Theodore Roosevelt [32]
to his muttons and their fleeces.
A still more distinguished personage fell before the enthusiastic Commissioner. This was Arthur Pue Gorman, a Senator from Maryland, a Democrat, one of the most pertinacious agents of the Big Interests in the United States Congress. Evidently, also, he served them well, as they kept him in the Senate for nearly twenty-five years, until his death. They employed Democrats as well as Republicans, just as they subscribed to both Democratic and Republican campaign funds. For, "in politics there is no politics." Gorman, who knew that the Spoils System was almost indispensable to the running of a political machine, waited for a chance to attack the Civil Service Commission. Thinking that the propitious moment had come, he inveighed against it in the Senate. He "described with moving pathos," as Roosevelt tells the story, "how a friend of his, 'a bright young man from Baltimore,' a Sunday-School scholar, well recommended by his pastor, wished to be a letter-carrier;" but the cruel examiners floored him by asking the shortest route from Baltimore to China, to which he replied that, as he never wished to go to China, he hadn't looked up the route. Then, Senator Gorman asserted, the examiners quizzed him about all the steamship lines from the United States to Europe, branched off into geology and chemistry, and "turned him down."
Gorman was unaware that the Commissioners kept records of all their examinations, and when Roosevelt wrote him a polite note inquiring the name of the "bright young man from Baltimore," Gorman did not reply. Roosevelt also asked him, in case he shrank from giving the name of his informant, to give the date when the alleged examination took place. He even offered to open the files to any representative the Senator chose to send. Gorman, however, "not hitherto known as a sensitive soul," as Roosevelt remarks, "expressed himself as so shocked at the thought that the veracity of the bright young man should be doubted, that he could not bring himself to answer my letter." Accordingly, Roosevelt made a public statement that the Commissioners had never asked the questions which Gorman alleged. Gorman waited until the next session of Congress and then, in a speech before the Senate, complained that he had received a very "impudent" letter from Commissioner Roosevelt "cruelly" calling him to account, when he was simply endeavoring to right a great wrong which the Commission had committed. But neither then nor afterwards did he furnish "any clue to the identity of that child of his fondest fancy, the bright young man without a name."
Roosevelt must have chuckled with a righteous exultation at such evidence as this that the Lord had delivered the Philistines into his hands; and his abomination of the Spoils System must have deepened when he saw its Grosvenors and its Gormans brazen out the lies he caught them telling.
When the spoilsmen failed to get rid of the Commission by ridicule and by open attack, they resorted to the trick of not appropriating money for it in this or that district. But this did not succeed, for the Commission, owing to lack of funds, held no examinations in those districts, and therefore no candidates from them could get offices. This made the politicians unpopular with the hungry office-seekers whom they deprived of their food at the public trough.
The Commission had to struggle, however, not only to keep unfit candidates out of office, but to keep in office those who discharged their duty honestly and zealously. After every election there came a rush of Congressmen and others, to turn out the tried and trusty employees and to put in their own applicants. Such an overturn was of course detrimental to the service; first, because it substituted greenhorns for trained employees, and next, because it introduced the haphazard of politicians' whims for a just scheme of promotion and retention in office. Roosevelt lamented bitterly over the injustice and he denounced the waste. Many cases of grievous hardship came to his notice. Widows, whose only means
A still more distinguished personage fell before the enthusiastic Commissioner. This was Arthur Pue Gorman, a Senator from Maryland, a Democrat, one of the most pertinacious agents of the Big Interests in the United States Congress. Evidently, also, he served them well, as they kept him in the Senate for nearly twenty-five years, until his death. They employed Democrats as well as Republicans, just as they subscribed to both Democratic and Republican campaign funds. For, "in politics there is no politics." Gorman, who knew that the Spoils System was almost indispensable to the running of a political machine, waited for a chance to attack the Civil Service Commission. Thinking that the propitious moment had come, he inveighed against it in the Senate. He "described with moving pathos," as Roosevelt tells the story, "how a friend of his, 'a bright young man from Baltimore,' a Sunday-School scholar, well recommended by his pastor, wished to be a letter-carrier;" but the cruel examiners floored him by asking the shortest route from Baltimore to China, to which he replied that, as he never wished to go to China, he hadn't looked up the route. Then, Senator Gorman asserted, the examiners quizzed him about all the steamship lines from the United States to Europe, branched off into geology and chemistry, and "turned him down."
Gorman was unaware that the Commissioners kept records of all their examinations, and when Roosevelt wrote him a polite note inquiring the name of the "bright young man from Baltimore," Gorman did not reply. Roosevelt also asked him, in case he shrank from giving the name of his informant, to give the date when the alleged examination took place. He even offered to open the files to any representative the Senator chose to send. Gorman, however, "not hitherto known as a sensitive soul," as Roosevelt remarks, "expressed himself as so shocked at the thought that the veracity of the bright young man should be doubted, that he could not bring himself to answer my letter." Accordingly, Roosevelt made a public statement that the Commissioners had never asked the questions which Gorman alleged. Gorman waited until the next session of Congress and then, in a speech before the Senate, complained that he had received a very "impudent" letter from Commissioner Roosevelt "cruelly" calling him to account, when he was simply endeavoring to right a great wrong which the Commission had committed. But neither then nor afterwards did he furnish "any clue to the identity of that child of his fondest fancy, the bright young man without a name."
Roosevelt must have chuckled with a righteous exultation at such evidence as this that the Lord had delivered the Philistines into his hands; and his abomination of the Spoils System must have deepened when he saw its Grosvenors and its Gormans brazen out the lies he caught them telling.
When the spoilsmen failed to get rid of the Commission by ridicule and by open attack, they resorted to the trick of not appropriating money for it in this or that district. But this did not succeed, for the Commission, owing to lack of funds, held no examinations in those districts, and therefore no candidates from them could get offices. This made the politicians unpopular with the hungry office-seekers whom they deprived of their food at the public trough.
The Commission had to struggle, however, not only to keep unfit candidates out of office, but to keep in office those who discharged their duty honestly and zealously. After every election there came a rush of Congressmen and others, to turn out the tried and trusty employees and to put in their own applicants. Such an overturn was of course detrimental to the service; first, because it substituted greenhorns for trained employees, and next, because it introduced the haphazard of politicians' whims for a just scheme of promotion and retention in office. Roosevelt lamented bitterly over the injustice and he denounced the waste. Many cases of grievous hardship came to his notice. Widows, whose only means