53
Address of Hon. Carl Schurz, at Memorial Hall, Harvard.
WHAT I am going to say to you is not new, but it cannot be repeated too often, especially before the young men of America. There is a widespread impression that it is the only aim of civil service reform to provide the government with a more efficient class of public servants. This is only one of its aims. But another one, and a higher one, is gradually to eliminate from our political life, the demoralizing element of patronage and spoil which appeals merely to the selfish impulses of human nature, and thus to open a larger and freer field again to the higher ambition of purely patriotic purpose.
The pest of politics in a democracy is the man who attaches himself to a political party merely for the sake of what he can make out of it in the way of material benefit. I do not mean to say that it is wrong or disgraceful to aspire to public office. On the contrary, it is right and laudable whenever the aspirant is able and desirous to return for the emolument received a full equivalent in service, and willing to stand upon his own merit. Nor do I mean to say that every one who enters the service in any other way, must necessarily be or become a drone or a knave; for I know that many of them have acted upon an honorable sense of responsibility and done good work.
What I mean to say is that the bestowal of office as patronage or party spoil is, as a general rule, bestowal of office by political or personal favor; that this favor is usually earned, and again to be earned, by personal or party service; that the beneficiary of that favor depends upon the continuance of that favor for his continuance in office; that thus his allegiance is divided between the public interest and his powerful patron; and that this relationship is apt to have a demoralizing effect upon the public service as well as upon the character of the office holder as a citizen—for he who depends upon arbitrary
