Carl Schurz's Lecture Notes

The Americans have acquired the reputation of a preeminently practical people. And so they are. Every sensible and practical person will recognize certain requirements of a successful conduct of business: fidelity, diligence and specific knowledge. These are necessities for all kinds of work and in all walks of life, whether you act for yourselves or in the employ of somebody else. Suppose you area merchant. You must understand the nature, the uses, the different grades, the value, of the article you deal in. You must know the markets where it can be sold, the demand and supply, the conditions under which its value will rise or fall. Unless you are conversant with these things, you will not consider yourself competent.

You want a bookkeeper. As a prudent merchant you will look for a man who knows in the first place how to keep books and whose character is such that you can depend upon his integrity. A man is recommended to you. Your first inquiry is whether he can keep books. Has he been employed as a bookkeeper before? What are his references? His testimonials from former employers? You look into them carefully. Perhaps you put a set of books before him to ascertain whether he understands them. You inquire into his habits. Does he drink? Does he gamble? Does he keep good company? When you have satisfied yourself on all these points, then you compare him with others who have been recommended to you and who answer the same requirements, and then you select the best man of the whole lot presented to you, and him you appoint.

Suppose now a friend came to you saying: “I want you to appoint this man here as your bookkeeper.” Let us see; you ask: “Can he keep books? Has he any knowledge of my business? Is he a man of good habits and established character for integrity?” “Well,” answers your friend, “I don't know that he has any particular knowledge and experience of bookkeeping. As to his habits and character, I suppose there are worse men than he. But he is a member of my baseball club and managed to make me president of it, and I am under great obligation to him. I promised him a place with a salary as large as that of a bookkeeper in your establishment, and I want you to take him.”

What will your answer be if you are sensible? “Your man,” you say, “may be an excellent fellow for the business you used him in; he is not the man for the business of bookkeeper in my establishment. If you have made any promises, discharge them at your own expense, not at mine.” Suppose now your friend calls you a visionary and a theorist for acting upon such business principles. Whether you say so or not, you will be strongly inclined to consider him a [illegible].

Let me address myself to the ladies before me who, if they are married, I am sure are good, prudent housekeepers. You want a cook. The first thing you inquire about when a person for your employment is presented to you, is whether she knows how to cook. Then you want to know whether she is cleanly, and whether her habits are good, and whether she can be trusted to do your marketing without cheating, and so on. You want to see her references, her character, and all that, and then you select the best from among them from whom you can choose and take her on probation. Suppose a friend recommended a candidate for the kitchen to you, insisting that you should take her, and, upon your inquiry whether she can cook, answers: “Well, I don't know as to her cooking, but she can play the banjo and has given me a great deal of amusement with it.” If you are a sensible housewife, you will say: “If she can play the banjo, let her join a band of minstrels. But as for me, I want somebody to cook breakfasts and dinners for me, and to cook them well.”

Now, ladies, your husbands and fathers and brothers constitute the voting part of the people, and all lend a hand in governing the affairs and in managing the business of this great Republic, a business infinitely larger and more important than your dry good shop or your kitchen; a business involving the peace and the well being and the breakfasts and dinners of all of us. The conduct of that business requires the service of a large number of men and women, and, to be successful, it requires in those men and women a great variety of knowledge and experience, and much industry and high character and integrity, considering the very tempting opportunities it offers to dishonest inclinations. And now, ladies, it may not increase your reverence for the lords of creation when I say, and when you find that I speak the truth in saying, that in conducting that immense business of the Republic, in which every year hundreds of millions are collected and hundreds of millions are expended, the said lords of creation do tolerate the appointment of bookkeepers on the ground that they managed election in a baseball club for a friend, and the appointment of cooks on the ground that they can play the banjo; and they do denounce as theorists and visionaries those who call such things foolish and wrong. And as one of these theorists and visionaries I have the honor to present myself to you. “Go out into the world and you will find with how little sense it is governed,” said Chancellor Oxenst to his son. This referred to kings and their ministers, but it is in some things not entirely inapplicable to the sovereign people. You may have heard of a Yankee who was asked by a friend with whom he had listened to the performance of an eminent artist on the violin, whether he could play the violin himself. “Well,” said he, “I don't know because I have never tried it.” No sensible person would have wished him to try. But it appears a great many people seem to be perfectly willing to let anybody run the public business, although he may know as little of it as that Yankee knew of playing the violin. You will permit nobody but an experienced blacksmith to shoe your horse, but you are willing to let a man run an important office of the government who has never proved any capacity except in running a ward meeting. The one is private business of a rather small kind. The other is public business, may be, of an important kind. And yet you are willing to set aside with respect to the important public business a rule of conduct which you would not think a moment of disregarding when only the soundness of your horse's hoof is at stake.

What reason is there for looking at public and private business respectively in so different a light? Is it that public business concerns us less than our private affairs? It is said that we are apt to bear other people's losses and misfortunes with remarkable fortitude. But can we afford to be so indifferent when other people's misfortunes and losses are also our own? We are apt to forget that every dollar wasted or stolen from the public funds comes out of our own pockets; that every man in public employment who does not understand his duties or neglects them, and in some way or another makes his office a sinecure, lives at our expense; and that everything that demoralizes and corrupts the conduct of our public affairs not only disgraces and endangers the Republic but robs every citizen of it, for every citizen has to put his hand in his pocket to foot the bill. Those of us who are not blessed with a superabundance of worldly goods are apt to think that their loss is, after all, inconsiderable, and that the rich people, the large business establishments that apparently pay all the taxes, are the real sufferers. Is that so? Look at it closely and you will find that every business man who pays taxes tries to make the amount of those taxes out of his customers; that the few are levying upon the many; and that finally no man or woman, not even the poorest, is exempt. And thus it is that you, every one of you, pays his share of the cost of every dishonest or incompetent man in the public service just as much as you pay for every drone in your private establishment. Now, is there any reason that you should tolerate men in public office whom you would not tolerate in your shop or your house, and pay their expenses? You may say perhaps that you do now like it but cannot help it. Of course, if you stood only a few against many, in desiring to have public business administered as well as private affairs, you might not be able to help it. But it is not true that you are overmatched in numbers by those who have an interest in the vicious system now prevailing. You, the mass of the citizens and voters are the many, and the managing politicians are the few. You could therefore help it, if you sufficiently cared about it. And when you say that you cannot help it, it is because you have not cared about it. There are the people, the great mass of intelligent, industrious, hard working citizens, and a comparatively small number of individuals pinch their ears and pull their noses and laugh in their faces, and empty their pockets, and the mass of intelligent, industrious citizens say that they have to permit it because they can't help it. Why can they not help it? Because like a set of imbeciles they sit still.

Now let us care about it enough for a moment to inquire what the evil consists in. We hear every day of incompetency and dishonesty in office; of large sums of public money that are wasted by neglect or stolen. How did the men who do these things get into office? Imagine a presidential election which results in transferring the power of government from one party to another. No sooner is the new President inaugurated than Washington is filled with a tremendous crowd of people, tens of thousands. What do they all want? Merely witness the solemn and majestic spectacle of the quiet, peaceable and orderly transfer of the vast powers of the national government from one hand to another hand, a spectacle so significant of the successful working of free institutions, that it should swell with pride the heart of every republican citizen? No, most of them go there not to feel proud, but to do things which ought to make them feel mean. Most of them want offices, offices still held by others. These others they want to have put out, for the purpose of having themselves put in. Why do they want this? For what reason do they ask this? Because they have carefully studied the duties and qualified themselves for the business of the offices they seek? Not at all. A great many of them would be perfectly willing to take any office from a low grade clerkship to the command of a man-of-war, being just as well qualified for the one as for the other. They ask for office not on the ground of their qualifications but as a reward. A reward for what? For distinguished services rendered to the Republic? No; for service rendered to the victorious party. They have run caucuses, attended conventions, made speeches, carried torches, been members of campaign glee clubs, stood at the polls. They have these facts set forth in petitions and certified to by strings of signatures yards long. Thus armed they rush at the new President and the new Secretaries. They throng their ante-rooms, invade their offices, besiege their private dwellings, flatter, entreat and beseech them, and will not take “No” for an answer. (Lincoln's pepper-box.) Most of them, although they have petitions with every so many names, do not know that they have not the right kind of support and therefore take no chance of success. They hang on day after day, weeks, until finally their money is gone and they have to pawn their watches to raise funds for buying a railroad ticket to go home. And when they get home they find that they have lost their time, their money and, if they every had any, their self-respect. What they have gained is a profound impression of the ingratitude of Republics.

While others succeeded, they failed. Why did they fail? In most cases not because they deserved success less than the successful ones, but because they did not have the right kind of support. What, then, is the right kind of support the office-seeker must have to get a place? Here we touch the gist of the matter. While the offices are treated as the spoils of party victory, while the defeated party must surrender them, so that the victorious party may have them, not all the soldiers of the victorious army, but only a comparatively small number of them are permitted to share in the plunder. The victorious party consists of officers and privates and the officers claim the privilege of designating the privates that are to be rewarded. Why do they claim that privilege? In order so to manage the distribution of the spoils that they themselves may remain officers. The principal ones of these officers are the members of Congress, Senators and Representatives. The member of Congress has had his election to carry. He has had men to run caucuses and conventions for him and to use their influence among the voters. These men he has to reward for services already rendered to him so as to show that it pays to serve him; and he has to keep them in good humor and to add official power to their private influence with a view to services still to be rendered to him in the future when the time for his reelection comes round. Therefore the member of Congress claims the privilege to designate the men for the offices in his district, the postmasters, revenue officers and so on. Likewise the Senator claims the disposal of the principal offices in his State. Of course, there are members of Congress who look at these things from a higher conception of public duty. But I speak of the mean average of them, and it must be admitted that this average is on the whole pretty mean.

Let us follow the doings of that mean average acting upon the true principles of the spoils system. I speak here from personal observation. When the distribution of the offices is in order, the Congressman finds himself surrounded at Washington by a considerable number of his constituents who are willing to sacrifice themselves like patriots as postmasters, revenue collectors or department clerks. He treats them all kindly, promising to do the best he can. But there are only some of them in whom he takes a real interest, because they have taken an interest in him. Smith and Jones he wants to serve because they have served him and may serve him still further. Brown is a respectable man and might make a good officer, but he is politically useless. Smith and Jones have therefore the right kind of support. Brown has not. Brown, with all his respectability, cannot run a caucus. The Congressman may, perhaps, go with Brown to the President or the Secretary and introduce him as the respectable man he is for whom something should be done. But it would not be wonderful if the Congressman should afterwards privately hint to the President or the Secretary that Brown is not really the man he cares for, and Brown is then informed that the President or the Secretary are very unreasonable and have foolish and stubborn notions of their own unfavorable to Brown, for which the Congressman is very sorry. I have known such cases in my own experience. But the claims of Smith and Jones the Congressman presses with all his might. Their appointment he makes, as the saying is, a personal matter. To make place for them, the men who are still in the offices they want must be removed. Without their appointment his district cannot be carried and will be lost to the party. It must be done.

Why must it be done? Has Smith any particular qualifications for a postmaster's business? Is Jones just the man for a revenue collectorship? Are they men of peculiar business knowledge, of irreproachable habits, of superior character? No matter. They may even be broken down individuals, out at the elbows. But they can run primaries; they are experienced hands at carrying a caucus; they know how to manipulate delegates in a convention. They must be taken as cooks, for they can play the banjo. And taken as cooks they are, and the banjo they play.

In the course of time it turns out that Smith and Jones are not discharging their official duties as well as they play the banjo. Complaints come up to the Secretary. Smith neglects his office. Jones gets drunk, gambles and makes free with the public money. The Secretary who wants to keep the service under his charge in order, expresses his displeasure and threatens to remove them. Smith and Jones get alarmed; they appeal to their Congressman. He rushes to the Secretary — What? Remove Smith and Jones? Men who have rendered such service in the last campaign? Men who are so useful to the party? Disgrace such men? Why, it would disgrace the Congressman himself who recommended them. It would ruin the party in the district. Smith and Jones must be kept at all hazards. The Secretary remonstrates in the interest of the public business. The Congressman insists, begs, entreats and finally threatens. Yes, he threatens. The Secretary has some bill before Congress in which his department is particularly interested. He wants some appropriation to keep the public business going. The Congressman threatens to use his whole influence to defeat that bill or appropriation unless Smith and Jones be kept in office. Smith and Jones must remain cooks because they can play the banjo.

Here I speak again from personal experience. While in charge of the Interior Department I scarcely ever removed a clerk for drunkenness, or incompetence, or neglect of duty, that I did not have some Congressman in my office protesting against it because that clerk was in his district and his friends or relatives had political influence.

Now I do not mean to say that all public officers are Smiths and Jones's, or even a majority or a large number of them. But there are enough to disgrace and demoralize the service and under such a system, as the spoils system, it must be regarded as a wonder that there are not more of them. It speaks volumes for the general soundness of the American people, that there are so few. For, I beg you to consider, what temptations this system offers. Suppose you had a bookkeeper in your store, or a paying teller in your bank appointed not on account of his business qualifications nor with a view to a particularly able and faithful performance of his duties, but on the recommendation of some powerful individual because he had rendered some service to him, and that this bookkeeper or bank teller had reason to expect that his powerful patron would sustain him whatever he might do, — would it not require uncommon virtue in him to resist the temptation to make hay while the sun shines? This uncommon virtue is found more than might be expected, — but in private business you would not think of banking upon it. Can you conscientiously do so in the administration of public affairs? You pray every day: Lead us not into temptation. But every day you tempt your public servants more than you pray not to be tempted yourselves.

Now let us see how far we have gone. In your private business you will not employ anybody except on the ground that he or she is fit in point of character and ability for the work to be done and you have reasonably satisfied yourselves of that fitness. You will not employ a person as a cook for the reason that somebody else remembers her as a good banjo player. In our public concerns, according to the principles of the so-called spoils system, people are employed upon the recommendation of persons not immediately responsible for the conduct of the particular public business to be done, on the ground that they have done and are expected to do political services; in other words, for reasons that have nothing to do at all with the interests of the public business to be performed; and the persons so appointed, whether they do well or ill, are and feel themselves under the protection of the influential persons who have recommended them. In private business everything is done to make those employed faithfully perform their duties. In public business, according to the principles of the spoils system, every possible temptation is held out, to make those employed regard their official duties as things of secondary importance, and to secure their official standing by outside influence. That under such circumstances the public business is still as well done as it is, and no worse, is owing to the honorable resistance to the temptations offered under the prevailing system, and not to the system itself. That system does all it can to demoralize everybody connected with it, and it succeeds in a sufficient number of cases to expose us to loss and disgrace.

Let me invite the attention of the ladies to a feature of that system which is not frequently discussed. In the departments at Washington there are many hundreds of women employed. Under the system which puts the places occupied by those women at the disposal of members of Congress and other influential politicians, to be filled upon their recommendations, almost every one of those ladies owes her position and her bread and butter to the favor and influence of some one man in power, who can grant or withdraw that favor and influence at his pleasure. It is not necessary to point out what such a relation of dependence may lead to, and it may be regarded as a magnificent testimony to the virtue and moral strength of the many hundreds of women so situated, that the number of scandals growing out of it is no larger than we find it. But surely a system which permits such relations of dependence is abominable in the extreme. Having been in executive position in Washington, with ample opportunity of observation, I know whereof I speak. Every good woman in America should use her utmost efforts that such a system be broken up forever so that every woman employed by the Government may owe her appointment, as well as the security of her official existence, to her own merit and nothing but her merit, with perfect independence of the favor and influence of any man, however powerful a politician he may be. This is due to the honor of American womanhood, and therefore I claim that every American woman who respects her sex must be a civil service reformer.

But the demoralization of the service itself and the loss and shame growing from it, is by no means the only bad result of the absurd practices we have drifted into, perhaps not even the worst. Last year the Republican party had its great National Convention in Chicago. It was an important meeting bringing forth important results. There was an animated debate upon this very subject. Some delegates spoke plainly and others took great trouble to say nothing in many words, when suddenly a son of the great Southwest, with that ingenuousness with which irrepressible children will sometimes bring amazement and confusion upon their grown sisters in the presence of company, exclaimed: “What are we here for? To get the offices!” The name of that gentleman was Mr. Flanagan from Texas. He was unknown when he got up. He sat down and was famous. His remark was received with shouts of laughter and cries: “That's so.” He was the true representative of the politician of the old school. With one word he had defined and proclaimed their principles and objects. He spoke out what others only thought. With him and his political school comprising, I regret to say, the great mass of those engaged in the lower sphere of active politics, the supreme end of party organization, the great object of all political struggles can be expressed in one word: “The offices!” What are the offices? They are in our great political household what the cooks and the gardeners and the housekeepers are in your families; what the bookkeepers and the salesmen and the clerks are in your groceries and dry goods stores; what the cashiers and the tellers are in your banks; what the superintendents and engineers and foremen and mechanics are in your factories and your railroad establishments, places of work, of trust and responsibility. What do the Flanagans and that class of politicians want them for? They want them as the spoils of party warfare; they want them as soldiers used to want the plunder of a town they had taken by assault; they want them not as places of work and service, but as comfortable berths in which they may grow fat without exertion and without conscience. That is the object the Flanagans have in their minds when they go to party conventions and into political campaigns.

When an election approaches the Flanagans are on hand. They do not trouble themselves much about the principles of the party nor about its virtues. They know exactly what they want. “What are we here for? We want the offices.” To this end they want the party to win, no matter whether by fair means or foul. A good many of them prefer even an admixture of foul means, for it is more congenial to them. They are the first men at primary meetings and most active in caucuses and conventions. About platforms they trouble themselves little. They want to win, and it is indifferent to them whether the party wins with black or white, blue or green principles. But they are particular as to candidates. About statesmanship they care little. In fact, they hold statesmanship somewhat in contempt. They think it dangerous, because it makes politicians unpractical and visionary. What they want is candidates for high office who can be counted upon to remember their friends, that is, to reward those well who have worked for them. To them the greatest statesman is he who has the most skill to get his friends into comfortable offices. Thus they become the most faithful henchmen, the most reliable and unscrupulous thick and thin supporters of their leaders. When they have their man fit to be their chief, they form his political body-guard, whose fortunes they follow and whose commands they obey. They boast of their strict regularity as partisans, their unflinching fidelity to the organization, which means with them unconditional obedience to their chief, no matter whether that what he directs them to do is just or unjust, honest or dishonest, provided he takes care of them.

Thus they develop those great institutions in our politics, the Boss and the Machine. What is the political boss? There are great bosses and small bosses. The great boss is a politician who has every part of the State in which he seeks to exercise political control, a number of henchmen who do his bidding; who run primaries, manage caucuses and conventions in the way the great boss directs them; who see to it that no man is nominated for any important office, or is permitted to acquire any influence in the party, who is opposed to the boss or refuses to work with and for him, so that the whole party organization becomes a perfect machine that runs or stops, does this or that as the boss may find it in his interest that it should run or stop, do this or that. Thus the great boss becomes an all powerful man in his State, and he maintains his power by providing his faithful henchmen with the offices they want and protects them if they misbehave themselves. And what are the small bosses? They are the lieutenants of the great boss, who in his interest control in a similar way districts or counties or towns, the stickers, the oilers, the local engineers of the machine. And for faithful service they get nominations for Congress, or are appointed to the best paying places under the Government.

The great boss is of course an important man, a man of powerful influence, not only in his State where he rewards and punishes, encourages or crushes political ambitions, makes or unmakes politicians with the mere nod of his head, — but also with the Government, for as he wills, so goes the party in his State, whose support those at the head of the Government may want. And so the boss makes his conditions for granting that support, and those conditions consist mostly in rewarding his henchmen with offices. But the great boss is also a busy man, for he has a large machine to look after and a great many faithful servants to take care of at the expense of the public. He has to see to it, and be well on his guard, that no mistakes are made and no black sheep get into the fold. He may be an able man, fit to be not only a manager, but even to become a statesman if he would only give his attention and devote all the powers of his mind to the study and treatment of questions of public interest. But he has no time for that. He may sometimes make a pretense of doing it to keep up appearances; but all he can do is to keep the machine in order and to work hard for that end.

The successful boss is rather a splendid figure. Most men, especially young men, admire power. They look up to it. They want, if possible, to possess and exercise it themselves. Thus the boss presents to youthful ambition a seductive example. What does it teach our young men? They may think that in order to succeed in public life it is necessary to study with conscientious care the condition of the country, its interests and needs; the science of government; the means by which its objects are to be attained; its strong points and its shortcomings; the abuses existing in it, and the way to remedy those abuses; and so on. But the example of the successful boss says to them: No, that is not necessary at all. By such study you will only lose your time. It will make theorists and visionaries of you. If you want to succeed in public life and become men of note and power and influence, you must be practical politicians. You must attach yourselves to a strong organization. In it you must make friends and serve them that they may serve you. You must go with them through thick and thin, through good and evil report, especially through evil. You must buy their influence by trading off yours. That will make you strong in caucuses and conventions. Never mind statesmanship. It might only be in your way. Look at the boss who is so great and powerful. If you want to be great and powerful like him, go and do likewise.

And a great many men who might be fit for something better, will go and do likewise. What is the consequence? Look at the Congress of the United States, that august assembly, the highest legislative body in this great and mighty Republic. When great questions of public interest come up for discussion, how many men are there who show that they have through careful study prepared themselves to debate them with knowledge and insight? There are comparatively very few. A great majority sit there in blank silence, or ventilate notions of incredible crudity and vote as they think a passing current of popular sentiment may make it safest to vote. Several years ago when the question of the restoration of specie payments came up, a charming anecdote was told in a Washington paper of a member of Congress who wanted to post himself on the financial question in a hurry. He had heard of the celebrated work of Adam Smith on the wealth of nations as a useful text book. He went to a bookshop, and muddling things somewhat, asked the bookseller: “I want John Smith on the wealth of the people. Have you got it?” “No,” said the bookseller, “but I have Barnum's art of making money.” “I guess that will do as well,” said the Congressman, bought it, and went away happy to prepare a speech on the science of finance. This may have been an extreme case, or even a clever invention; but it depicts rather strikingly a phase of the congressional mind when a question comes up the discussion of which requires long preparation and knowledge. I have heard one man there say myself on that occasion that he knew all about the financial question, for he had given all his spare time to it for a whole fortnight. And he is a man of great political power in his section. What had these men been doing before they got to Congress? Some years ago a new Senator came from the Pacific Coast who had never been East since he was a boy. For weeks he sat in the Senate a silent listener. One day one of the older Senators asked him patronizingly, how he liked it in the Senate. “I have been indulging in some quiet thinking,” said the Western man. “At first when I saw the Senate in session, I was quite awestruck and asked myself: ‘How in the world did I get here?’ But since I have been listening to you for a few weeks, I would rather ask: ‘How in the world did most of you get here?’”

Indeed, how did most of them get there? Certainly not by storing their minds with useful knowledge, not by laboriously and conscientiously preparing themselves for the business of statesmanship, for the work of legislation, but by accepting and acting upon the teachings of the spoils system; by making friends and stimulating them with promises of office; by serving to be served and thus assiduously building up their machine by which to control caucuses, conventions and gangs of active and greedy politicians. Thus they got there, and thus they maintain themselves there. And considering the frequency of this, we might well ask how the real statesmen, who do not resort to such means, got there? Simply because there are still constituencies in this country that are superior to the vicious political system which rules the rest. And I hope yours is and will remain one of them.

Thus you see how that system under which public offices are treated not as trusts or places of responsibility, but as rewards for political services rendered and to be rendered, not only fails to fit those who are to do the public business for the duties to be performed, but distinctly tends to induce them to look upon their public duties not as the principal thing to fit themselves for, and upon the public business not as the most important thing to be attended to; but it teaches them that the way to obtain office and to maintain themselves there, is to secure the influence of powerful politicians whose recommendations will get places for them, whose protection will keep them in those places, whether they do their duty or not, and the loss of whose favor will be apt to drive them out again. But the influence of this system goes beyond that. It tends to induce them to aspire to the higher spheres of public life, to regard not the study of the science of government in its various branches, not the acquisition of useful knowledge, not the school of real statesmanship, but skill in the distribution of offices, in the manipulation of the patronage, in the building up of political machines as the most promising means by which to rise. It induces them to devote their talents not to those pursuits which would make them good legislators, or superior administrative officers, but to the noble art of wire-pulling. In one word, it impels those who want to be your cooks, not to study cooking but to learn playing the banjo, and therefore you have of superior public cooking so little, and of strenuous banjo playing so much. Many of the banjo players might have become good cooks, had they been taught by experience that good cooking would be better for their advancement than banjo playing. Many of our scheming wirepullers and machine politicians would have become very useful public men and some even statesmen of a superior kind, had they not the experience before their eyes that under the existing system wirepulling pays better in public life than statesmanship, and that in competition with skillful wirepulling, statesmanship is apt to have a small chance. Thus this system is demoralizing the ambition and degrading the talent of the country. By giving the tricksters in public life an advantage, it tends to make mere tricksters out of men who have the stuff in them to become something better. It hads made many people believe that the pursuit of politics is a dishonorable pursuit. It has thus brought public life into disrepute and driven many men of a too fastidious sense of decency, to keep aloof from it. It has given to that which should be the object of the noblest ambition, a flavor of vulgarity and degradation, and all this because the conduct of public business is not governed by the same principles of good sense which you observe in the conduct of your private affairs.

Now you ask me: “Is the condition of things really as dark” as I have depicted it? I am glad to say that it is not entirely so. There is much virtue in the American people, which in no more striking way could have proved its genuineness and vigor than by the resistance it has offered to the full development of the insidious effects which such a system is calculated to produce. There are many, I am glad to say, very many men and women in the public service who have preserved their honor intact and are acting upon a high sense of duty. But they have done so in spite of the temptations of the system which put them there. There are many men in the higher walks of public life who are animated with the purest motives and the noblest aspirations of their calling, but they have to maintain their lofty views of public duty by an arduous struggle with the insidious influences surrounding them and they succeed only by the superior spirit of exceptional constituencies. There are localities, where machine politics and boss rule have not succeeded in usurping the functions of free popular action, but the attempt has been made everywhere, and if it failed, the failure was owing to an intelligent and ever watchful public spirit. In very many instances the spoils system has shown its demoralizing influence upon the public service in a manner disgracing the country. In a very great measure it has woefully lowered the standard of American statesmanship, degraded our public men, seduced our youth, by perverting its talent and ambition, — thus debauched and dishonored our politics. The germs of the evil are everywhere, ever ready to sprout and push and grow up as long as this absurd and vicious system exists. The fact that things might be still worse, is no proof that they are not very bad. The disease has not proved fatal yet, but there is danger that it will become so unless checked. Among the great men of our times there was one who excelled not only by his virtue and patriotism, but by the penetrating sagacity of his common sense. That was Abraham Lincoln. One day after his second inauguration, shortly before his death, he pointed out to a friend the crowd of office seekers and of Congressmen accompanying them in his antechamber. “Do you see this?” said he. “We have overcome the rebellion; but this is something that may become more dangerous to this Republic than the rebellion itself.”

This being the evil, what is the remedy? The devotees of the existing system have contrived to make many people believe that what we call civil service reform is some strange visionary conception, the outgrowth of some abstract, outlandish philosophy, borrowed from the effete monarchies of the old world, but not at all adapted to this young Republic of ours, — rather subversive of its free institutions. What is it really? It springs in fact from a very simple idea, one that everybody can easily understand. The idea is that we should apply to the public business exactly the same common sense principles upon which every sensible man or woman conducts his or her private business. The first of these common sense principles is, that when appointing persons to perform certain duties the only consideration in making your selection should be that the person be appointed on the ground of a thorough understanding and well ascertained fitness for the performance of those duties, and for no other reason, as you would make a man your bookkeeper because he understands bookkeeping and is sober and honest, and not because he is an efficient member of a baseball club; and as you would take a woman as a cook, because she is good at cooking and can be trusted with your marketing, and not because she can play the banjo. Apply this to public business and you have civil service reform.

There are certain officers whose duty it is to aid the President in executing the laws and carrying out his views of policy, such as cabinet ministers, envoys to foreign governments and the like. These officers are to be selected by the President with the approval of the Senate on the ground that they are good able men and agree in the main with the President's view of policy. Their duties, especially those of the cabinet ministers, are not only administrative, but in a great measure political duties the performance of which requires confidential relations with the President; and ordinary common sense tells us that the President should be permitted and expected to make his selections with this view. But there are thousands of offices the duties of which are not of a political nature. Here are your collectors of customs. For what purpose have their offices been created? To collect the revenues of the Government in your ports. To see to it that every man who imports goods from abroad, pays the duties imposed upon by them by law; to prevent smuggling and to accommodate the commercial community by a prompt and honest expedition of business. Now, in selecting a man for such a place your common sense will demand that he should be fit for the performance of those very duties, which under the law he is appointed and paid for. You will keep in mind that he is not at all appointed and paid for the building up of party machines and running conventions, and if he busies himself much in that line and employs in his office politicians for that business, instead of the collection of the revenue and the diligent accommodation of the commercial community, you will as common sense people look rather with disfavor upon it, just as you would be displeased if the bookkeeper in your store or the cashier in your bank occupied himself principally with baseball clubs or with horse racing. Here are your postmasters. The same may be said of them. They are appointed under the law to receive your letters and to distribute your mails. According to the same principles of common sense you will select persons for those offices on the sole ground that they are fit to perform just these duties, and that they are men of integrity to whom you can entrust your money letters. You will not appoint them for the purpose of managing your township caucus and of drumming up the boys to nominate Jones or Smith for Congress. As common sense people it may even occur to you that the duties to be collected by the custom house officers are not Republican nor Democratic duties, but simply duties imposed by law, to be paid by Democrats and Republicans alike; and that the letters received and delivered by your postmasters are not Republican or Democratic letters, but simply letters so the prompt and honest reception and delivery of which Democrats and Republicans are equally entitled. And looking at it from the business point of view it matters very little to you whether the man who does your custom house or your mail business voted one ticket or another, provided that custom houses and post office business be efficiently and honestly attended to — just as it would matter to you very little whether your bookkeeper or your cook thinks that the next World's Fair shall be held in Boston or in New York, provided your bookkeeping and your cooking be well done. There are your chiefs of Bureaux in the Government Departments at Washington. Your comptrollers and auditors in the Treasury, your commissioners of the Land Office, the Pension Office, of Indian Affairs, of patents in the Interior, your chiefs of contract offices and mail service in the General Post Office, and so on through the whole list, all holding places under the law with well defined duties requiring much knowledge and administrative ability and integrity. In selecting them you will act upon the same common sense principles and look to their specific fitness for the work to be done by them. That work also is neither Democratic nor Republican work, but simply work prescribed by law, to be done for the service and benefit of all the citizens without distinction of party. The same may be said of the chiefs of divisions and of sections, and the thousands of clerks, male and female, in the Departments at Washington and the Government offices throughout the country. And your common sense will also demand that when any one fails to do his duty, he be removed, and that as long as he does perform that duty satisfactorily, he be kept, so that the public business may have the benefit of his trained skill and experience.

Now I ask, is there anything strange and outlandish, anything abstractly theoretical and visionary in this? Are not these the identical principles you constantly act upon as sensible and conscientious people in your private affairs? Would you not reproach yourselves for folly and recklessness if you did not? Is there any good reason in the world, why these common sense rules, which you would not think of disregarding when taking care of your private interests, should not be applied also to the public interests which are so much larger and more important?

In some branches of the public service you do observe them very strictly; in the army and navy. There men are made officers after having prepared themselves specifically for the duties to be performed, and so they are kept and promoted, or, as the case may be, removed when they show themselves unfit, without partiality. Have you any reason to find fault with it? Why, during the war of the rebellion you employed a million of men to fight for the Republic. When you enlisted your privates or commissioned your officers, did you ask first what ticket they had voted at the last election? Did you at any time demand the discharge of those who did not belong to your party? They were put in the field to fight, and you were perfectly well satisfied if they did what they were sent out for. You knew that a bullet fired by a Democrat or a Republican, if aimed well, would hit the rebellion with equal force. You praised and promoted your brave dutiful soldiers without asking for their political creed, provided they did their duty. You permitted them to get themselves killed without distinction of party. Is there any sound reason why you should apply other than business tests to those who in times of peace collect your taxes or distribute your mails or examine claims and write letters in the Departments, and other Government officers, while you applied only business tests to those whom in war you sent out to die for their country? It seems everybody can die for his country, but to draw a salary for collecting taxes or distributing mails or copying Government letters requires a certificate of political soundness forfrom your Congressman.

How, then, can the common sense rules I have been speaking of, be applied to the appointment of these officers? Let us take first the more important ones who are appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate, such as consuls, collectors, Indian agents, land officers, postmasters and the like. When vacancies occur by death or resignation, or the removal of unfit officials, the President will use the best means to satisfy himself of the character and business qualifications of those who are available as candidates and choose the best. How will he satisfy himself in this respect? The politician of the old school will say at once, let him consult the Congressman. He knows the good and able men in his district; he knows what the people of his district desire; if he recommends unfit persons, it will hurt him with his constituents; he is, therefore, the most reliable adviser.

This has a plausible sound. It is true that the Congressman usually knows these things, but it is unfortunately also true that he in an immense number of cases yields to the temptation of sinning against knowledge. Congressmen are, after all human beings, subject to certain frailties. What the average Congressman above all things wants, ordinarily, is to be reelected. To that end he wants to be renominated. He will, therefore, if the appointments are left to him, favor those who can help him best in being renominated, and reelected, either by having them appointed themselves or their relatives or friends, as they may prefer. He will in most cases make his selection not on the ground that the person selected is the fittest for the duties of the place, but on the ground that he is the fittest to keep him, the Congressman, in his place. He wants to build up his personal interest at the expense of the public service by having his political agents fed at the public crib. The reasons for which he recommends men for office have, therefore, ordinarily nothing at all to do with the business requirements of the office to be filled.

These would seem to be bold assertions. But I know whereof I speak. I have been four years in control of one of the great Departments of the Government. I had hundreds of applications for office urged by Congressmen, and I can say that in nine cases out of ten the recommendation was not made on the ground of the business fitness of the candidate for the place, but on the ground that the appointment would be useful to the party and especially to the Congressman who recommended it. In a majority of cases the business qualifications of the candidate where not even mentioned. Of course, there were most honorable exceptions, but they shone by their scarcity. You must not forget that a majority of our Congressmen get themselves nominated and elected, not by their statesmanship, but by just such means, and it is by the same means they keep their places in Congress. It is the only way in which they know how to sustain themselves. This is sad, but a fact we have to face.

But is it not true that they have to make good recommendations because the bad ones would injure their standing with their constituents? It would seem so at first sight. But the fact is that most Congressmen in striving to build up their political interests take great risks in that respect, and their principal care seems to be not that the officers recommended by them do well, but when they are doing badly, that they be not found out, or, when they are caught, that they be not publicly exposed. And hence, when they are caught, the average Congressman, as I have already remarked, is promptly on hand to plead with the President or the Secretary to protect the delinquents against exposure and punishment. I can remember many such cases from my own personal experience. Now, what would you think if you had in your private business a bookkeeper or cashier who made free with your money, or in your household a cook who could not tell salt from sugar, or cheated you in marketing, and the friend who recommended those persons came and begged you to keep them in their places for his sake? You would think that friend a very bad adviser; and so have I from my official experience come to the conclusion that the average Congressman is not the best, but the unsafest, and most dangerous adviser as to appointments to office.

In fact, I am convinced, an immense step would be accomplished in the reform of the public service if in the matter of appointments the advice of Congressmen were, as a rule, entirely discarded. Moreover, the Executive has the conduct of the public service in hand under the Constitution and is responsible for it. Having the responsibility it should not part with the power of organizing and regulating the service and filling the places. This again is common sense and also constitutional principle. But if the President can not rely upon the advice of Congressmen to satisfy him of the character and business qualifications of candidates for office, what can he do? In the first place, by making no removals except for business reasons, and by reappointing good officers when their terms expire, he can reduce the original appointments to be made to a comparatively small number. That small number will permit a much more thorough inquiry than with the confusing pressure now is possible. In that inquiry he can be aided by trustworthy agents in the service, or by a Civil Service Commission instituted for that purpose, to examine into the past career, the standing in the community, the established character, the business qualifications of candidates, and report to him. Is there anything visionary or wildly theoretical about this? It is again only the common sense rule of conduct you follow in your private business transferred to the large proportions of governmental affairs.

Now we come to those subordinate places, the clerks high and low in the Departments in Washington and in the larger custom houses and post offices in the country. There are very curious notions in the country as to what and how important a person the government clerk really is. It is supposed by many that the duties of the clerks consist mainly in copying the letters of their superiors and in doing some simple figuring, and having a good easy time, and that but little knowledge and ability are required for their business, so that in fact anybody would make a good Government clerk. No mistake could be greater. To be sure, some of the lowest grades of clerks are employed in work that requires only ordinary clerical skill. But that is the least important work done. They have to study the reports of officers; to draw up instructions to them; to examine accounts and report them for approval or rejection; to make estimates of expenditures in detail; to inquire into claims against the Government and all the circumstances connected with them; to work up law cases sometimes involving important principles and great values, and virtually decide them in the first instance. For example, in the General Land Office of the Interior Department questions of title came up to land, be it large old Spanish or Mexican grants, or even tracts in great cities such as Chicago and San Francisco, tracts of immense value; or questions of mining titles and the like, which from one end of the year to the other involve as much value as is involved in all the cases going through the Supreme Court of the United States. And these cases in the Interior Department are all in the first instance worked up by clerks; they inquire into the facts, examine the testimony, look up the precedents and authorities, find the law, and virtually decide the cases, submitting their written decisions for approval and signature to their superior officers. The number of things chiefs of Bureaus and heads of Departments can personally attend to in detail, is very small in proportion to all the business done. They must rely not only on the integrity, but on the knowledge and skill and judgment of the higher class clerks. The latter, therefore, to be quite efficient, must not only be good honest workers, but men of considerable ability, extensive acquirements, experience and training. If they are not, a chief of Bureau and still more a head of Department is a lost man.

How is he to get such clerks as he needs? In the first place he will be careful to keep those who have proved faithful and efficient, and he will be equally careful in filling vacant places, especially of the higher grades. Now imagine a Congressman, with a candidate for a clerkship, entering the office of a Secretary — I am speaking from my own experience — and saying: “Mr. Secretary, here is Jones. He did me good service in my election. He belongs to an influential family in my district. I want a clerkship for him; but none of your little picayune places of $1,200. a year. He has a family and wants at least $1,800.” “What?” says the Secretary. “A clerkship of $1,800. is the highest grade, an important place, requiring very considerable ability, knowledge and experience. Besides, there is no vacancy.” “Oh, nonsense!” says the Congressman. “Make a vacancy. There is Smith, having held office in your Department ten years, and he does not command a vote in the world except his own. Remove him and give the place to Jones.” You may think this an imaginary, impossible case. No, these things happen, have happened to me scores of times. Now, what was it my duty to answer? “My dear sir, Smith is a faithful and valuable clerk and will not be removed. He is not here to command votes, but to do his work which he is paid for. And Jones will not be appointed to such a place until he has shown himself fit for it. In this Department no man or woman is appointed except to clerkships of the lowest grade. They all have to begin at the bottom, and when they have earned promotion by good conduct and proficiency in the business of the Department, they will be moved up according to merit, the best ones first. There are some vacancies in the lowest grade. In a week or ten days we shall have an examination of all the candidates; there are 100 or 150 of them. If Jones comes out on the top of the list, he will have his place; if not, not.”

The Congressman is indignant. He is inclined to swear, — yes, he actually does sometimes on such occasions indulge in the unnecessary use of profane language. He wants for Jones not an examination but a good $1,800. berth. He calls the Secretary a theorist, a visionary, a disorganizer, and if things are to be run in that way, the party will be ruined and republican institutions will surely go to the bottom. But what do you say, as taxpayers and people of common sense and conscience and patriotic feelings, who have the public welfare at heart? Is the Secretary right or is he wrong? How would you act in your own private business where your own interests are at stake? You would probably not on your part swear at the Congressman who makes such an absurd demand, but while not swearing you would feel powerfully inclined to do the very next thing to it. And you would act just as the visionary Secretary did.

There is nothing the politician of the spoils school is more incensed at than the system of competitive examinations for appointment, or removal only for cause, and of promotion only for merit. What he wants, is that all these things be done by favor, and that his own favor should be the ruling power. A competitive examination is an examination in which those examined are graded according to the knowledge and skill they exhibit. And those who are graded highest, get the places. The spoils politicians dislike this intensely. They are trying to ridicule these examinations, saying that candidates are examined about the distance of the moon from the comet and other useless things that have nothing to do with the practical business of the office. Now, this is not true. Candidates are examined in those things which every clerk must know to do his work well. They have to show that they can write orthographically, can make an ordinary calculation correctly, can compare an intelligent letter, can make a clear abstract of a business paper, and possess that general knowledge of the history and institutions of their country which every intelligent American should have; that is all. There is nothing in this that is not useful and necessary to a clerk in his work. But the spoilsmen say, that those who pass the examinations best do not always prove the most efficient men in practical business. Of course, this is true in isolated cases. But experience has abundantly proved, that on the whole this system, combined with probation, furnishes better and more efficient clerks than any other. I know that it does, for I tested it for four years in the Interior Department. It has been tested in the Custom House in New York, and the Chamber of Commerce, merchants of cool impartial judgment, have repeatedly expressed by solemn and emphatic declarations that the business of the Custom House, since competitive examinations were introduced, has been more honestly and efficiently done than ever. But the spoils politicians say that in this way an office-holding aristocracy will be introduced; that office holders will feel secure in their places and will treat the people with supercilious contempt. An aristocracy! A clerk in a Department, or custom house, or post office, is to become an aristocrat when he knows that he has been appointed upon his own merit, will be promoted only if he works faithfully and will hold his place only as long as he deserves it, that is, as long as he does his whole duty to the public. The idea is too ridiculous for discussion. What is the most democratic principle as to appointments to office? That everybody shall have a chance according to his merit. Under the system I advocate everybody will have that chance. Competitive examinations are open to all. Everybody is invited to compete, and the best man gets the prize. It is an equal opportunity to rich and poor, high and low. What can be more democratic than that? But what does the spoils system offer instead? Not that everybody shall have a chance and that the man or woman who proves him or herself best shall have the place, but that the man who is favored by Senator Robinson or Congressman Brown shall have the place, and that everybody else, be he ever so virtuous, ever so learned, every so skillful, ever so superior to Robinson's and Brown's favorite, shall stand aside. It is right and justice overruled by favor. There is the germ of an office-holding aristocracy, it is an aristocracy of the most vulgar and degrading kind. There is an incitement to the office holder to treat the people with supercilious contempt when he knows that whatever he may do, the favor of the powerful Senator or Congressman will stand by him and keep him in his place, even against the protests of the people. And there is an abundance of such cases. All these objections of the spoils politicians to the reformed system, therefore, shine only by their flimsiness. Their true objection is that under it favor will no longer override justice and right, and that Senator Robinson and Congressman Brown can no longer hope to oust the Meritorious Smith to get a comfortable berth for the worthless Jones on that ground that he belongs to a set of political influence. There, and nowhere else, is the real rub.

Now I have gone through the whole catalogue. What I have set forth is the principles of civil service reform. It is the application of common sense, as it prevails in private business, to the business of the Government. I do not pretend that it will bring on the millenium. It will not cure all the ills the body politic is heir to. But it will produce certain important and beneficent changes which this Republic stands greatly in need of. It will give to the Government public servants of greater ability and better training, by a better method of selection. Assuring them that their tenure as well as promotion depends, not upon influence, but entirely upon their merit, it will stimulate them to make their best efforts. It will relieve the women employed in public offices of the humiliating consciousness of being as to their livelihood at the mercy of the mere favor of men, and make them dependent only upon their character and efficiency. It will thus inspire the whole service with higher self-respect and a nobler ambition. It will discourage corrupt practices among public servants by depriving them of the protection of political influence. It will elevate the morality of the service by establishing the principle that public offices are places of trust and not mere spoils of party victory and rewards to be distributed among political henchmen. It will raise up the whole character of our politics by stripping of their power that class of politicians who exercise influence only by organizing the greed of place hunters. It will lift up Congress to a higher level of statesmanship by keeping it clear of those whose whole political wisdom consists in the manipulation of the patronage, and who will return to their native nothingness when they have no more offices to deal in. It will destroy the political hopes and their insidious influence upon our politics. It will teach our young men that in order to rise in public life, they must store their minds with useful knowledge, devote themselves to the study of public interests and problems, and achieve reputations for public virtue and usefulness, instead of relying upon the arts of the wirepuller and office broker. It will make our political campaigns contests of principles and policies instead of mere scrambles for public plunder. And if it does these things it will be an inestimable blessing to the American people.

How is it to be accomplished? Much of it can undoubtedly be done by the executive branch of the Government itself. The President can say to Congressmen: “Under the Constitution the appointment of officials is my business, not yours. The Senate has to consent to nominations or not, as it chooses, but Senators have not to dictate what the nominations shall be. I shall not remove a worthy officer. I shall appoint only those whom I ascertain to be best fitted in a business point of view for the places to be filled; and there is the end.” The heads of Departments can say: “I shall appoint only to the lowest grades of clerkships upon competitive examinations. I shall promote only for merit and remove only for cause”, — and there would be the end again. This unquestionably they can do, but if they do so, they must make up their minds to it that they will have to go through a fierce fight with those who have had so long the benefit of the patronage and who will not give it up without a struggle, namely, the members of Congress. This has been tried. But a fight with Congress is not a pleasant thing for executive officers, and it requires more than ordinary determination and intrepidity to carry it on. You can, therefore, not depend upon executive officials alone to undertake this great work and accomplish it.

For this reason, as well as for the purpose of giving perpetuity to the reform, it is important that its principles and the means by which they are to be carried into practice, be embodied in legislative enactments which make the reform with executive officers not a matter of choice but a matter of duty. But to obtain such legislation the consent of the same Congressmen would be needed who do not want to lose their patronage and therefore oppose the reform. How can that consent be obtained? If you and I individually should try the power of mere moral suasion on him, the average Congressman would scarcely be seriously impressed. But if you and I and some thousands of his constituents should say to him: “Unless you promise to support such a measure, we shall vote against you and you will not be elected or re-elected” — that sort of pointed moral suasion would probably have its effect. In other words, it is only a strong, clearly pronounced, emphatic and uncompromising public opinion that will induce Congressmen to let go their patronage, and to permit a rational, businesslike organization of the civil service, — a public opinion so strong that politicians will not dare to resist it.

(Pendleton Bill)

The success of this great cause therefore rests with the people. To further it I have spoken to you to-night. You, gentlemen, can protect the public service of the Republic from disaster and shame and lift up our political life to a higher plane of morality and statesmanship by the power of the vote you wield, if you use it with stern discrimination and firm purpose. You, ladies, can aid powerfully in saving the women employed in the public service from a degrading dependence upon favoritism and secure to them the full enjoyment of the noblest pride of true womanhood by lending the cause of this reform your potent influence and encouragement. It is only a few weeks since the American people were cast into the deepest gloom of sorrow by a wanton and dreadful crime which would never have disgraced our annals and afflicted our hearts had not the absurd spoils system of the public service produced so demoralized a state of things, that the distribution of offices can inflame political passion to deeds of blood. Our beloved President would not now be in his grave, were not the offices of the Government given and withheld by favor and upon partisan motives. The American people would have been spare these tears and this shame had their common sense and virtue ruled the management of our public concerns. In one of his public addresses General Garfield said: “Congressmen have become dispensers, sometimes the brokers of patronage, and civil office has become a vast corrupting power to be used in running the machine of party politics. Every man of those in place feels that his only hope of staying is in toadying to those in power, so that the offices are an immense bribe, securing to the party in power an army of retainers who are the most servile of their sort in the world. Nothing less than absolute divorce of the appointing functions from Congress can remedy the evil. It should be done so completely that every member of Congress should be able to make such a boast as Thomas Hughes, a member of the British Parliament, did on his visit to this country — that, although he was personally on good terms with every member of the Cabinet, he could not influence the appointment of a clerk.” If our sorrowful mourning over the cruel death of the beloved President, if our reverence for his memory be sincere, let us pay heed to his advice. They speak of raising a proud monument over his grave. No prouder and worthier monument could be erected to him than a reformed public service in accordance with his noblest aspirations, showing that the people he loved so well have taken to heart the teachings of his life and the terrible lesson of his death.

Carl Schurz's Lecture Notes