4th. Because they consider that national legislation affects their personal interests far more than any probable action of their local government, and that their national party must therefore be supported in its efforts to strengthen itself by securing complete control of local affairs.
5th. Because they believe the local machine of the opposition party is still worse than their own, and that to promote its success by wasting their votes on a third ticket would only be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
6th. Because they have no faith in the possibility of subjecting politics to the principles of common honesty, or public affairs to the methods of intelligent business.
This list is not complete, but it is sufficiently formidable to show that the progress of reform principles among the taxpayers must continue to be slow and difficult, unless city government can be made to appear much more important and interesting than it has hitherto seemed to be.
X. Civics in State Universities.
A writer in Christian Work, urging the importance of action such as the American Institute of Civics is devoted to, says:
With the new way of looking at Government, and with new tasks imposed upon it, must come preparation for the grave responsibilities of the present and future. Old ideas linger after they have subserved their purposes. We are living in an industrial age. Especially is it true in a country like the United States that the ordinary pursuits of peace outweigh a hundredfold the interests of war. Nevertheless, we have our well-equipped academy at West Point to prepare young men for the army, and our excellent academy at Annapolis to prepare young men for the navy; but we have no civil academy to give men careful preparation for the civil service, which is of inestimably more importance to us than either the army or navy so far as ordinary, everyday life is concerned. Even in his day, Washington saw the importance of a national university which should fulfil many of the purposes of such an academy. As a part of the remedy for trusts and combinations, and an important part, the writer would mention institutions designed to give the most careful training in preparation for every branch of the civil service. This should go hand in hand with the enlargement of this service. The progress which has already been made in the reformation of our civil service is gratifying, but something far more than has yet been advocated by any civil-service-reform association is needed. As part of the general programme of the solution of the problem of monopoly, the development of the State universities of the country along the line of civics may be mentioned. Each State university should, in addition to other things, be a civil academy.
XI. A Betrayal of Reform.
These are the words applied to an act of the Republican Governor of New York by one of the ablest and stanchest Republican journals of that State, the Mail and Express of New York City. It goes on to say:
Gov. Black’s approval of the bill to place the civil service of this State at the mercy of machine politics is a perversion of Republican principle and a betrayal of reform. There is not one legitimate public interest that this measure will benefit; not a single purpose of honest administration that it will strengthen, nor an object of sound party policy that it will help to accomplish.