-door relief to the poorer saplings of
aristocracy." As a necessary consequence, patriotism and attachment to
principles among those corporators become feebler, and servility to
party stronger.

III. The Government suffers in its administration. In appointments
other tests than the Jeffersonian, "Is he honest, is he faithful, is he
capable?" are applied. The right to employment should grow solely out
of superior capacity and attainments. Official patronage is a trust for
promoting the general welfare. The present system, forgetful of general
interests, instead of securing the best men, often gets instead the
incapable. A good official system is hardly possible with constant
changes in the _personnel_. If continuance in office be dependent on
other considerations than discharge of duties, a stimulus to diligence
and fidelity is taken away. The best motive for learning a task
thoroughly should be furnished. Not unfrequently one defeated in his
aspirations for Congress receives a Federal appointment. A popular
condemnation becomes a stepping stone to a higher position. What should
be regarded as a rebuke is made a plea for promotion.

IV. The tendency of the abuse of Executive patronage is to make those
in the civil service mere placemen and mere tools or willing servitors
of the President. To quote again from Mr. Webster:

A competition ensues, not of patriotic labors, not of rough and
severe toils for the public good, not of manliness, independence,
and public spirit, but of complaisance, of indiscriminate support
of executive measures, of pliant subserviency and gross adulation.

By personal effort, by money contributions, through the press, in
nominating assemblies, at the polls, office-holders work for him in
whom they have their official being. An incumbent of the Presidency, a
candidate for reelection, has a large number of men and their families
interested in his success, and swayed by the temptation of interest to
secure his renomination and reelection; add to these the hungry
expectants, whose eyes and hopes are fixed on Washington, and it can be
seen that the power and the practice of giving offices to partisans
operate on the fears of all who are in and the hopes of those who wish
to get in. The Executive himself is armed with undue influence and
power and subjected to a temptation to dishonesty if he covets a
reelection. The "spoils" in the hands of a President, granted or
withdrawn at plea