated, those who were in public station began with one consent to make excuse to retire to private life. They did not stand upon the order of their going; they trampled upon each other in a tumultuous and somewhat indecent haste to get out of office. There was no craven cry for mercy; no mercenary camp-follower fled for shelter to the bomb-proofs of the tenure-of-office act; no sutler crawled behind the fragile breastworks of civil-service reform for protection. They lost their baggage, but they retained their colors, their arms, their ammunition, and their camp equipage, and marched off the field with the honors of war. If at the expiration of one year a few yet remain in office, _rari nantes in gurgite vasto_, it is because the victors have been unable to agree among themselves or been unable to discover among their own numbers competent and qualified successors.

Mr. President, candor compels me to say that the Democracy of that State share the same temper and spirit. From 1854, when the Territory was organized, down to the 29th of January, 1861, when the State was admitted, if there was a Republican holding any appointive office it was an inadvertence; and if from 1861 down to 1885 there was a Democrat holding an official position requiring confirmation by the Senate, it was an oversight; it escaped the somewhat vigilant scrutiny of my colleague and myself and those who preceded us here.

Therefore, Mr. President, I am not of those who believe in non-partisanship in politics; and I should be recreant to the high trust confided in me were I to refrain from declaring my conviction that political parties, energetic, vigorous, and well defined, are indispensable to the success of free popular governments. Wherever the life of States is freest and most irrepressible, there party spirit is most active and aggressive. It is by the conflict and collision of political parties that the latent and richest powers of the State are made manifest; and those whom I represent have no sympathy with the dogma that it reflects glory upon a statesman to affect independence of his party, or that it is an indication of virtue in a citizen to belong to no political organization.

Political parties are social groups in the nation, allied by common purposes and kindred aspirations for the accomplishment of beneficial results. When parties perish this Government will expire, for we all understand that in this country the only government is the party in power. Here is no dynasty, no ruling family, nothing corresponding to the functions of government under other systems except the party that is for the time being intrusted by the votes of a majority of the people with the execution of their will. And, sir, when a majority of the people declare that there shall be a change of administration, it is necessarily implied that there shall be a change of those agencies through which alone political administration can be made effectual. It is useless to juggle and palter about this matter. A change of administration is a change of policies and methods, and the Chief Magistrate is entitled to the co-operation of agents and ministers who are in sympathy with his opinions and the doctrines which he is chosen to enforce and maintain.

Sir, unless the President of the United States is to be a mummy swathed in the cerements of the grave, he must have powers commensurate with his duties. He is charged to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and unless he has the power to select the agencies through which the laws are administered, through which the revenues are collected and disbursed, the post-offices conducted, the Indians supported and controlled, the glory and honor of the nation maintained, that duty imposed upon him by the Constitution is an idle phrase; it means nothing; it is an empty formula. Charged with these great duties, liable to impeachment if they are not properly performed, how can it be claimed with justice that there shall be an interpolation of novel doctrines of reform, under which while the chief is still to be held responsible, he shall be deprived of all the agencies and ministrations under the Constitution by which they can alone be so administered, in sympathy with him and the policy that he represents.

Therefore, sir, I am confident that when it was ascertained in November, 1884, that a change of the political majority in this country had been registered, there was a general faith and conviction that a change of official holdings would follow. The Democratic party desired it; the Republican party expected it, and would have been content; and had it been done the people at large would have said with one accord, amen. But this generation has witnessed the genesis of a new political gospel; a novel organization has appeared upon earth; a new school of political philosophers who announce that non-partisanship is the panacea for all the evils that afflict the Republic. Having no avowed opinions upon the great topics of the hour, they feebly decry the corruptions of the American system, and peevishly and irritably declare that the Government is degenerate and degraded, and that the true prescription to elevate, reform, and purify the public service is to prevent the clerks from being removed out of their places in the Departments. This brotherhood has not been hitherto very largely re-enforced from the Democracy. If there has been an original civil-service reformer who has deserted from the ranks of the Democracy, history does not record his name. It has been left to the party to which I belong to afford conspicuous and shining illustrations of that class of political thinkers who are never quite sure that they are supporting a party unless they are reviling the candidates and denouncing its platform, who are not positive that they are standing erect unless they are leaning over backward, and whose idea of reforming the organization in which they profess to be classified is to combine with its adversaries and vote for candidates who openly spurn their professions and depreciate the stock in trade which they denominate their principles. Standing on the corners of the streets, enlarging the borders of their phylacteries, they loudly advertise their perfections, thanking God that they are not as other men, even these Republicans and Democrats; they traffic with both to ascertain which they can most profitably betray.

Mr. President, the neuter gender is not popular either in nature or society. “Male and female created He them.” But there is a third sex, if that can sex be called which sex has none, resulting sometimes from a cruel caprice of nature, at others from accident or malevolent design, possessing the vices of both and the virtues of neither; effeminate without being masculine or feminine; unable either to beget or to bear; possessing neither fecundity nor virility; endowed with the contempt of men and the derision of women, and doomed to sterility, isolation, and extinction. But they have two recognized functions. They sing falsetto, and they are usually selected as the guardians of the seraglios of Oriental despots.

And thus to pass from the illustration to the fact, these political epicenes, without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity, chant in shrill falsetto their songs of praise of non-partisanship and civil-service reform, and apparently have been selected as the harmless custodians of the conscience of the national Executive.

Sir, I am not disposed to impugn the good faith, the patriotism, the sincerity, the many unusual traits and faculties of the President of the United States. He is the sphinx of American politics. It is said that he is a fatalist; that he regards himself as the child of fate—the man of destiny; and that he places devout and implicit reliance upon the guiding influence of his star. Certainly, whether he be a very great man or a very small man, he is a very extraordinary man. His career forbids any other conclusion.

The Democratic party was not wanting when its convention assembled at Chicago in many renowned and illustrious characters; men who had led the forlorn hope in its darkest and most desperate days; men for whose character and achievements, for whose fame and history, not only that organization but the country had the profoundest admiration and respect. There was Thurman, and Bayard, and Hendricks, and Tilden, and McDonald, and others perhaps not less worthy and hardly less illustrious, upon whom the mantle of that great distinction might have fallen; but the man at the mature age of thirty-five abandoned a liberal and honored profession to become the sheriff of Erie, without known opinions and destitute of experience or training in public affairs, outstripped them all in the race of ambition; and when but little more than a year ago he entered this Chamber as the President elect of the United States, he encountered the curious scrutiny of an audience to whom he was a stranger in feature as in fame; a stranger to the leaders of his own party as well as to the representatives of all the nations of the earth who had assembled to witness the gorgeous pageant of his inauguration.

Sir, the career of Napoleon was sudden, startling, and dramatic. There have been many soldiers of fortune who have sprung at one bound from obscurity to fame, but no illustration of the caprices of destiny so brilliant and bewildering is recorded in history as the elevation of Grover Cleveland to the Chief Magistracy of sixty millions of people.

If when he was inaugurated he had determined that the functions of Government should be exercised by officers selected from his own party the nation would have been content; but he did not so determine, and herein and hereon is founded the justification that the majority of the Senate can satisfactorily use and employ in demanding that no action shall be had in connection with these suspensions from office until there has been satisfactory assurances that injustice has not been done. If it were understood that these suspensions and removals were made for political reasons the country would be content, the Republican majority in the Senate would be content. But what is the attitude? Ever since his inauguration and for many months before, by many utterances, official and private, in repeated declarations never challenged, Mr. Cleveland announced that he would not so administer this Government. At the very outset, in his letter of acceptance, he denounced the doctrine of partisan changes in the patronage, and through all of his political manifestoes down to the present time he has repeated these assurances with emphatic and unchanging monotony.

He has declared that there should be no changes in office, where the incumbents were competent and qualified, for political reasons, but that they should be permitted to serve their terms. Like those who were grinding at the mill, one has been taken and another has been left. Some Republicans have been suspended and others have been retained. What is the irresistible inference? What is the logic of the events, except that, in view of what the President has declared, every man who is suspended is suspended for cause, and not for political reasons? It is not possible to suspect the President of duplicity and treacherous deception.

For the purpose of illustration, let me call the attention of the Senate and through the Senate the attention of the country, which is to judge of this matter, to the basis on which this inquiry proceeds. I read from the letter of Grover Cleveland, dated Albany, August 19, 1884, accepting the nomination for the Presidency of the United States. He says:

The people pay the wages of the public employés, and they are entitled
to the fair and honest work which the money thus paid should command.
It is the duty of those intrusted with the management of their affairs
to see that such public service is forthcoming. The selection and
retention of subordinates in Government employment should depend upon
their ascertained fitness and the value of their work, and they should
be neither expected nor allowed to do questionable party service.

There is another utterance in this document to which I might properly allude further on, but which appears to me to be so significant that I will read it now. It has a singular fitness in connection with this subject that we have been discussing. Speaking of honest administration, he says,

I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land
are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise of
administering the Government in the honest, simple, and plain manner
which is consistent with its character and purposes.

And now:

They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of
their affairs cover tricks and betrayal.

Yes, they have learned that mystery in the administration of the patronage of the Government, by the concealment from the people of the documents and papers that bear upon the character and conduct of officials suspended and those that are appointed, cover tricks and betrayal. “I thank thee for that word.” A “Daniel” has “come to judgment.” No more pertinent and pungent commentary upon the facts of the present situation could be formulated than that which Grover Cleveland uttered before his foot was upon the threshold, that mystery and concealment in the management of the affairs of the people covered tricks and betrayal. There are tricks and somebody has been betrayed.

Again, on the 20th day of December, 1884, after the election, some of the contingent of Republican deserters who elected Mr. Cleveland to the Presidency, becoming apprehensive that there might be trouble about their thirty pieces of silver, formulated their uneasiness in words and addressed him a letter calling his attention to the professions upon which he had been elected and demanding further guarantee. To that letter, on the 25th day of December, 1884, Mr. Cleveland replied, and from that reply I select certain paragraphs, not being willing to tax the patience of the Senate or waste my own strength in reading what is not strictly material.

I regard myself pledged to this—

That is, to this practical reform in the civil service, this refusal to turn out competent and qualified officials and put in Democrats—

because my conception of true Democratic faith and public duty
requires that this and all other statutes should be in good faith and
without evasion enforced, and because, in many utterances made prior
to my election as President, approved by the party to which I belong
and which I have no disposition to disclaim, I have in effect promised
the people that this should be done.

Not his party, but the people, Republican as well as Democrats. Then he proceeds to castigate the Democratic party:

I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer that many of our
citizens fear that the recent party change in the national Executive
may demonstrate that the abuses which have grown up in the civil
service are ineradicable. I know that they are deeply rooted, and that
the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately related to
success in the maintenance of party organization, and I am not sure
that all those who profess to be the friends of this reform will stand
firmly among its advocates when they find it obstructing their way to
patronage and place.

He goes on thus, and this is a most significant promise and pledge:

There is a class of Government positions which are not within the
letter of the civil-service statute but which are so disconnected with
the policy of an administration that the removal therefrom of present
incumbents, in my opinion, should not be made during the terms for
which they were appointed solely on partisan grounds, and for the
purpose of putting in their places those who are in political accord
with the appointing power—

And then follows that celebrated definition which lifted the lid from the box of Pandora—

but many men holding such positions have forfeited all just claim to
retention because they have used their places for party purposes in
disregard of their duty to the people, and because, instead of being
decent public servants, they have proved themselves offensive
partisans and unscrupulous manipulators of local party management.

The letter closes with this somewhat frigid assurance of consolation to the Democratic party.

If I were addressing none but party friends, I should deem it entirely
proper to remind them—

That is, party friends—

that though the coming administration is to be Democratic—

Strictly Democratic—

a due regard for the people’s interest does not permit faithful party
work to be always rewarded by appointment to office, and to say to
them that while Democrats may expect a proper consideration,
selections for office not embraced within the civil-service rules will
be based upon sufficient inquiry as to fitness, instituted by those
charged with that duty, rather than upon persistent importunity or
self-solicited recommendations on behalf of candidates for
appointment.

“Here endeth the first lesson!” This was in the year 1884. I now come to the declaration of 1885. Just as the Democratic State convention which nominated the present governor of New York for the position that he now holds, was about to assemble at Saratoga on the 24th, I think, of September, the President gave out for publication the letter of resignation of Dorman B. Eaton, a civil-service commissioner, which was dated July 28, 1885, and accompanied it with a letter of his own accepting that resignation which was dated September 11, 1885. It was alleged in Democratic newspapers that the President held back these letters in order to give publicity to his reply at that time for effect upon the convention, and it was remarked that it had caused a panic among the Democracy. His letter is dated, as I said, September 11, 1885, and I will read a few paragraphs showing his opinion of the Democratic party and the course that they had pursued in attempting to force him off the civil-service reform platform. After some rather glittering platitudes in regard to the work accomplished by Mr. Eaton, he proceeds:

A reasonable toleration for old prejudices, a graceful recognition of
every aid, a sensible utilization of every instrumentality that
promises assistance and a constant effort to demonstrate the
advantages of the new order of things, are the means by which this
reform movement will in the future be further advanced, the
opposition.

Now, this is an epithet to which I desire to call particular attention—

The opposition of incorrigible spoilsmen rendered ineffectual and the
cause placed upon a sure foundation.

But not content with applying his scourge to the “incorrigible spoilsmen” of the Democratic party, the President took occasion to express his opinion in rather picturesque language of another class of politicians that had somewhat afflicted him, and to whom he was under bonds:

It is a source of congratulation that there are so many friends of
civil-service reform marshaled on the practical side of the question;
and that the number is not greater of those who profess friendliness
for the cause, and yet, mischievously and with supercilious
self-righteousness, discredit every effort not in exact accord with
their attenuated ideas, decry with carping criticism the labor of
those actually in the field of reform, and ignoring the conditions
which bound and qualify every struggle for a radical improvement in
the affairs of government, demand complete and immediate perfection.

“Supercilious self-righteousness, attenuated ideas, and carping criticism,” can not be regarded as complimentary phrases when applied to the apostles of this new evangel of political reformation.

He continues—

I believe in civil-service reform and its application in the most
practicable form attainable, among other reasons, because it opens the
door for the rich and the poor alike to a participation in public
place-holding. And I hope the time is at hand when all our people will
see the advantage of a reliance for such an opportunity upon merit and
fitness, instead of a dependence upon the caprice or selfish interest
of those who impudently—

To whom does he refer?—

who impudently stand between the people and the machinery of the
Government.

You will agree with me, I think, that the support which has been given
to the present administration in its efforts to preserve and advance
this reform by a party restored to power after an exclusion for many
years from participation in the places attached to the public service,
confronted with a new system precluding the redistribution of such
places in its interest, called upon to surrender advantages which a
perverted partisanship had taught the American people belonged to
success, and perturbed with the suspicion, always raised in such an
emergency, that their rights in the conduct of this reform had not
been scrupulously regarded, should receive due acknowledgment and
should confirm our belief that there is a sentiment among the people
better than a desire to hold office, and a patriotic impulse upon
which may safely rest the integrity of our institutions and the
strength and perpetuity of our Government.

The first official utterances of President Cleveland upon the 4th of March, 1885, renewed the assurance that had been given. He declared:

The people demand reform in the administration of the Government and
the application of business principles to business affairs. As a means
to this end civil-service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our
citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public
employés who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan
service, and from the corrupting influences of those who promise and
the vicious who expect such rewards. And those who worthily seek
public employment have the right to insist that merit and competency
shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of
honest political belief.

How this system, thus inaugurated, this amphibious plan of distributing the patronage of the country among his own partisans and at the same time insisting upon the enforcement of civil-service reform doctrines practically resulted finds its first illustration in the celebrated circular of the Postmaster-General that was issued on the 29th of April, 1885. I do not propose to defile my observations by reading that document. I allude to it for the purpose of saying that a more thoroughly degraded, loathsome, execrable and detestable utterance never was made by any public official of any political persuasion in any country, or in any age. It was an invitation to every libeller, every anonymous slanderer, every scurrilous defamer, to sluice the feculent sewage of communities through the Post-Office Department, with the assurance that, without any intimation or information to the person aspersed, incumbents should be removed and Democratic partisans appointed. I offered a resolution on the 4th of this month calling on the Postmaster-General for information as to the number of removals of fourth-class postmasters, not requiring confirmation by the Senate, between the 4th day of March, 1885, and that date. It was a simple proposition. It required nothing but an inspection of the official register and a computation of numbers. No names were required and no dates. There was a simple question of arithmetic to ascertain the number of removals of fourth-class postmasters not included in the list sent to the Senate by the President, the salary being less than $1,000. Eighteen days elapsed. There seemed to be some reluctance on the part of the Department to comply with that request, and I thereupon offered a supplemental resolution, which was adopted by the Senate, asking the Postmaster-General to advise us whether that first resolution had been received, and, if so, why it was not answered, and when a reply might be expected.

On the second day following an answer came down. It does not include the number of places that were filled where there had been resignations. It does not include the list of those appointed where there had been vacancies from death or any other cause; but simply those who had been removed without cause and without hearing in the space of the first twelve months of this administration pledged to non-partisanship and civil-service reform. The number foots up 8,635. Eighty-six hundred and thirty-five removals of fourth-class postmasters under an administration pledged by repeated utterances not to remove except for cause, making an average, counting three hundred and thirteen working days in that year, of twenty-eight every day; and, counting seven hours as a day’s work, four removals every hour, or at the rate of one for every fifteen minutes of time from the 4th day of March, 1885, until the 4th of March, 1886. And that is civil-service reform! That is non-partisanship in the administration of this Government! That is exercising public office as a public trust!

Mr. COCKRELL. How many of these fourth-class postmasters are there?

Mr. INGALLS. I do not know.

Mr. COCKRELL. About fifty-one thousand, are there not?

Mr. INGALLS. It makes no difference how many; they did the best they could, and angels could do more. I see that the Senator from Missouri is impatient; he is anxious that the axe should fall more rapidly.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_. The Senator from Kansas will pause a moment. It is the duty of the Chair to inform the occupants of the galleries that the rules of the Senate forbid any expression of approbation or disapprobation. It will be the painful duty of the Chair to enforce that rule, if it is insisted upon.

Mr. INGALLS. I hope the Senator from Missouri will curb his impatience and restrain his impetuosity. The Postmaster-General will get through if you only give him time.

Mr. COCKRELL. He will get through in four years at this rate.

Mr. INGALLS. One every fifteen minutes!

Mr. COCKRELL. Fifty-one thousand is the number of fourth-class postmasters, I believe, and only eight thousand in a year have been removed.