first sight [were] extremely displeasing, but many of them after a while put in such a shape as to mark, after all, a movement in the right direction. Thus we have become accustomed not to see in every occasional lapse a complete abandonment of the whole civil service reform policy. I myself look at the failure at Indianapolis, deplorable as it is, in the same light. It indicates that there is still a great deal to be struggled for, but it does not indicate that our struggles so far have been in vain, or that our struggles in [the] future will be hopeless. On the contrary you will find that, whatever disappointments we may have suffered, the disappointments on the other side are infinitely more severe. I do not think the News is just when it says the Eastern Mugwumps have virtually become Democratic partisans and sycophants of the Administration under any circumstances. I know that it is not so.
I think, if you have further charges against Jones, they ought to be communicated to the President—of course in such a way as to avoid all appearance of persecution. I have no doubt he means to do right, even if he is sometimes ill advised.
TO PRESIDENT CLEVELAND
The enclosed letter I received from ex-President Hayes with the request, if I had a friend in the Administration, to communicate it to him. I beg leave to submit it to you.
I also take the liberty of bringing to your notice some articles of the Evening Post on the Bacon case. I am with deepest regret obliged to say that they fairly express the feeling which at this moment prevails among our common friends here. I wrote to you at the time of Mr. Hedden's and Mr. Beattie's appointment [respectively as collector and as surveyor of the port of New York], that while they,
