nce, we cannot say obscurity, to
live a private life upon a very moderate competence. It may be right
that this should be so; but none the less is the spectacle one of great
interest and significance; all the more is his brief career one of the
most remarkable in the history of civilized peoples.

--General Grant's successor seems to be in earnest upon one subject, in
his apparent purpose in regard to which he must have the hearty approval
of good men of all parties--civil service reform. In this there is no
doubt that General Grant himself was at first quite as earnest. But the
Republican politicians were too much for him; his own military habits of
thought and his devotion to his personal friends also led him to adopt a
course of action in this respect inconsistent with the purpose which he
first avowed in regard to it; and the great and much needed reform still
remains to be worked out. After all, the principal point, the great
good, to be attained is the suppression of office-seeking as a sort of
business, the extinction of office-seekers as a class. Our politics are
sadly in need of purification. The corruption which disgraces our
Government in the eyes of all good men at home and abroad taints both
parties. In this respect there is nothing to choose between them. Now
nothing would tend so much to better our condition in this respect as
the absolute removal from the arena of political strife of the tens of
thousands of minor offices at the disposal of the party in possession of
the Government. Let them no longer be the prizes of victory at the
polls, and the men who now make politics a trade would find their
occupation gone, and they would no longer concern themselves much about
nominations and elections. The political affairs of the country would
then naturally fall into the hands of the honest, intelligent, and
thrifty men who now have little influence upon them. Let it be once
understood that, whatever party is in power, no man in office, except
those directly around the President, is to be removed except for
incompetence, neglect, or malversation, and the first great step will
have been taken toward our political regeneration. Nor is its influence
upon politics the only great benefit which would thus be secured. The
existence of a great body of men who are withholding themselves from the
ordinary business and work of life in the hope that something will turn
up in politics which will enable them to live, and p