the ruts of party, and placing it in the hands of honest and competent men, irrespective of politics. And yet, in the face of all these brave manifestoes, the President was seeking his own reëlection through his well-organized army of eighty thousand office-holders, not a man of whom was safe if known to be opposed to his reëlection. The fact was perfectly notorious and undeniable that the tenure of office was not "honesty and efficiency" at all, but "political activity" for Grant. It is true that the Civil Service Commission had framed a set of rules for the protection of honest officials from political interference, but these rules were suspended by the President just as often as it suited the convenience of the party leaders who had him in their keeping, and who treated the whole subject with contempt.

When Senator Conkling, for example, wanted a faithful public servant turned out in New York, to make room for a political minion, the rules were suspended for the purpose. When General Butler wanted a political tool in the place of an honest incumbent in Massachusetts, or Senator Morton wanted a similar favor in Indiana, the rules were suspended for their accommodation. When General Logan wanted a collector at Chicago turned adrift because he would not join Orville Grant in his whiskey frauds, and in order to make room for one of his political henchmen, the President was his humble servant. The postmaster in the city of Galveston, who, we believe, was a faithful officer, was dismissed to make room for a man who had been driven out of the House of Representatives for fraud. Tom Murphy, one of the partners in the Tammany ring of thieves, covered all over with his political vices as with a garment, and with neither capacity nor knowledge to fit him for the duties of any civil office, was appointed collector of the port of the city of New York, one of the most lucrative and politically potential positions under the Government, and Moses H. Grinnell, an honest and capable man, was sent into retirement as a further illustration of civil-service reform. And, when the popular pressure became so potent as to compel Murphy to resign, the President "vindicated " him in a letter, complimenting him on the ability and faithfulness with which he had discharged the duties of his high office; while Leet and Stocking, who had notoriously been cheating public justice, were still plundering the merchants of New York, in spite of their

pro

tests, and in defiance of public opinion. In 1872 the office of collector at New Orleans was held, as it has continued to be till quite recently, by Colonel Casey, the President's brother-in-law, who had brought out his "Gatling guns" to aid him in packing a political convention of his party, and who was convicted of bribery and corruption by a congressional committee of his own political friends, who subsequently reported the facts to the President, and demanded his removal, which demand was never complied with. Civil-service reform found an apt illustration in the performances of Powel Clayton, of Arkansas. As we remember the facts, he packed the Legislature of that State by corrupt means with his tools, who in turn elected him to the United States Senate; but when the grand jury of that district indicted him for his political offenses, and thus invited his attention to the hospitalities of the penitentiary, the President, wishing to "vindicate" his friend, removed the marshal and district attorney through whose agency the indictments were supposed to have been secured, and filled their places with friends of Mr. Clayton, who non-prossed the indictments, by which the distinguished Senator was allowed to escape justice, and to devote his "political activity" to the reelection of his patron and chief. Secretary Robeson took $93,000 from the Treasury, and paid it on a false claim to one Secor, without authority of law, and was excused on the score of his "good intentions;" while Secretary Cox had been driven from the cabinet for refusing to prostitute his office to political purposes. Postmaster-General Cresswell did his best to take from the Treasury some $443,000, and pay it to Chorpenning on a fraudulent claim for carrying the mails in California, and the President approved his conduct, and his "political activity" on the stump for his reëlection.

In dealing with the question of civil-service reform, we must not fail to notice the President's espousal of the San Domingo job. He personally assisted General Babcock, the negotiator and ringleader of the project, in lobbying for it in the Senate, although the country, with singular unanimity, condemned it, and compelled its abondonment. Charles Sumner, for performing his simple duty in opposing it, was driven from his chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations; and Simon Cameron, who was turned out of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet during

the war, on account of his corrupt complicity with army contracts, and disgraced by a vote of the House of Representatives, and who had had a national reputation as a political trader and charlatan for nearly a quarter of a century, was made his successor; while the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, then the foremost public character in the nation, was still further insulted by the offer of a place at the tail of the Committee on Education and Labor, with Mr. Flannegan, of Texas, at its head.

These are illustrations of the working of our civil service under the first Administration of General Grant. They are the ripe fruit of theory that the Republican party could do no wrong, and that the Democratic party, at all events and at all hazards, must be kept out of power. Carl Schurz publicly stated, in 1872, that he had seen a foreign minister in Washington hunting the Government as a man hunts for a lost child, or a horse strayed or stolen. It was at Long Branch, looking after the business of horse-racing, or down in Carolina, stumping for Grant, or out West with Mr. Delano, in his fatherly concern for land-grants and Indian affairs. If we are not mistaken, all the cabinet ministers, except Belknap, were then on the stump, electioneering for their chief, while the President himself, spurning the example of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, had been heaping honors and emoluments upon his relatives, and accepting presents of fine houses and tempting largesses in money from men unknown to fame, who subsequently received executive appointments. And when Liberal Republicans turned away from the picture we have outlined, in sorrow and disgust, they were everywhere denounced by the champions of the President as "apostates" and "rebels." Horace Greeley was branded as a traitor, in league with Confederate traitors of the South, and plotting his way into the White House, for the ulterior purpose of undoing the work of the war, reëstablishing slavery, and fastening upon the nation the rebel debt. Sumner, Trumbull, and their co-laborers, were pursued with the same hungry and unslumbering political venom and personal malice. In the many political conflicts of the past, whether in the early times of the abolitionists, or during the fierce passions excited by the civil war, we can recall nothing which exceeded the rancor and rage which inspired the Republican leaders in 1872, in their treatment of the men who rebelled

against the party-lash, in order to save their own honor and selfrespect.

But the task upon which we have entered invites us to follow the fortunes of Republicanism through the second Administration of General Grant; and, in entering upon this work, let us remember Senator Morton's declaration that "ours is the best civil service on the planet;" and his assertion in 1876 that, "all things considered, the present is the purest and best Administration this country has ever had." Let us glance at some of the actual facts which supply the commentary upon these remarkable statements. It cannot be denied that soon after the second inauguration of the President civil-service reform became a more glaring political mockery than ever before. The enforcement of the rules framed by the commission was only an occasional event, while their suspension was the order of the day. Governor. Holden, of North Carolina, who was impeached, convicted, and rendered incapable of holding any office, was made postmaster at the capital of that State. Sharpe, a brother-in-law of the President, was appointed Surveyor of the Port of New York, just as if no civil-service rules had ever been heard of. Cramer, another brother-in-law, who had disgraced our diplomatic service during the preceding Administration, was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate as Naval Officer at New Orleans. Casey, the brotherin-law before mentioned, who had taken on board a Government vessel the Grant members of the Louisiana Legislature to protect them from arrest, and prevent a majority of the members from proceeding to business because the political interests of the President demanded this lawlessness, and who stood before the country thatched with political corruption, was reappointed and confirmed as Collector of the Port of New Orleans. Even George William Curtis, so long hoping against hope, and so faithfully clinging to the President through thick and thin, was at last obliged to resign his position in disgust, and to declare that the appointments of the President showed "an utter abandonment of both the letter and spirit of the civil-service regulations." About the same time Peter Cooper wrote a most earnest and friendly letter to the President, begging him to rescue the city and State of New York from the Custom-House rogues who had so long disgraced our civil service and defied the people; but the

President seemed entirely unconscious that anything was going amiss. When Congress abolished the government of the District of Columbia in order to get rid of Boss Shepherd, who stood revealed as a disgraced public swindler, the President immediately appointed him one of the commissioners of the new district government. When the safe-burglary criminals were on trial, the machinery of the District Attorney's office was employed to cheat public justice; and the President, pending the trial, made a most remarkable demonstration upon the jury by inviting one of the defendants to join a company of distinguished guests in a feast at the White House. What was called "Grantism" found a still fitter illustration in the case of Orville Grant. He asked the President, who is his brother, to let him know when anything under his control should transpire by which he (Orville) could make some money. The President thought it right to gratify him, and in due time proceeded to designate certain post-traderships which he might control, not, as it would seem, because the incumbents of the places were incompetent or unworthy, but that Orville should have a share of the profits by imposing exactions to that effect, or through the removal of the incumbents if they should object to the division. The department of justice was disgraced by continuing in office Attorney-General Williams a year and a half after it had been proved that he had appropriated the public revenue to the private use of himself and his family; and this same Attorney-General was afterward appointed Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The real working of "the best civil service on the planet," and "the purest and best Administration this country has ever had," is made strikingly manifest in the conviction of the Secretary of War, on his own confession, of making merchandise of the post-traderships under his control, while the President, who had knowledge of his criminal acts four years before, accepted his resignation "with regret," and with such surprising promptness as to prevent his legal conviction of high crimes and misdemeanors by the Senate.

The President stood by Secretary Delano in his disgraceful performances involving the management of Indian affairs till forced by public opinion to give him up, and then "vindicated " him by his customary farewell letter of approval. By one of