committee, the dignity of the Senate would require, if papers were refused, that the refusing official should be punished for contempt, and this proceeding, applied to all the instances, would be somewhat cumbrous. The Departments do not intend that the public or the Senate shall know the contents of even the confessedly official papers in the files regarding the administration [official conduct] of the people to be removed, because, in the great mass of cases, it would doubtless appear that their official behavior had been perfect and therefore their proposed removal must be purely political.—In haste, yours truly.
TO WAYNE MCVEAGH
I regret to say I cannot be with your Civil Service Association on the 8th of April on account of an engagement I have on that day, which cannot be set aside.
It would be easy enough to “skin” some of the President's accusers on that occasion; but I am afraid it would not be so easy to prove that they are altogether wrong. Did any one of the President's defenders in the Senate maintain that the President had really kept his word, that is, had abstained from making any removal except for cause including “offensive partisanship”? Is it not, on the contrary, generally believed to-day that in not a few instances that pledge had been violated? And can you think of a greater service the President could have rendered to the American people as a reformer, than by proving that there are public men who keep their pledges strictly and without fear of consequences?
Now, do not understand me as undervaluing the good things that Cleveland has done. But I confess to you that the so-called pluck with which he repelled the demand of the Senate for information concerning the reasons for the suspensions made, does not strike me as that sort of
