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ton, and that alone in its application to the clerical force,” while at the very time when the law was enacted, the competitive system was in actual operation in the Custom House and the Post office in New York, and while the law itself provided in terms that the merit system prescribed by it should be introduced throughout the country in every post office and custom house having 50 employees, and that the President and the several department chiefs should from time to time revise the classification so as to include places theretofore not classified, excluding only from the scope of such extensions offices not in the executive branch, offices to be filled by the President with the consent of the Senate, and common laborers. No wonder Mr. Grosvenor was nominated by the organ of the spoils politicians as their candidate for the presidency.
While thus almost all the objections to the merit system brought forward by its enemies are easily and conclusively refuted either by the public record or by the simplest reasoning, there is one which has a certain plausibility for those who form their judgment upon superficial impressions. It is, that, one American citizen having as much right to public employment as another, a system making appointments dependent upon the result of examinations removes public offices from the reach of the people and confines them to a privileged class, which will bring forth an officeholding aristocracy. The idea of a great American aristocracy consisting of Treasury clerks, or letter carriers, or customs inspectors, or even of such magnates as revenue collectors or presidential postmasters, or Indian agents, must appear laughable not only to the people but to the employees themselves. But there are, indeed, many persons who think that appointment to office as a reward for party service, or upon the recommendation of an influential politician is more apt to give everybody a chance, and, therefore, more democratic than a system requiring a proof of fitness. What a preposterous idea! Subject the essential features of the spoils system to a simple analysis and compare them with those of the merit system, and you will find, as I argued before the Governor of New York last spring, and as recently the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Long, has forcibly set forth, that the merit system furnishes the only method of appointment that is really democratic—the only one that is truly just to the people.
Here is the ordinary course of things under the spoils system.
