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dealings, should be exposed to public view. There are, it may be hoped, not many of them. But the efforts which are said to be making in Congress to withhold the whole of the papers connected with the Bristow investigation from public knowledge, after the notorious failure of Congressional investigations, create, as the matter now stands, a very general suspicion which the innocent ones should consider it a duty to themselves to dissipate as much as possible by exposing the guilty. It might in this case be in the public interest in some way to assure the indicted officers of immunity if they will tell all they know, no matter whom it may inculpate. Such a disclosure would serve to fortify many a shaky virtue for the future.
But of still greater value will it prove, if the system be wholly uprooted which made such scandals possible. Every crevice and cranny in the general civil service regulations which makes a circumvention of them in any way possible, should be most carefully closed up. President Roosevelt has stopped many of them, but perhaps not all. But more, every position under the government which by any possibility can be put under a competitive rule should be rescued from the reach of spoils politics. And above all things, an end should be made of the most baneful curse of all—the unconstitutional interference of Senators and Representatives with the responsible exercise of the executive power in making appointments—in other words the curse of the so-called Congressional patronage—a curse to the executive, a curse to the public service, and a curse to the Senators and Representatives themselves. Indeed, they will secretly admit it to be a curse to the very men who exercise it.
I know indeed how difficult it will be to do away completely with this abuse, which will be a prolific source of demoralization so long as it exists. But it can be greatly mitigated as to its effect by restricting the area of patronage to the narrowest possible limits. Thus, for instance, the appointment and tenure of fourth-class postmasters, of whom there are nearly 70,000, and whose nomination does not require the consent of the Senate, might be subjected to such civil service regulations as would relieve
