SPEECHOF HON. GEORGE H. WHITE.

The House being in committee of the Whole on the Union, and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 4751) making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899, and for other purposes—

Mr. WHITE of North Carolina said: Mr. CHAIRMAN: I hope that in the remarks I am about to make I shall be regarded as a pessimist nor as one holding to traditions that are the way of a more enlightened civilization. But there are certain tendencies, there are certain innovations, not only upon the statutes of this great Republic of ours, but upon the unwritten law, the universal customs that have existed from the very organization of this Government, that challenge a halt.

I have been somewhat amused—and yet the question is too serious to be made a matter of jest—over remarks of certain gentlemen here, taking the position that those who dare to question the present administration of this civil-service law are “spoilsmen” and are violating one of the cardinal principles of our platform. If gentlemen have never learned it within the pale of the Republican party, they certainly ought to have learned it before now from our Democratic friends, that party platforms are like the platforms of a railroad car—they are made to get in on rather than to stand on. [Laughter and applause.] If we are going to stick closely in letter and spirit to one part of our platform, why not stand upon the whole concern? If it is a violation of a party platform upon the floor of this House and advocate the modification of a law that has been more abused than any other law, I venture to say, that has ever been upon the statute books, then why not stand upon that other plank in which we declared that we would extend aid to Cuban sufferers? [Applause.]

For years we have been receiving the accounts of outrage after outrage on that island; we have heard of the sufferings of those people from gaunt hunger for years there has been coming over to us the cry, “Help us! Relieve our distress!” But instead of relieving those poor sufferers, every little barge that has started across the sea to take them provisions or shotguns or a round of cartridges has been run down by the revenue cutters of our Government. Those struggling people have received from us virtually no support. [Applause.] I would ask gentlemen who stand up here and herald in their places that we are in rebellion against the platform of our party are you not by your very silence in rebellion against another plank of that platform? [Applause.] Let us be consistent Let us, as representatives of 70,000.000 human beings, have the manhood to stand up here and take this incubus by the throat, modify it if we can, and if we can not modify it on 0003 4our own side of the House I say I will join hands with my Democratic friends to put it out of existence entirely. [Applause on the floor and in the galleries.]

The CHAIRMAN. Visitors in the galleries will refrain from demonstrations of approval or disapproval. [Cries of “Oh!” “Oh!”] It is the duty of the Chair to preserve order whether members of the Committee of the Whole approve it or not.

Mr. WHITE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, frequent reference has been made to the constitutionality of this law. I make no profession to be a great constitutional lawyer, but I think that the great character of Charles Dickens, “The Artful Dodger", if he had been present during the debate in this House and had heard the evasive arguments that have been put forth with regard to the constitutionality of this law, would have been driven away in shame because of his inability to cope with these gentlemen.

Who has the appointing power? The President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and the heads of Departments, to whom, with respect to certain officers, the appointing power may be delegated. Where is the letter of the law, where is the construction that can be put upon the law, that will give to three gentlemen, known as the Civil Service Commissioners the authority to make these appointments? But I suppose that gentlemen's arguments and consciences, in dealing with this civil-service law, are as elastic as the law itself, which is so rubberlike that it seems they can pull it about to make it fit anything the desire.

But, gentlemen, my opinion is that the appointing power rests only where the Constitution has vested it—where it has resided during all these years, and where it should rest to-day. The only trouble is that we have never been able to get this law into court. I believe the President himself is the only one who has the power to secure a judicial test of it, and he has never done it. Its elasticity is such as to make it a supple tool in the hands of any partisan. Talk about “merit;“ talk about “spoilsmen.” If there ever was anything that might be forcibly designated as a “spoils systems,” it is the present administration of the civil-service law in the United States. [Applause.] A law that at one fell swoop without regard to merit without regard to fitness, pull its ample india-rubber folds over 43,000 men and women in one day is a bad thing for any republican form of government.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I would be glad to see the law modified, if possible. My views in reference to the commission remind me of a little incident which occurred when I was a boy down in my native Southland. It so freely and forcibly illustrates the point as to the commission itself that I will tell it with your permission. One Sunday I went to church It was a little slab church in an oak thicket. I got in and I heard the preacher praying. He prayed honestly and fervently. He broke forth in all the eloquence of his soul, “O Lord, have mercy upon sinners. O Lord, wilt Thou curtail the devil in his mad career.” A good old deacon over in the corner said, “Yes, good Lord, cut his tail clean off.” [Laughter.]

If I had my way with this commission, I would modify the law so as to establish a bureau in every Department for the purpose of examining into the fitness of each applicant for office, because the head of a Department knows better than the commission can know the character of the work done in the Department. Yes, I would do as the good old preacher said—I would not only cut off 0004 5the tail of this commission completely, but I would cut it off close behind its ears. [Laughter.]

Mr. Chairman, it is needless for me to undertake to enter into any individual instances of the abuses of this law. They have been so elaborately explained that it would be folly to attempt, in the few moments accorded to me, to enter into an extended discussion as to that.

The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. WHITE of North Carolina. I should like about seven minutes more.

Mr. MAHANY. I ask that this time be extended.

Mr. PEARSON. I trust that the committee will grant this request, and I ask that the gentleman's time be extended ten minutes.

There was no objection.

Mr. WHITE of North Carolina. I have heard gentlemen claiming to represent the “merit system” twit us, refer to us in derision as “spoilsmen,” and say that we would bolster up our chances for a return to Congress by giving out the patronage of this great Government of ours to a hungry horde of office seekers. I imagine the gentlemen felt a little hungry themselves, as evidenced by their presence on this floor. I imagine, also, that if they lived in the district of North Carolina that I have the honor to represent here, if they continued to hold the views which they now express and to say that when we have won an honest victory their friends are not entitled to the emoluments that naturally ought to follow-if they should express such views as these in the Second district of North Carolina, after next November they would have the opportunity of joining John Howard Payne in singing “Home, Sweet Home,” for the places that know them here now would know them no more forever. [Laughter.]

But these gentlemen are like Hudibras— And prove their doctrines orthodox By apostlic blows and knocks. Compound for sins they are inclined to By damning those they have no mind to. They say the very facts that we instance as reasons why this law should be modified or amended simply show that the law is all right, but that the practices which have grown up under it are the only things that are wrong. Well, a law that permits of such pernicious practices as we have seen certainly needs some attention.

I want to say to gentlemen here, as I have but little time, that unless, in my opinion, you join with those who are here as true civil-service reformers and aid us in throwing proper safeguards around this law, so that it may subserve the interest of this great American people of ours, the next Congress that convenes here will do that piece of work for you, and you will stay at home. I do not honestly believe there is 1 per cent of the voting population of North Carolina that approves of the laws as it stands and as it is administered to-day. Then we must choose between these evils. Here is a choice left to you. I urge you to join hands with us, because we are the true reformers.

We are the ones who would perpetuate some form of civil service. We are the ones who believe in merit, but we also believe, 0005 6or I do at least, and I proclaim it as my doctrine, that to the victors belong the spoils; or, in language a little more primitive, if you please, the ox that pulls the plow ought to have a chance to eat the fodder. [Laughter.]

Now, Mr. Chairman, I insist that this law should be modified, and modified radically, but if we can not get all that we desire, we are willing to suppress some of our wishes, we are willing to meet you halfway, and we ask you, gentlemen, if you would have this law extended, if you would have it continued, if you would have it operative, if you would have this reform go on, if you would live up to the principles of your party platform that you have spoken of, then join hands with us who are here advocating that proper safeguards be thrown around it and the end will be accomplished. Refuse to do it, and the other side will do it for you in a very short time.

Mr. Chairman, I have in mind two instances that occurred this week under my own observation. There was a young man who was famous for the ballot-box stuffing down in the Second district of North Carolina, who came up to Washington under the last Administration, under the extension of the merit system, if you please, and applied at the Interior Department for a place. He was put in and the record was written after his name, “Poor; a Democrat,” and under the civil service. There was no examination; the civil service was pulled over him after he got in. I found he was salaried at $660 per annum.

I went down there yesterday, and I said to one of the officials:

“I desire this place. It is not under the civil service. My man can sweep the floors and clean the cuspidors as nicely as this fellow. My friends have never been any guilt of violation of law. They have never stuffed ballot-boxes. They have never suppressed the votes of American citizens. I want this place.” I was shown the record, and informed that it was under the civil service, and the appointment clerk of the Interior Department being a Democrat, I could not get my friend into this place, and that, too, under a Republican Administration. This man is there drawing $600 a year, cleaning cuspidors, cleaning floors, and dusting desks under the civil service.

I suppose the examination was something like that described by my friend from New Hampshire [ Mr. Sulloway] yesterday. I suppose he belonged to that class of gentlemen who have to undergo these great scholastic test. I suppose he belongs to that class of gentlemen who have to be 25 years of age before they can get in, and who can not get in after becoming 45 years of age, in order to grind a knife on a whetstone.

I have in mind another instance of a young man employed in this house some few years ago. He went down and made application for a position under the “merit system,” underwent an examination and utterly failed. Afterwards he was put on the rolls at $600 per annum and was subsequently promoted from one grade to another, from one place to another, until under the last Administration he was made chief of a bureau, and is today examining papers of the poor fellows who are applying over here for positions.

Now, in the short time that I have had I have said nothing in regard to the matter of expense. The opponents of our theory say there is a curtailing of expenses. They say it is a saving to the government, that it is purely a “merit system.” Oh, yes, “ a 0006 7merit system!” Yet this appropriation bill, I believe, carries $90,000, and by the time you get through with the detailed clerks from the various Departments who do the work of this gigantic reform institution the aggregate will be at least $120,000 per annum. Yes, and within twenty years these gentlemen will be knocking at the doors of this great Government of ours and demanding a place in the Cabinet of the President of the United States. Why, like the slimy boa constrictor, they are coiling themselves around everything in sight, and by the momentum of their gigantic proportions they are seizing upon everything. Like Alexander who, when he had conquered the world, wept when he could find no more worlds to conquer, in a little while we shall find them with crocodile tears in their eyes because there is nothing else to reform.

In the light of past events, it is difficult for the thoughtful man not to be more or less alarmed at the continual drifting from the strong moorings to which our ship of state has been so honorably attached. A condition of servitude to a portion of our inhabitants was permitted to remain for nearly two hundred and forty years in the face of the specific letter in our declaration of rights that “all men are born free and equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

This living lie remained there for nearly a century, being constantly and vociferously applauded, until this festering cancer was cut away with a lance of fratricidal war of four years' duration, which left the body politic well-nigh dead. Again, under our amended Constitution, Article XIV, section 1, we have:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

And while Congressmen are distributed among the several Congressional districts, presumably in proportion to the electors in each and their respective population, still we see Representatives upon the floor of this Chamber from Mississippi, South Carolina, and other Southern States where the aggregate vote cast in 1896 ranges all the way from 5,000 to 11,000; while other districts in the North, East, West, and some few of the Southern States had an aggregate vote cast anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000.

How long, Mr. Chairman, will this increased representation, bought about by the disfranchisement of certain American citizens, be permitted to go on unrebuked? Will the American Congress sit supinely by and declare its inability to interfere and cantingly say that these things are delegated to the respective States, while our organic law, the Constitution of the United States, is being openly violated?

Once more: We have the sickening spectacle of a few serious and very religious “missionaries” (?) and a horde of Shylock merchants visiting the Hawaiian Islands, presumably to civilize and Christianize the inhabitants there of.

But instead of these pious missionaries—these canting prelates—and the honest international commerce between the United States and this small Government, what do we behold? The ruling power overthrown, the Queen banished in e ile in a foreign land, ber 0007 8property confiscated, the natives overawed, and in many instances murdered, and all this done by American citizens, and this great Government of ours standing by seeming to say “amen.” It reminds me very much of the hypocritical merchant who directed his clerk to sand the sugar, to pebble the coffee, and water the whisky, then gravely said, “Come into the house and let's pray.” Last, but not least, we have this commission, about which we have had such a lengthy discussion, created by a statute of the United States Congress, but, in my opinion, in open violation to our Constitution, daubed with the misnomer of “civil service,” and later matriculated as the “merit system,” which, if permitted to go on in its mad career with the same ratio it has in the last few years, will revolutionize the internal workings of our entire system.

I am loath to believe that it was ever intended by the formers of this great Government that we should ever be besmirched by anything that would have the smack of life tenure, inheritance, or any other way of acquiring an office except through and by the people, who constitute the Government. If watchmen, drivers, messengers, clerks, heads of divisions, and every species of officials now under the ample folds of this rubber-blanket concern, “the merit system,” if you please, can be protected by the seemingly innocent little statute of 1883, how long will it be before this happy trio will discover that this “horde of spoilsmen” have not sufficient sense to elect the President of the United States and our American Congress, and take the whole shout within its loving embrace? Mr. Chairman, I think the time has come for us to call a halt, and if we have not the manliness to stand up and destroy this measure before it ruins our body politic, the electors of these United States will on the 8th day of November next rise in their might and in their wrath, and send men here who will do their bidding. Mark the prediction, and be governed accordingly. [Loud and prolonged applause.]