The Writings of Carl Schurz/To Thomas F. Bayard, May 20th, 1886

TO THOMAS F. BAYARD

New York, May 20, 1886.

Let me thank you for your kind letter, and also for your invitation to come to Washington and look more closely at what is going on. I should have done so ere this but for two reasons: one that I apprehend, if I were seen much with the President and members of the Cabinet the cry would be raised again by jealous partisans about the Mugwumps exerting an influence, etc., which might be disagreeable to all of you; and the other, that I do not know whether such opinions and suggestions as I have to offer will be at all welcome or acceptable to the President, since the occasional expression of them by letter has of late remained not only without response but without notice. It was principally for this reason that I asked you to mention to him what I had written to you, or to show him my letter. I think it is desirable that about the relations between him and the Independents there should be no misapprehension. While I should regret and wish to prevent any misconstruction on his part of our attitude, I should be equally sorry to draw any mistaken conclusions from his.

Having been in Executive office myself I understand perfectly what work you have to do and what difficulties to overcome in order to make a good Administration. I know also that fighting the thieves is one of the important tasks—a very meritorious and in a certain sense an ungrateful one, because it makes bitter enemies while the best things you do will sometimes never become known and never be put to your credit. On the other hand every lapse in this respect, however slight, is counted against you and made prominent. For instance, the injury done to the Administration by the Pan-Electric business is great, while its faithful struggle against jobbery remains, in great part at least, unknown to the multitude. In this way great injustice is done,—but it is always so and nobody can count upon being made an exception to the rule. I think I understand perfectly how it happened that the opportune moment for relieving the Administration of this blemish was suffered to slip away; yet, without being in the least disposed to blame anybody, I regret it all the same on account of its moral effect.

But the Administration of President Cleveland will be judged according to the outcome of its reform policy. That is the criterion he set up for himself, and it is not likely to be superseded by any other issue. If the Administration succeeds in that, it will be voted a success; if it fails in that, a failure. And no plea as to the difficulties it had to contend with will materially affect the verdict of history, for the overcoming of those difficulties is just the problem to be solved. Nobody appreciates more highly than I do the honest and courageous efforts made. It would be a pity if they failed. But what troubles me is that the President seems to think he has to stoop down for the purpose of lifting up his party to his level. I have seen that sort of thing before. The danger is that he who thus stoops down may not be able to get quite straight up again himself.

I think it probable that President Cleveland considers me an extremist on this question. Now, you have known me six years in the Senate and four years in Executive office. Have I ever appeared to you like an impracticable visionary? Have you not rather found me on the whole to be a man of temperate judgment and conservative instincts? But I cannot disregard facts. I know from early observation that the “active politicians” of both parties, as a class, are deadly hostile to civil service reform. I know that nobody can remain true to that cause who makes his action dependent upon the consent of the “active politicians.” That reform can be carried out only if they are made to understand that it will be done whether they like it or not, and that the people will be appealed to over their heads. Every concession encourages them and increases their power of resistance. The Executive is the great reliance of reform. The Executive must not count upon and wait for aid from the Legislative. The civil service law was passed when the politicians of both parties in Congress were frightened by the growing power of independent movements. Now they try to undo it again. You have noticed the proviso attached by the Committee of the House to the civil service appropriation, the effect of which would be wholly to destroy the competitive system. Here the responsibility of the Executive begins again, for the Executive can, I think, prevent that proviso from passing or from taking its intended effect. Let me tell you what I would do if I had the power. I would ascertain whether the Commissioner of Pensions, whose patronage is greatly enlarged by that proviso, had been instrumental in procuring its adoption by the Committee. If found guilty of such interference, I would instantly dismiss him. But in any event I would inform him that, in case the proviso passed, he would have to make room for a man who could be counted upon to make no recommendations for appointment except after competitive examination—for competitive examinations may be held in the Department without being ordered by law, as I had them during the four years I was Secretary of the Interior.

But there I would not stop. I would in some way make it known to the politicians in Congress as well as to the officeholders concerned, that, in case of the passage of the proviso, I would have no man at the head of a Department or of any one of the great offices subject to civil service law, who could not be depended upon, from honest sympathy with the principles and ends of that law and of civil service reform generally, to select and appoint only the highest rated and best men without regard to party from the eligible lists submitted to them, however great a choice those eligible lists might offer.

As soon as the Executive has made it known that such is his irrevocable and unbending resolution, the politicians in Congress will see that all their tricks may disgrace and weaken their party, but will do them no good in any way, and even your pension-commissioners, and customs collectors and postmasters, trembling in their boots, will urge their friends in Congress to let the law alone. Now you may call this a heroic remedy; but I tell you when a reform is supported only by a strong and growing sentiment among the people but antagonized by the active politicians of the party organizations, it cannot be carried through without heroic treatment, and any one who shrinks from strong measures will be likely to fail. I repeat, I have seen this thing before.

President Cleveland is now in the same position in which President Grant was when Congress refused the appropriation for the Civil Service Commission. Grant yielded, and the public judgment was that his reform professions were not sincere enough to stand the test of opposition. Of course we look to President Cleveland for much better things. Would you not think it worth while to mention to him the plan I suggest?

But pardon this long letter. I have taxed your time much more than I intended. Let me add only that I am certainly grateful for the many good things which have been effected by this Administration; that I am very far from being sorry for what I did in 1884, and that I shall be every moment ready to do it again—which, by the way, is not at all unlikely to be called for—only I wish then the good cause to be as strong as those in power can make it.