The Writings of Carl Schurz/To President Cleveland, April 5th, 1893
TO PRESIDENT CLEVELAND
Your letter of March 31st reached me in due time. I thank you for what you say of the Burke case and return herewith Mr. Burke's letter.
You do not mention the subject of the removal of postmasters. I cannot refrain from entreating you once more not to let the scandal of wholesale removals go on. This year on the occasion of the great World's Fair we are on exhibition before all civilized mankind, the working of our republican institutions as well as the products of our industries. Among the visitors from abroad there will be statesmen, philosophers, publicists, and students of all kinds, earnestly intent upon inquiring into what we are and what we do. The result of this observation will go far to determine the reputation of this Republic through out the world for some time to come. They will soon begin to arrive. Are they to read day after day in their morning papers that the guillotine in the General Post-Office is lustily at work and that the heads are falling at the rate of a hundred or a hundred and fifty a day? Are we to treat them to a full view of our spoils carnival, and that, too, under a President whom they know to have been elected as the strongest representative of the reform sentiment? I most earnestly hope and pray that you will cover your name with honor by being the first President to put a stop to that scandal and that you will let the world understand your determination to do so.
If you stop it now, no successor of yours will ever dare to revive it.