Plunkitt of Tammany Hall | Page 8

number of cubic inches of water in the
Atlantic and the quality of sand in the Sahara desert? There was once a
bright young man in my district who tackled one of these examinations.
The next I heard of him he had settled down in Herr Most's saloon
smokin' and drinkin' beer and talkin' socialism all day. Before that time
he had never drank anything but whisky. I knew what was comm' when
a young Irishman drops whisky and takes to beer and long pipes in a
German saloon. That young man is today one of the wildest Anarchists
in town. And just to think! He might be a patriot but for that cussed

civil service.
Say, did you hear about that Civil Service Reform Association kickin'
because the tax commissioners want to put their fifty-five deputies on
the exempt list, and fire the outfit left to them by Low? That's civil
service for you. Just think! Fifty-five Republicans and mugwumps
holdin' $8OOO and $4OOO and $5000 jobs in the tax department when
1555 good Tammany men are ready and willin' to take their places! It's
an outrage! What did the people mean when they voted for Tammany?
What is representative government, anyhow? Is it all a fake that this is
a government of the people, by the people and for the people? If it isn't
a fake, then why isn't the people's voice obeyed and Tammany men put
in all the offices?
When the people elected Tammany, they knew just what they were
doin'. We didn't put up any false pretenses. We didn't go in for humbug
civil service and all that rot. We stood as we have always stood, for
reward-in' the men that won the victory. They call that the spoils
system. All right; Tammany is for the spoils system, and when we go in
we fire every anti-Tammany man from office that can be fired under
the law. It's an elastic sort of law and you can bet it will be stretched to
the limit Of course the Republican State Civil Service Board will stand
in the way of our local Civil Service Commission all it can; but say!
--suppose we carry the State sometime, won't we fire the upstate Board
all right? Or we'll make it work in harmony with the local board, and
that means that Tammany will get everything in sight. I know that the
civil service humbug is stuck into the constitution, too, but, as Tim
Campbell said: What's the constitution among friends?"
Say, the people's voice is smothered by the cursed civil service law; it
is the root of all evil in our government. You hear of this thing or that
thing goin' wrong in the nation, the State or the city. Look down
beneath the surface and you can trace everything wrong to civil service.
I have studied the subject and I know. The civil service humbug is
underminin' our institutions and if a halt ain't called soon this great
republic will tumble down like a Park Avenue house when they were
buildin' the subway, and on its ruins will rise another Russian
government.
This is an awful serious proposition. Free silver and the tariff and
imperialism and the Panama Canal are triflin' issues when compared to

it. We could worry along without any of these things, but civil service
is sappin' the foundation of the whole shootin' match. let me argue it
out for you. I ain't up on sillygisms, but I can give you some arguments
that nobody can answer.
First, this great and glorious country was built up by political parties;
second, parties can't hold together if their workers don't get the offices
when they win; third, if the parties go to pieces, the government they
built up must go to pieces, too; fourth, then there'll be h-to pay.
Could anything be clearer than that? Say, honest now; can you answer
that argument? Of course you won't deny that the government was built
up by the great parties. That's history, and you can't go back of the
returns. As to my second proposition, you can't deny that either. When
parties can't get offices, they'll bust. They ain't far from the bustin' point
now, with all this civil service business keepin' most of the good things
from them. How are you goin' to keep up patriotism if this thing goes
On? You can't do it. let me tell you that patriotism has been dying out
fast for the last twenty years. Before then when a party won, its workers
got everything in sight. That was somethin' to make a man patriotic.
Now, when a party wins and its men come forward and ask for their
rewards, the reply is, "Nothin' doin', unless you can answer a list of
questions about