ministrative machinery upon the principles of the old spoils system will show itself more and more to be a positive danger. It not only tends to render the service itself untrustworthy, in point of integrity and efficiency, but also to make political contests more struggles for power than for the realization of ideas; and it enables and encourages public men to make themselves leaders of faction instead of leaders of opinion; to rule the politics of the country by the power of organization rather than by the power of ideas.
While this is a dangerous thing under any circumstances, it will be doubly so as the spoils multiply, and the value of the interests acted upon by the Government grows larger and more tempting. The control of organized faction, held together in great part by the hope of spoils,—regarding principles and policies more or less as incidental to its aims,—is the natural outgrowth of this system. It cannot fail in the end to subject the body politic to selfish ends, and to undermine republican institutions.
To avert this danger, the abolition of the spoils system and the systematic substitution therefor of a civil service, organized upon sound business principles, is an absolute necessity. It is frequently said that this cannot be accomplished unless the people change their traditional notions and habits concerning this subject. This may be true. But I believe that the people are beginning to change their habits
