Patronage Monopoly and the Pendleton Bill [pp. 185-207]

THE PRINCE TON RE VIEW.
loubtful whether, eighteen months ago, a single member of
Congress would have been willing to raise his voice for an effective bill in aid of Civil Service reform. Now we may expect
several of the foremost of either party to speak for such a measure. To the strength which the intrinsic justice of a cause
commands from an intelligent people there is now being added
that which comes from numbers and speaks in formidable petitions. Reform associations are at work at thirty or more of the
centres of political activity. Young politicians even are considering which side of a reform policy will be strongest where
a few years hence they will want votes.
There may be zigzags, but the line of progress is to be ascending. When the popularity of Mr. James-due solely to business ability and reform methods, which gave the people of New
York a better postal service than they had ever imaginedmade him Postmaster-General and enabled him to drive out the
public plunderers, all candid, thoughtful minds recognized a
new and higher power in our politics. And when his report, as
Postmaster-General, declared his sense of the great need of enforcing in the postal service generally the same competitive examinations which had been so salutary at the New York office,
there was a profound regret that so great a reform was checked
and so invaluable an administrator was lost.
With whatever delight the old chiefs and spoilsmen saw a
new collector go into the New York Custom-House-for no apparent good cause, I must think-they too began to appreciate
that new power when they found the abominated competitive
examinations were still enforced, and that not a place was open
to a mere henchman, flunky, or factionist. All the more was
that hew power manifest to everybody when the Chamber of
Commerce of the city of New York, with the applause of its
best citizenship and its best journals, sent a formal delegation
to the new collector, requesting him, in the interest of commerce, to stand by the reform; and he promised to do so. That
promise he has kept, if indeed he is not a convert to the merit
system he enforces.
Turning from the work of education, let us consider what
legislation will be most useful and what practical methods it
should provide for.
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