Mr. MCDOUGALL. Garments white as snow ! I have said perhaps as much as I should say upon this bill, but I have not said all that is within my own mind as to the true policy with regard to the question of office, and the question of office being now depending I may as well say what I think, although I cannot speak, exactly and am not prepared to put my thoughts in exact form of legislation. It is my opinion that as a rule all offices out side of those strictly and properly executive, legislative, or judicial should be held during good behavior. If our officers in the city of Washington who take charge of our government business here were not subject to be turned out any month or any day they would be able to begin in the public service young men, get trained to their duties, grow to be full sized men, marry a wife, and raise children. As it is, all the employees of the government in Washington are subject to be ejected at any moment. The policy that has obtained depraves the public officers here. The policy that obtains throughout the country with regard to postmasters and other officers depraves those men, because every one is anxious and in fear lest he may be ejected, and if the office he holds is a valuable one there are 20 persons about him watching to find some point of assault, some weak point in his armor where they think he may be successfully assaulted, so that the person assaulting him may take his position. this the evil of our system, and it must be corrected. It is an evil that has been growing about us for years; and it is just as well that men who dare say these things should say them. I undertake to say that we must change our whole system of appointments and the tenure of office. If the President, exercising his power, or one of his Secretaries exercising ". in his place, appoints a person to office, e should hold the office as long as he conducts himself well in it. Until we can arrive at that so far as Washington is concerned, until we can arrive at that so far as the country generally is concerned, we shall fail in maintaining stability standing firmly in our place. The greatest evil that exists in this Government is the multitude of offices and the multi tude of aspirants; and it can only be corrected by having officers properly appointed, and then giving them a tenure of good behavior. If when a nomination was sent here we knew that the office was to be held during good behavior how careful would every Senator be in pronouncing whether or not he would confirm the individual, acting as a consulting and advising tribunal How careful would the President be before he sent to the Senate the name of a man to hold a permanent office during good behavior l As it is now, it is a thing of a day, and they fall like autumnal leaves. I repeat again what has been said by the wisest philosopher of our own period, that the evil of republican institutions is the multitude of offices and the multitude of aspirants. There is where our foundations are weak: there is where the surge is. if I were to produce my ideas in the form of legislation I would provide that, like an officer of the Army or a young man shipping in the Navy to become an officer, a clerk in the civil Depts should be entered properly, should go through his course of discipline, be educated to the profession, become a master of his profession, and then as long as he did his duty well I would let him hold the office. I would extend this principle through all the ramifications of the Government. The present condition of things may be illus trated by reference to a county. I will take a county in the State of the Senfrom NewJersey. That is as far off as I know, for I believe NewJersey was out of the Union not long since. [Laughter] The county clerk is elected I suppose once in 3 or 4 years, and he is elected by a majority. When he comes into office it is as much as he can do to make his own sign manual. He knows nothing of the forms of office. I take a supposable case, one which has happened undoubtedly. So of the sheriff of the county, and so of all the officers throughout our various manipulations of office in the U.S. Then consider that for every officer there are ten aspirants and you see at once our weakness. That is the evil which we must correct, and when that shall be accomplished it will be a greater reform than any subject of reform which has been thrust upon us by the Senfrom Massachusetts, and a better reform for us and for the maintenance of republican institutions. Of course I would have the people elect the Legislature of the Federal Government and their own home Legislatures. The lawmaking power, the judicial power, and the executive power must have very immediate relations with the people; but in the common business of administration the offices should be continuous, so that we could have disciplined officers. Go up to the Treasury Dept now and you find that not one out of ten of the employees understands his business. Go to the 5th Auditor's office, and you will find only one man in that office who knows anything about foreign coins, and he has to deal with the accounts of our consuls in different nations abroad and to make computations of the currency of different nations and States. Go about through the various Depts of the Government and you will find the same igno rance prevailing. Why is it? Because we do not train men to office. Look at our foreign ministers. Our present minister to Russia is an excellent gentleman, for whom I have great respect. He may know a little Greek and Latin; but I do not think he knows anything about any modern language of the continent of Europe. I am very happy to say that I believe our present minister at the court of Versailles is a man who is an accomplished scholar. But with few exceptions those whom we send abroad go out uninstructed and know nothing about public law, the science that treats of interstate relations and the relations of government. We have not at this present time more than 3 men in our service abroad who speak the language spoken in the country where they are; we have not more than 3 or 4 who ever studied public law and who could answer a question propounded by the pundits at StPetersburg or at Vienna or at Berlin or at Florence What is the reason? It is because of the want of discipline in office. I should like, in order to test the question whether the majority desire to see our Government conserved at all, to see some of the majority bring forwardf a measure providing that the mass of the officers now appointed for service, both at home and abroad, should have their offices during, good behavior. I would advocate the extension of the term even of the executive and legislative depts of the Government. This may not seem very democratic, and I have always been called a Democrat, and I think I am one; but I want to see this Government maintained upon some steady basis, and I think the evil of the multiplicity of offices as exhibited in recent years demands that we shall have continuous officers and fewer of them. Go into any of the Depts in Washington and you will find many of the clerks reading newspapers during business hours, or smoking cigars and enjoying themselves, if they happen to be in their offices at all. We have now employed at least 3 times as many clerks and other officials as could do the duty required if they worked as I did when I was a young man and was a clerk in a lawyer's office. The fact is, we are not now demanding faithful services, and this tendency to make offices that we may fill them ourselves is the cause of it. What do we see? “John, my boy, wants a place here.” It is so from the police up to the clerks of the Secretary. “Then I must go and have an office made for him, ” if I happen to be in the majority, and go around and electioneer for hina. In this way we have allowed ourselves to run wild, and we must apply a correction. I have but little to say because I happen to be one of a very humble minority not able to affirm anything with any prospect of success, not able to maintain the truth, because the argument against the best truth I could advance would be that I had said it, and for that reason alone it would be ignored by many though not by all. But, sir, it is time that we should look these things boldly in the face; and if we do not look them boldly in the face now we shall feel the evil consequences of our neglect, we shall have failed to do something that has been charged upon us by our oath of office and by our obligations to the institutions given to us by ourancestors.