The President Andrew Jackson was indeed ‘daring’ to initiate such a ‘cleanup’ upon taking office, seemingly putting the phrase ‘To the victor belong the spoils’ into full practice. However, this ‘loyalty first’ hiring policy seems to have provided a platform for the ‘unqualified’. And yet, in the eyes of Mark Twain, such behavior must be ‘shameful’, showing that even ‘scholars and beauties’ have their principles. As for Charles Guiteau, his ‘political loyalty’ became an excuse for murder, revealing the dark side of political struggle. And the ‘Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act’, though seemingly ‘unremarkable’, laid the groundwork for the subsequent ‘professional bureaucracy’, perhaps this is the price of historical progress.
Read from: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-garfields-assassination-and-the-birth-of-the-civil-service/