TO GROVER CLEVELAND
Colonel Burt, who called on me this morning, said that when he was at Albany a few days ago, you asked him whether he knew how I liked your civil service letter. I thought you would not be seriously in doubt as to my opinion of that excellent document. Its merit has been practically tested by the impression it produced. Your friends are fully satisfied, especially as they remember that in your public career performance has not only not fallen short of promise but rather gone beyond it. And your opponents find themselves obliged to recognize the letter as a good thing and have nothing to say except that you do not mean it or that the spoils-seekers will be too strong for you. Of course there are grumblers among those who want patronage to distribute or who want office for themselves. After your inauguration their number will be much larger than it now manifests itself, and they will give you and the heads of Departments a great deal of trouble. But that cannot be helped.
It has been noticed among civil service reformers that your letter does not cover the question whether men in office, who have been conspicuously efficient in the discharge of their duties and not liable to objection of any kind, should not be reappointed upon the expiration of their terms of office, irrespective of party affiliation. But while I suppose you would seriously consider the propriety of such reappointments when the time for action comes, you have, in my opinion, wisely abstained from discussing that question now. I think you said just enough on this subject for the present, and you said it in the right way too—simply announcing your determination to do certain things instead of theorizing about them. You may indeed be congratulated upon the success of your
