ones. It appears to me that the question whether the President has kept his pledge not to make any partisan removals, is of far greater importance than the question whether the Senate is right in asking for papers concerning suspensions. And if we answer the latter in the negative, that is not answering the former in the affirmative. If the debates now going on in the Senate serve to direct the President's attention to that pledge and make him sensible of the necessity of holding all the members of his Administration to it, it will be of very great benefit to the cause of reform.
There is one thing the Independents cannot afford to do; they cannot afford to appear as blind partisans of anybody or anything. If they want to preserve their healthy influence upon public opinion, they must take care not to disturb the popular belief that they are at all times ready to tell the truth, whether it be agreeable to themselves or not. Before expressing their unconditional approval of any given state of things, they must consider whether they want the people to believe that this state of things is the realization of the object of their endeavors. If the question were to-day put to them: Is that which the Administration is doing—is that the reform you have been preaching and fighting for?—what would they say? They would not say “Yes.” Then they must not permit the people to believe that they are completely satisfied. In other words, they should be as straightforward and outspoken in their criticism as in their praise. It would have served the President better if they had at all times spoken about his failings as frankly as about his virtues.
From this you may conclude that the speeches at the Reform Club dinner, although I agree with most of what was said, appeared to me a little too one-sided. You did perfectly right in speaking bluntly about the office-mongering of the Democratic committees in Massachusetts,
