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Show S THE SENATE AND THE PRESIDENT . The recent talk as to the intention of 1 , the Senate in regard to the confirmation of the President's nominations has given rise to many suggestions as to the duty of the President and the Senate. It is said that the President himself has made one suggestion in regard to the demand of the Senate for the reason for removals, and it is that if the Senate wish to discuss his removals upon information furnished by him, it should be done in open session. This is an excellent suggestion, but will scarcely be so thought by the Republican Senators. "What objection can there be to an open discussion of the removals of various officials if such removals are objected to on the ground of the public welfare? The Republican Senators could not possibly wish to make a virtuous display of interest in the general welfare of the whole people merely for the sake of display and buncombe. Oh ! no, they wouldn't do anything like that, because all Republicans, and more particularly par-ticularly Republican Senators, are virtuous virtu-ous beyond the dreams of Plato or More. It is constructive if not actual treason to the Government to say that a Republican Senator would do anything for the sake of buncombe and in the hope of making political capital out of it. It is clear that those Republican Senators Sen-ators who wanted to know the President's reasons. lor making certain removals desired the information for purely proper motives, and such being the case, what objection ' can there be ' to discusssing the reasons for such removals in open session ? None in the world. Such public discussions discus-sions should not stop here. Whenever a man is an applicant for office, his merits and demerits should be thoroughly discussed dis-cussed both by the appointing and confirming con-firming power and by the people. It is safe to say that two-thirds of those who apply for and hunt office would never make known their desires if their character, charac-ter, merit and record were to be placed before the world for discussion and ap proval. They could not stand the glare of the light which would thus be thrown upon them, and the consequence would be that they would be eliminated from, the contest for office from the very beginning. The public servant should be before sXl others a worthy servant, but the worthiest will never be had so long as the fitness, both as to character and capacity, of candidates for office is j determined on the ground of favor-, itism and political influence. And this remark is equally true of Democrats ' as of Republicans. " A bad system of selecting public officials is bad no matter what party employs it. The utter absurdity ab-surdity and inadequacy of the present system of making appointments to office is 6hown by the fact that men very frequently fre-quently make application for appointment to half a dozen offices, the duties of each being of an entirely different nature, and are content with any one of them. The chances are ninety-nine out of a hundred that the man who applies for half a dozen offices is not fit for any one of them, and if he had a special fitness for some particular par-ticular office he would recognize that he - was not fitted for half a dozen offices. The man who is so universally fitted for office ought to die, for the angels, who are. the just made perfect, alone are worthy to associate with such a man. Yet such are the majority of office-seekers, and the consequence is, and always will be, that the Government is worse served than the proprietor of a corner grocer'. If a man is fit for office, he need have no fear when he is asked to compete with some other man to show which is the better qualified for discharging the duties of the office sought, and if he really cares for good government, he will see with , satisfaction the best man get the office. There should be some sensible and reasonable rea-sonable method of determining the fitness of candidates for appointment to office, and the theory of civil-service reform indicates, in-dicates, thus far, the best method for determining de-termining this fitness, while the spoils theory is the most senseless and unreasonable unreas-onable of all. |