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Show I A VINDICATION. ! Ever since the advent of the present Administration to jwwer it has been a constant and never ceasing ground of complaint by the Republican party and its press that the President was a sham civil-service reformer. To substantiate this charge a few instances of bad appointments ap-pointments have been cited, so few that they may be counted upon the fingers. Their very prominence has been owing to their fewness, but in the main no fault can be found with the appointments, nor can it successfully be charged that the letter and spirit of the Civil-Service law have not been strictly adhered to, so strictly has it been adhered to that many spoilsmen of the Democratic party have charged that the-Administration is more Republican than Democratic. That such a charge is groundless all know who know anything. Yesterday the Republican party in New York in its convention at Saratoga, solemnly sol-emnly denounced the Administration on the civil-service question in these terms : "We denounce the hypocritical practices under which faithful Republican officers are removed on the plea of offensive partisanship, partisan-ship, while such men as Higcins, Thomas, Throop, Chase, Pillsbury, Aquilla Jones and others, some of whose names appear upon the prison records of the country and whose recommendation is political partisanship, are appointed in their places. While removing remov-ing elsewhere on the ground of offensive partisanship Republicans who edit newspapers, news-papers, the National Administration continues con-tinues in high judicial office in the city of New York a prominent Democratic appointee, appoin-tee, who publicly announced himself as having assumed, since his appointment, the control of an avowedly partisan journal. We believe it is the duty of the Republican majority of the Senate to oppose the confirmation confir-mation of any person appointed in violation of the letter and spirit of the -Civil Service Act." Rut such denunciations do not have that force that their violent language would imply. On the heels of this resolution reso-lution by the Republicans of New York there comes the resignation of the Hon. Dorman B. Eaton, who may very aptly be termed the father and champion of civil-service reform in the United States. His politics are Republican, and it is but natural to expect that his resignation was tendered on the grounds of the notorious and continued violation of the rules of the Civil-Service Act by President Cleveland, since his party has been holding these violations up to public view for a long time past. His letter of resignation is long and replete with, the history of the civil-service reform movement in this country. After giving some oi his reasons rea-sons for not having resigned sooner, Mr. Eaton refers to the conduct of the Administration Admin-istration in regard to its reform policy, lie speaks in the following clear and un-; un-; rnistakeable language of that policy : "These considerations constrained mo to continue in my placo until the reform policy of your Administration, so clearly defined in your declaration, should be as unmistakably unmistak-ably developed in your acts as President as it had been in your acts as Governor of New i York. That time has arrived. No candid man can longer pretend to regard that policy as indefinite or doubtful. Every one of the five months of your Administration, during which the Civil Service Act and rules have been enforced with as much breadth, firmness firm-ness and fidelity as under that of President Arthur, has not only added new evidence of the utility of the new servioe upon which he congratulated the country, but has made more definite the settled purpose of your Administration to faithfully enforce the law and the rules in future. The few changes you have made in the rules have but added to their justice and efficiency. So far as I have been able to learn, there is not a member mem-ber of your Cabinet who has not, as a result of his experience in office, a higher sense than before of the need of enforcing that merit system in the public service which the Civil Service Act and the rules have established, from those at the head to the many officers in the postal and cuRtoms service to which the examinations extend in all parts of the Union." That language is an endorsement of the Administration and likewise it is a complete com-plete refutation of the slander contained in the resolution adopted yesterday by the New York Republicans, and of the slanders sland-ers and slurs that the Republican party has been making upon Cleveland and the Cabinet ever since they assumed the reins of the Government. If any man in America has watched with interest and solicitude the workings of the Civil-Service Act it is Dorman B. Eaton, and ho has nothing but words of praise and commendation com-mendation for the President for his course with regard to that Act. The letter of the President in reply to the letter of resignation resigna-tion of Mr. Eaton is in the same spirit as his famous letter on the civil-servico question of last year, and is a grateful acknowledgement of the kind appreciation apprecia-tion of the chief Civil-Service Commissioner Commis-sioner of the honest endeavor of the i Administration to live up to its pledges! on this most important question. Any j who doubt whether reform in this direction direc-tion is going to remain and extend much further than now, do not read the signs of the times aright, while those who oppose j it are opposing fate. ! |