It is not only the President's honor I have at heart, but the establishment of the fact that a public man's word can be kept and ought to count for something—a matter of the highest consequence to the reform cause. Furthermore, my experience convinces me that the President will not gain anything by making concessions. He will not conciliate the spoilsmen unless he gives them all, and he will lose in the opinion of the country in the same measure as he tries to conciliate the spoilsmen. Every such attempt will only create new demands and new embarrassments. He will find that the politicians most pampered with patronage are his most insidious opponents.
As to the methods followed by the Administration in making appointments and removals, it might be well to get the President's own views.
On the whole he ought to feel that, in us, he has [to] do with men who are willing to fight for him again—which they probably will have to do—and want to be enabled to do so with effect.
TO SILAS W. BURT[1]
I am glad to learn that you are going to Washington to see the President. You may have occasion to invite his attention to a very significant fact. President Cleveland has grown remarkably in popularity within a few weeks past. And what has been the cause of it? Nothing else than that his reform policy was attacked in Congress by members of his own party, and that he was presented to the country by the very men who assailed his course, as a President faithful to his pledges even against the opposition of his own party friends.
- ↑ Colonel Burt was then Naval Officer of the port of New York and a close friend of President Cleveland. He was one of the most successful of the leaders and practical workers in civil service reform.
