Vol. XIII.

No. i.

COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION:

CARL SCHURZ, Chairman.

Editor and Manager: FRANCIS E. LEUPP.

***Published monthly, and entered in the Postoffice at Washington, D. C., as second class mail matter.

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***Washington Office and Editorial Rooms: 71 Corcoran Building. New York Office, 54 William Street. Communications on all topics addressed simply to GOOD GOVERNMENT, WASHINGTON, D. C., will receive prompt attention.

The Month.

T is especially unfortunate for the good repute of the present Administration, in connection with the classification of the free-delivery postoffices, that the most conspicuous of the "clean sweeps" yet made was made at the office in Bloomington, Illinois, the home of Vice President Stevenson. This is the same Mr. Stevenson in whose behalf GOOD GOVERNMENT was rebuked last summer, when it referred to him as the spoils tail of Mr. Cleveland's reform kite; and the chief beneficiary of the sweep was the Vice President's own brother, who was made assistant postmaster. There are twenty-one employees in the Bloomington postoffice. No dishonest tricks in the way of deferred examinations or burglarious entry were resorted to for the purpose of obtaining possession of the office. Everything was conducted lawfully and in order. It may therefore be asked what objection, aside from a sentimental one, could be made to the change of force, provided the new men were as reputable citizens as the old ones. The answer may be found in the fact that the new carriers have had to hire the old carriers to teach them their duties. The terms agreed upon were a bonus of thirty-five dollars outright, and five dollars a day besides for as long a period as the services of the old men might be needed.

The proper course for a new postmaster to pursue is that which will assure to the Government the best value for the money it spends. The best value in human service is always expert service. Here were a group of trained functionaries on one side and a group of unskilled novices on the other. How much more valuable the trained men were than the untrained, may be judged by the willingness of the untrained men to pay a sum which must have eaten a big hole in their salaries, for the privilege of learning a small part of what the trained men already knew. Why should the Government be compelled to accept all these ignorant servants in exchange for a corps whom it had spent four years in teaching their trade? And is not this whole spectacle especially edifying when we remember that it is pre

The story of Bloomington has been repeated in all its essential features at Topeka and Kansas City, Ks., Galesburg and Quincy, Ill., Plattsburg, N. Y., Augusta, Ga., and other less important places. In some cases the old men have refused to work for the new postmaster after he has dismissed them, stating as their reason that they have no right to handle the United States mail except as sworn agents of the Government. In more than one instance the new postmaster, in dismissing the

old men, has taken occasion to commend them to their LUKOTS

faces, and to explain that the only reason for the change was his desire to give their places to Democrats; meanwhile, however, reporting them to the Department at Washington as "inefficient" or having some other fault, so that their dismissal would appear all right on the record. In one office a postmaster who wanted to avoid friction studied out a plan which promises to work like a charm he left the old carriers undisturbed, but procured the appointment of a large enough corps of substitute carriers from among his party henchmen to supply all their places as fast as vacancies occurred, instead of having to draw upon the eligible register to be provided later. By this ruse he has succeeded in keeping the old men at work and getting the benefit of their experience in training the substitutes; but, as fast as a substitute becomes fairly well acquainted with a route, the old carrier is dropped off it and the substitute appointed to the vacancy. Perhaps the most interesting case of all, measured by its impudence, is that of the postmaster who included among his dismissals, on the very eve of the Civil Service examination, all the members of the examining board. The Commission, when it protested, was coolly informed that it was privileged to pick out a fresh board from among the new men. Of course there was no time to do that, and an examiner from the central board at Washington had to be sent to the spot post haste.

No person who has taken part in, or winked at, such perversions of the spirit and purpose of the rule of classification, has any right henceforward to say one word in condemnation of the outrage of 1889, when the Railway Mail Service was looted for political ends. That contemptible fraud was perpetrated under all the forms of law. Technically speaking, Postmaster-General Wanamaker had an unassailable right to take advantage of the interval between March 15 and May 1 to turn out Democrats and put in Republicans, but no honest man has ever felt the slightest respect for him since he stooped to such a piece of trickery. In precisely the same way the new postmasters who this year have seized upon the interval between the date of their appointment and the