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Career tenure for federal bureaucrats was railroaded down U.S. taxpayers' & voters' throats during the late 1800's, before telecommunications breakthroughs made it possible for taxpayers to learn what was taking place.

It had nothing to do with telecommunications. It had everything to do with the increasing size of the spoils system as the country grew. Presidents in the late 19th century were being overwhelmed by job seekers. Garfield was murdered by one disgruntled job seeker. Civil service was the reform of it's day. The invention of the telephone had nothing to do with it. The telegraph had already enabled news to travel fast as did the railroads. To say otherwise is to project today's world onto the past, just like current PC historians judge the Founders for not giving women the vote or for praying in public.

Most folks didn't have a telegraph machine back then, whereas nowadays most Americans have access to cyberspace. Hopefully if we do away with the civil service, it can never be rail-roaded down our throats again, thanks to the prevalence of cyberspace. Somehow I doubt that even a presidential assassination like Garfield's would make folks want to repeat the pro-bureaucracy errors of the late 19th and 20th centuries.