Show A CIVIL SERVICE QUESTION clerk named SMITH in the sixth auditors audi-tors office at Washington has been removed re-moved That is to say he has been informed in-formed that his services arc no longer required re-quired and the only reason assigned for turning him out is that he is a Democrat this being 1 Republican administration Mr SMITH declines to go unless some other reason for his discharge shall be presented pre-sented He has performed his duties faithfully there being no complaint against him on that score and he maintains that as he obtained tho clerkship by tho operation of the civil service law he cannot be removed for partisan reasons The case is an interesting one and will be carefully watched by politicians department depart-ment clerks and those who hold positions under the civil service law I SMITH can be removed at the will of his superior then the first thing that Congress should do on assembling next winter should be to repeal the civil service act and put a stop to the costly farce Everything is against SMITH All the precedents are opposed to his position posi-tion for Republican and Democratic chiefs have bounced the underlings at will as if there were no law beyond their will and yet the clerk is right in the position he has assumed if there is any sense in the law upon whick he relies The civil service law was intended in-tended to restrict the government service and without to worthy all competent persons regard to politics indeed the main purpose pur-pose af the law and the chief incentive to its enactment was to eliminate politics from tae minor positions in the service of the government The law having provided i for getting worthy persons into the service ser-vice should maIm provision for keeping them there or at least for preventing their removal for political reasons I it does not do this the statute is of the least possible avail for the partisan head of a bureau or department can at any moment defeat the law and make mattsrs as if no act existed He can remove at will those of a different political faith and soon have aforco of subordinates all the members of which will be members of his party and willing t do his political bidding The civil service law is a humbug and its application has been ridiculous und farcical in the extreme I is one of those thing tlatare pretty in theory but ugly in practice I is doubtful that there can ever be a successful civil service law in a government like ours where partisan politics tics is contemplated in everything from the constitution down to the most trifling congressional enactments and whero elections elec-tions in the most insignificant towns are decidedly partisan affairs every man deeming it his duty to belong to a political party whether or not ho can define any of the principles of the political organization Theorists may deplore and protest until they are heartsick and the fact will stand that in the minds of tho great ma ority of the American people the doctrine of t the victors belong the spoils is more firmly fed than any desire fern pure but nonpartisan administration This fact will make a failure of any civil service law which proposes to take service for the government out of tho field of politics and make government employment depend on fitness merely But the civil service law can be made to mean much more than it does and Clerk SMITH has setout set-out to give a now and broader and better meaning the statute His failure should be the death knell of the law |