the spoils
system, as it has been in operation since 1829, has educated thousands
of political loafers, but not one political sage.

That the Government will not work satisfactorily unless all its officers
and employees are in political harmony with the ruling party, is also
one of those superstitions which some estimable people have not yet been
able to shake off. While they sternly resist the argument that there is
no Democratic and no Republican way of sorting letters, or of collecting
taxes, or of treating Indians, as theoretical moonshine, their belief
must, after all, have received a rude shock by the conduct of the last
three national Administrations, including the present one.

When in 1885, after twenty-four years of Republican ascendency, the
Democrats came into power, President Cleveland determined that, as a
general rule, officers holding places covered by the four-years-term law
should, if they had conducted themselves irreproachably, be permitted to
serve out their four-years terms. How strictly this rule was adhered to
I will not now inquire. At any rate it was adhered to in a great many
cases. Many Republican office-holders, under that four-years rule,
remained in place one, or two, or three years under the Democratic
Administration. President Harrison, succeeding Mr. Cleveland, followed
a similar rule, although to a less extent. And now President Cleveland
again does the same. Not only did we have during his first term the
startling spectacle of the great post-office of New York City remaining
in the hands of a postmaster who was not a Democrat, but recently of
the Collectorship of the port of New York, once considered the most
important political office in the country, being left for a year or more
in possession of a Republican.

It is clear, the Presidents who acted thus did not believe that the
public interest required all the officers of the Government to be in
harmony with the party in power. On the contrary, they thought that
the public interest was served by keeping efficient officers in their
places, for a considerable time at least, although they were not in such
harmony. And no doubt all sensible people admit that the common weal did
not suffer therefrom. The theory of the necessity of political accord
between the administrative officers of the Government and the party
in power has thus been thoroughly exploded by actual practice and
experience. Being obliged to admit this, candid men, it is