He knew how to select the quickest, cleverest,
most industrious assistants, and through them he prospered.
That a man who had sworn to uphold and direct his government to
the best of his ability, should have the conscience to treat his
country as he did not treat himself, can be easily explained: he
had no conscience. Fashion, like a local anaesthetic, deadens the
sensitiveness of conscience in this or that spot; and the
prevailing fashion under all governments, autocratic or
democratic, has permitted the waste and even the dishonest
application of public funds.
These anomalies at last roused the sense of humor of some of our
citizens, just as the injustice and dishonesty which the system
embodied roused the moral sense of others; and the Reform of the
Civil Service--a dream at first, and then a passionate cause
which the ethical would not let sleep--came into being. But to
the politicians of the old type, the men of "inflooence" and
"pull," the project seemed silly. They ridiculed it, and they
expected to make it ridiculous in the eyes of the American
people, by calling it "Snivel" Service Reform.
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