1

see that it equalled an unequalled occasion, for probably your Father had not in that vast assembly a more exacting critic than myself." John Sherman, who during Blaine's life-time was not over fond of him, wrote in 1895 of this address, having a prominent place as chairman of the Senate Committee of invitation and procedure: "Blaine died January 27, 1893. Who now living could pronounce such a eulogy?" 2

1 Gail Hamilton, 560.

2 Rec., ii. 839.

CHAPTER VII

THE greatest event of Arthur's administration was the passage in 1883 of the Civil Service Act known as the Pendleton bill. It was, as Ostrogorski truly remarked, "the Magna Charta of civil service reform."2 "The whole of the constitutional history of England," wrote Dr. Stubbs, "is a commentary on this charter." 3 Likewise may it be said that the history of civil service reform in the United States is a commentary on the Act of 1883. Grant had shown what a half-hearted executive might do without congressional support. Hayes with single-minded purpose and pertinacity, opposed by all the leaders of his party except Sherman, his Secretary of the Treasury, had done as much under the circumstances for the cause of civil service reform as a zealous and common-sense President could do unaided by legislative action. As the result of his grapple with the spoils system, he wrote, "Legislation is required to establish the reform." 5

Garfield, champion of the reform as representative, was a sad disappointment as presidential candidate and President. Lamentable is it to record for one who admired him while living that his death rather than his life

1 Approved Jan. 16, 1883.

2 Democracy, ii. 491.

3 Cited in Enc. Brit. 11th ed., article Magna Carta.

I have not regarded Schurz as a party leader.

In 1879. Life of Hayes, Williams, i. 97.

gave an impetus to the movement. The public mind had been prepared by Sumner,1 Jenckes, George William Curtis, Schurz and, most of all, by Hayes when the quarrel over the New York Custom House between the President and Conkling and the following assassination of Garfield by a disappointed office-seeker brought it to the grim determination that "the offices" should be taken out of politics. Many civil service reform associations had been organized under Hayes's administration, but not until August 1881, the next month after Garfield's assassination, was the National Civil Service Reform League formed and not until then did its President, George William Curtis, speak more wisely than he knew, "We have laid our hands on the barbaric palace of patronage and begun to write on its wall 'Mene, mene'!" 2

It is one of the striking but praiseworthy anomalies of American politics that Arthur, who had been a New York City spoilsman, became as President a supporter of the merit system. In his first message to Congress, that of December 1881, he maintained that "original appointments should be based upon ascertained fitness"; in the following July he made a public statement that no office-holder need feel obliged "to make political contributions"; and, in his message of December 1882, he said that if the bill pending before the Senate should be passed by Congress it would receive his "unhesitating support."

That was the Pendleton bill. Pendleton, Democratic senator from Ohio, had shown a vital interest in the subject by bringing an inchoate measure before the Sen

1 See Pierce, iv. 191.

2 Life of Curtis, Cary, 273; address of R. H. Dana at Chicago, 1914, Proceedings, 97.

ate in December 1880 and a year later he introduced a bill for the reform of the civil service by Dorman B. Eaton, a pioneer and efficient worker in the cause. Referred to the proper Committee, the chairman of which was Hawley, a Republican, it was reported back to the Senate, which took no action upon it at that session. Before the subject was again tackled the fall elections occurred in which the Democrats were eminently successful; this result, it was thought, gave an impetus to the reform. The Civil Service reform bill came up in December 1882 in the charge of Senator Pendleton, who advocated it in a speech mingling partisanship with effective argument.1

1 Pendleton said: "The civil service is inefficient; it is expensive, it is extravagant; it is in many cases and some senses corrupt; it has welded the whole body of its employés into a great political machine; it has converted them into an army of officers and men, veterans in political warfare, disciplined and trained, whose salaries, whose time, whose exertions at least twice within a very short period in the history of our country have robbed the people of the fair results of presidential elections." The bill, he continued, has for foundation the simple idea " that the offices of the government are trusts for the people. . . . The existing system, 'the spoils system,' must be killed or it will kill the republic. . The purpose

of this bill is merely to secure the application of the Jeffersonian tests, fidelity, honesty, capacity"; to secure the methods known in various occupations of life as "competition, comparison." Sherman said, “If my colleague can by his political allusions persuade his associates to vote with him, I shall be very glad of it"; for the reform must be brought about by the Republican party.

Hawley said: "It has become the fashion very largely among a class of men who have or claim for themselves . . . a culture superior to the average to speak of the whole public service of this country as corrupt. . . . The country is not in a ruinous condition; it is the most magnificent nation that ever lived under the sun. There are 55,000,000 here. Some of us now here will be living when they shall number 100,000,000. The nation has gone through the most glorious war in history. . . . I believe in my country. I believe it is an honest country, as honest as ever lived. I believe it is the strongest and freest and best and it has as good a civil service as any other country or a better one." But Hawley was in favor of the bill, believing that we must search steadily for better things.

Hoar supported the bill because, "It is the measure agreed upon by the

On December 27 the bill passed the Senate by 38:5; on January 4, 1883 by the House, after very little debate, the vote standing 155:47. On January 16, it was approved by the President. The act provided for the appointment of three Civil Service Commissioners, "not more than two of whom shall be adherents of the same party"; these Commissioners should aid the President "in preparing suitable rules for carrying" the act into effect; but the rules must "provide and declare . . . for open competitive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants for the public service now classified or to be classified hereunder. Such examinations shall be practical in their character." No public officer should be under obligation to make any political contributions or render any political service; no senator or representative in Congress and no executive officer should solicit or receive any political assessments. Open competitive practical examinations without distinction of party and regardless of personal influence were the essence of the act; and such examinations were requisite to enter the classified service. I have defined in a note below "the classified

large majority of persons who have made a special study of this cause; it proceeds with a statesmanlike caution in making the necessary experiment"; it is a measure justified in the great offices at New York [in the Custom House the reform of which was due to Hayes in conflict with Arthur], to some extent in Boston and in the Interior Department here [the work of Schurz]; and the President's constitutional power is in no way impaired. Dec. 12, 13, 14, 1882, Record, 204, 206, 209, 242, 273.

1 The five Senate nays were Democrats, absent 33. In the House, the yeas were 102 Republicans, 49 Democrats, 4 Nationals; the nays 39 Democrats, 7 Republicans, 1 National. Record, 661, 867; Amer. Hist. Assoc. Papers, i. 123.

2 Other officers are named in Sec. 12 but those mentioned in the text are the important ones.

3 Rule 5 said: "There shall be three branches of the service, classified under the civil service act (not including laborers or workmen or officers required to be confirmed by the Senate) as follows: