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two things: First, respond to the demands which the people make
upon the Democratic party now in its condition of probation; and,
second, disarm that great body of officials who as disciplined armies
go forth to control the Presidential elections.
I believe, and I am only excused from making this remark because
of what I have heard publicly and in private conversation upon the
floor of the Senate—I believe if we argue this question upon the lower
plane of mere partisan advantage we Democrats ought to support the
measure. It has been said that this abandonment of the spoils system
will retain in office the appointees of the Republican party. I conceal
nothing; I state it in my place in Senate, and before my fellow-
Senators who are of the other persuasion, I do not think it. There is
no proposition to extend the term of office where it is now fixed, nor
in any wise limit the constitutional power of removal from office. The
proposition is simply and only that where a new appointment shall
be made the element of fitness shall be decisive. Can any Democrat
object to that?
How many Democrats are there in office now? How many will
there ever be under the spoils system? The Republicans have
possession of the Government for two years and more. How many
Democrats will be put in office during that time, except on the merit
system? Not one. But if this system be fairly inaugurated and
administered within one year there will be fifty where now there is
one.
It has been said that the abandonment of the spoils system will
exclude Democrats from office when the day of our victory shall
come. I do not think it. On the contrary, I believe that the adoption of
this policy as our party creed will hasten the day of the victory of our
party and its adoption as a law will under any administration fill
many offices with Democrats. I think it will bring to our aid very
many men not hitherto of our political faith who believe this reform a
vital question in our politics. I think it will disarm and disorganize
and neutralize the trained bands of office-holders who have wrested
from us, as I have said, at least two Presidential elections. And
finally, repudiating utterly, as I do, that the animating spirit of the
Democratic party is the love of spoils, and that its cohesive principle
is that of public plunder—repudiating, I say, that doctrine, I think the
Democrats throughout this land—I know that in my own State they
can—will stand the test of any examination, and in a fair field will not
come out second best.
Who shall do them the discredit, who shall do this party, now
numbering at least half the people of this country, the discredit to say
that they can not stand the test of merit for official position and
promotion with any equal number of men in any party of the
country.
I have detained the Senate much too long, and yet I must add that
the very best aid to any system of reforming the service is in the most
rigid application of the democratic theory of the Federal Constitution
and Government; that its powers are all granted; that the subjects on
which it can act are very limited; that it should refrain from enlarging
its jurisdiction, or even exercising admitted but unnecessary powers;
that it should scrupulously avoid “undue administration.” Add to this
the election by the people to local Federal offices, and there will be
little necessity and little room for other methods.

The Presiding Officer. The pending question is on the

amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] to the
amendment of the Senator from Iowa [Mr. Allison].
Mr. Pendleton. The Senator from Iowa is not in his place at this
moment, but gave me authority to withdraw his amendment.
The Presiding Officer. If there be no objection, it will be
considered as withdrawn for the time being.
Mr. Pendleton. I now move to strike out lines 22 and 23 of
section 2, as follows:
Third. That original entrance to the public service aforesaid shall be at the grade,
and appointments thereto.
And to insert in lieu thereof “appointments to the public service
aforesaid;” so as to read:
Appointments to the public service aforesaid in the Departments at Washington,
shall be apportioned, as nearly as practicable, among the several States and
Territories and the District of Columbia, upon the basis of population as
ascertained at the last preceding census.
This amendment has been discussed, and I do not care to detain
the Senate in the further discussion of it. It opens up the public
service in all its grades to competition, not only from those within
but those outside of the Departments. The objections to the provision
that entrance shall be at the lowest grade, and higher places shall be
filled by promotions only, are so strong that I desire to perfect the
bill by striking out this clause at this time. At the proper time I shall
move to strike out the clause in relation to promotion, if it shall seem
necessary to accomplish my purpose. I wish entrance to the public
service to be open at all grades to every one whether he may be now
in office or not.
The amendment was adopted.
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SENATE AND
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT.
 Speech of Hon. John J. Ingalls, of Kansas, in the Senate of the
United States, Friday, March 26, 1886.
The Senate having under consideration the resolutions reported by
Mr. Edmunds from the Committee on the Judiciary, relative to the
refusal of the Attorney-General to furnish copies of certain papers—
Mr. Ingalls said:
Mr. President: Contemporaneous construction of the
Constitution, fortified by long usage and acquiescence, undisturbed
for more than seventy-five years, has to my mind incontestably and
impregnably established two fundamental propositions: first, that
under the Constitution of the United States the power to appoint
includes the power to remove, and that both these powers are vested
in the President of the United States, subject only to the power of the
Senate to negative in cases of appointment; and, second, that where
the tenure of an office is not fixed by the Constitution it is held at the
pleasure of the Executive.
I therefore take up this argument where the opposition leave it: I
begin where they close. I concede all that they demand as to the
constitutional power of the Executive upon the subject of
appointments to office. If it shall appear that the report of the
Committee on the Judiciary is inconsistent with these declarations,
that the report and the resolutions to which we are now asked to give
our assent in any manner impair or infringe upon, or are in
derogation of these admitted high executive prerogatives, then I shall
submit to condemnation, for my signature is appended to that
report.
So far as I have been able to unravel and disentangle the
complicated array of argument by which it has been attempted to
destroy the force and effect of the report of the Committee on the
Judiciary, I understand that the objections are practically four:
First, that by the action of the majority of the Senate an attempt is
made to invade the prerogative of the president by demanding his
reasons for the suspensions from office that he has made. To that I
interpose upon the threshold and in the vestibule of this argument
an absolute contradiction and denial.
 The President of the United States in the message that he
voluntarily, of his own motion, sent down to this body, starts out
with an absolutely unfounded imputation upon the position of the
majority. He says that the Senate has been from time to time, in
various ways, through committees of the body and by personal
importunity, appealing to the Executive to give his reasons for the
suspension of officials that have been reported to this body with the
designation of others to fill the places thus to be rendered vacant.
Sir, I deny it, and I now challenge from any supporter or adherent
of the administration the exhibition of a word, or syllable, or
justifiable inference upon which that allegation, so often repeated
with so much variety of iteration, can be properly or justly founded.
The effort has been ingeniously made to shift the issue, to darken
council by words without wisdom, and to make it appear that there
has been a deliberate purpose and intention on the part of the Senate
to interfere with the recognized prerogatives of the Executive by
demanding his reasons for suspension; and unless I hear some
Senator while this debate is now proceeding and while I invite the
statement—unless I hear something said in support of that averment,
which I deny, and which I affirm has been made for the purpose of
clouding this controversy in popular estimation, I shall assume that
my denial is not to be met.
Again, sir, it has been alleged in debate, in the public press, by
intimation and declaration, and it has been the basis of many studied
arguments in this Chamber that there had been demands by the
Senate upon the executive for private papers in the cases sent down
for consideration. I deny it. I contradict that statement by an appeal
to the record; and before that great tribunal by whom this issue is to
be tried and determined, I allege that that averment is without
foundation. There has never been in form or in substance, directly or
indirectly, expressly or remotely, any demand made by any
committee of this body upon the Executive or upon the head of any
Department for the production of private papers; and I shall be glad
in the front of my explicit denial and contradiction if some one of the
advocates, some one of the champions of the administration, will
point out, before this controversy is concluded, when, where, and
how there has been any demand made by the Senate upon the
President of the United States or upon any head of a Department for
the production of private papers.
That issue was brought in here by the administration. It is said
that a guilty conscience needs no accuser. We have been told of those
who “fear in every bush an officer.” Sir, it was the interior
consciousness of the administration out of which was evolved this
phantasy, this farcical allegation, that there was an attempt on the
part of the Senate to compel the production of private unofficial
papers and communications in the possession of the President of the
United States. No Senator doubts that the President occupies an
absolutely independent position, and none would desire under any
circumstances to interfere with his admitted prerogatives.
I shall strip this controversy of its fallacious incidents. I shall clear
away the undergrowth of misrepresentation, sophistry, and false
pretenses, that has hitherto obstructed the pathway of our
consideration of the real issues that are involved in this contention.
With my consent it shall not hereafter be averred before the popular
tribunal that is ultimately to decide this question that there has been
an indefensible and insolent attempt to impair the constitutional
prerogatives of the President of the United States.
Another allegation has been that while this controversy has
proceeded the Senate has been inactive, interposing partisan
objections to the transaction of executive business, to prevent the
execution of his high trusts by the President of the United States. I
yesterday had compiled from the records of the executive office, for
the purpose of showing what has been done in this particular, a
statement, public under our rules, which shows that from the 25th of
January, 1886, to the date of the last executive session there had
been confirmed by the Senate four hundred and ninety-three
nominations of officers sent down by the President. Never in any
single instance where there has been a vacancy, occurring by
resignation, expiration of term or proper removal upon which we
could properly act, has there been an instant of delay. The Senate has
not inquired whether the nominee was a Democrat or Republican,
but has proceeded vigorously, industriously and steadfastly in the
performance of its constitutional duties, and if there has been
inaction or non-action upon nominations, I shall show before I
conclude my remarks that it has been invited by the administration.
 Again, it has been alleged that the action of the majority of the
Senate is instigated by the purpose of keeping Republicans in office;
that we are moved by partisan considerations to thwart by all means
in our power the efforts of the Executive to transfer the official
patronage of the Government to the party that was placed in power
by the votes of a majority of the people. I am not authorized to speak
for others, but for myself and for those who have accredited me here,
I cannot submit with patience to such an intolerable accusation.
Mr. President, the Republicans of Kansas are Republicans. They
are neither afraid to be so classified nor ashamed to be thus
described. They do not covet any qualifying or palliative epithets.
Their attitude is neither apologetic nor defensive. They have an
unconquerable pride in their political achievements, in the history
they have made, in the triumphs they have won. For twenty-five
years they have stood upon the skirmish line, neither asking nor
giving quarter. They are Republicans not by inheritance, not by
tradition, not by accident, but from conviction; and they are as
steadfast in defeat as in victory. They are partisans, intrepid,
undaunted, uncompromising, and they can give reasons for the faith
that is in them.
They believe and I believe that for the past quarter of a century
upon every vital issue before the American people, secession, slavery,
coercion, the public credit, honest elections, universal freedom, and
the protection of American labor, they have always been right and
that their opponents have always been wrong; and, while they
concede unreservedly patriotism and sincerity to their adversaries,
temporary repulse has not convinced them that they were in error.
There is neither defection nor dismay in their columns. They are
ready, they are impatient to renew the battle. Animated by such
impulses, it is not singular that they should feel that no Republican
can hold an appointive office under a Democratic administration
without either sacrificing his convictions or forfeiting his self-
respect.
Accordingly, sir, when a little more than a year ago a Democratic
administration was inaugurated, those who were in public station
began with one consent to make excuse to retire to private life. They
did not stand upon the order of their going; they trampled upon each
other in a tumultuous and somewhat indecent haste to get out of
office. There was no craven cry for mercy; no mercenary camp-
follower fled for shelter to the bomb-proofs of the tenure-of-office
act; no sutler crawled behind the fragile breastworks of civil-service
reform for protection. They lost their baggage, but they retained their
colors, their arms, their ammunition, and their camp equipage, and
marched off the field with the honors of war. If at the expiration of
one year a few yet remain in office, rari nantes in gurgite vasto, it is
because the victors have been unable to agree among themselves or
been unable to discover among their own numbers competent and
qualified successors.
Mr. President, candor compels me to say that the Democracy of
that State share the same temper and spirit. From 1854, when the
Territory was organized, down to the 29th of January, 1861, when
the State was admitted, if there was a Republican holding any
appointive office it was an inadvertence; and if from 1861 down to
1885 there was a Democrat holding an official position requiring
confirmation by the Senate, it was an oversight; it escaped the
somewhat vigilant scrutiny of my colleague and myself and those
who preceded us here.
Therefore, Mr. President, I am not of those who believe in non-
partisanship in politics; and I should be recreant to the high trust
confided in me were I to refrain from declaring my conviction that
political parties, energetic, vigorous, and well defined, are
indispensable to the success of free popular governments. Wherever
the life of States is freest and most irrepressible, there party spirit is
most active and aggressive. It is by the conflict and collision of
political parties that the latent and richest powers of the State are
made manifest; and those whom I represent have no sympathy with
the dogma that it reflects glory upon a statesman to affect
independence of his party, or that it is an indication of virtue in a
citizen to belong to no political organization.
Political parties are social groups in the nation, allied by common
purposes and kindred aspirations for the accomplishment of
beneficial results. When parties perish this Government will expire,
for we all understand that in this country the only government is the
party in power. Here is no dynasty, no ruling family, nothing
corresponding to the functions of government under other systems
except the party that is for the time being intrusted by the votes of a
majority of the people with the execution of their will. And, sir, when
a majority of the people declare that there shall be a change of
administration, it is necessarily implied that there shall be a change
of those agencies through which alone political administration can be
made effectual. It is useless to juggle and palter about this matter. A
change of administration is a change of policies and methods, and
the Chief Magistrate is entitled to the co-operation of agents and
ministers who are in sympathy with his opinions and the doctrines
which he is chosen to enforce and maintain.
Sir, unless the President of the United States is to be a mummy
swathed in the cerements of the grave, he must have powers
commensurate with his duties. He is charged to “take care that the
laws be faithfully executed,” and unless he has the power to select the
agencies through which the laws are administered, through which
the revenues are collected and disbursed, the post-offices conducted,
the Indians supported and controlled, the glory and honor of the
nation maintained, that duty imposed upon him by the Constitution
is an idle phrase; it means nothing; it is an empty formula. Charged
with these great duties, liable to impeachment if they are not
properly performed, how can it be claimed with justice that there
shall be an interpolation of novel doctrines of reform, under which
while the chief is still to be held responsible, he shall be deprived of
all the agencies and ministrations under the Constitution by which
they can alone be so administered, in sympathy with him and the
policy that he represents.
Therefore, sir, I am confident that when it was ascertained in
November, 1884, that a change of the political majority in this
country had been registered, there was a general faith and conviction
that a change of official holdings would follow. The Democratic party
desired it; the Republican party expected it, and would have been
content; and had it been done the people at large would have said
with one accord, amen. But this generation has witnessed the genesis
of a new political gospel; a novel organization has appeared upon
earth; a new school of political philosophers who announce that non-
partisanship is the panacea for all the evils that afflict the Republic.
Having no avowed opinions upon the great topics of the hour, they
feebly decry the corruptions of the American system, and peevishly
and irritably declare that the Government is degenerate and
degraded, and that the true prescription to elevate, reform, and
purify the public service is to prevent the clerks from being removed
out of their places in the Departments. This brotherhood has not
been hitherto very largely re-enforced from the Democracy. If there
has been an original civil-service reformer who has deserted from the
ranks of the Democracy, history does not record his name. It has
been left to the party to which I belong to afford conspicuous and
shining illustrations of that class of political thinkers who are never
quite sure that they are supporting a party unless they are reviling
the candidates and denouncing its platform, who are not positive
that they are standing erect unless they are leaning over backward,
and whose idea of reforming the organization in which they profess
to be classified is to combine with its adversaries and vote for
candidates who openly spurn their professions and depreciate the
stock in trade which they denominate their principles. Standing on
the corners of the streets, enlarging the borders of their phylacteries,
they loudly advertise their perfections, thanking God that they are
not as other men, even these Republicans and Democrats; they
traffic with both to ascertain which they can most profitably betray.
Mr. President, the neuter gender is not popular either in nature or
society. “Male and female created He them.” But there is a third sex,
if that can sex be called which sex has none, resulting sometimes
from a cruel caprice of nature, at others from accident or malevolent
design, possessing the vices of both and the virtues of neither;
effeminate without being masculine or feminine; unable either to
beget or to bear; possessing neither fecundity nor virility; endowed
with the contempt of men and the derision of women, and doomed to
sterility, isolation, and extinction. But they have two recognized
functions. They sing falsetto, and they are usually selected as the
guardians of the seraglios of Oriental despots.
And thus to pass from the illustration to the fact, these political
epicenes, without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity, chant in
shrill falsetto their songs of praise of non-partisanship and civil-
service reform, and apparently have been selected as the harmless
custodians of the conscience of the national Executive.
Sir, I am not disposed to impugn the good faith, the patriotism, the
sincerity, the many unusual traits and faculties of the President of
the United States. He is the sphinx of American politics. It is said
that he is a fatalist; that he regards himself as the child of fate—the
man of destiny; and that he places devout and implicit reliance upon
the guiding influence of his star. Certainly, whether he be a very
great man or a very small man, he is a very extraordinary man. His
career forbids any other conclusion.
The Democratic party was not wanting when its convention
assembled at Chicago in many renowned and illustrious characters;
men who had led the forlorn hope in its darkest and most desperate
days; men for whose character and achievements, for whose fame
and history, not only that organization but the country had the
profoundest admiration and respect. There was Thurman, and
Bayard, and Hendricks, and Tilden, and McDonald, and others
perhaps not less worthy and hardly less illustrious, upon whom the
mantle of that great distinction might have fallen; but the man at the
mature age of thirty-five abandoned a liberal and honored profession
to become the sheriff of Erie, without known opinions and destitute
of experience or training in public affairs, outstripped them all in the
race of ambition; and when but little more than a year ago he entered
this Chamber as the President elect of the United States, he
encountered the curious scrutiny of an audience to whom he was a
stranger in feature as in fame; a stranger to the leaders of his own
party as well as to the representatives of all the nations of the earth
who had assembled to witness the gorgeous pageant of his
inauguration.
Sir, the career of Napoleon was sudden, startling, and dramatic.
There have been many soldiers of fortune who have sprung at one
bound from obscurity to fame, but no illustration of the caprices of
destiny so brilliant and bewildering is recorded in history as the
elevation of Grover Cleveland to the Chief Magistracy of sixty
millions of people.
If when he was inaugurated he had determined that the functions
of Government should be exercised by officers selected from his own
party the nation would have been content; but he did not so
determine, and herein and hereon is founded the justification that
the majority of the Senate can satisfactorily use and employ in
demanding that no action shall be had in connection with these
suspensions from office until there has been satisfactory assurances
that injustice has not been done. If it were understood that these
suspensions and removals were made for political reasons the
country would be content, the Republican majority in the Senate
would be content. But what is the attitude? Ever since his
inauguration and for many months before, by many utterances,
official and private, in repeated declarations never challenged, Mr.
Cleveland announced that he would not so administer this
Government. At the very outset, in his letter of acceptance, he
denounced the doctrine of partisan changes in the patronage, and
through all of his political manifestoes down to the present time he
has repeated these assurances with emphatic and unchanging
monotony.
He has declared that there should be no changes in office, where
the incumbents were competent and qualified, for political reasons,
but that they should be permitted to serve their terms. Like those
who were grinding at the mill, one has been taken and another has
been left. Some Republicans have been suspended and others have
been retained. What is the irresistible inference? What is the logic of
the events, except that, in view of what the President has declared,
every man who is suspended is suspended for cause, and not for
political reasons? It is not possible to suspect the President of
duplicity and treacherous deception.
For the purpose of illustration, let me call the attention of the
Senate and through the Senate the attention of the country, which is
to judge of this matter, to the basis on which this inquiry proceeds. I
read from the letter of Grover Cleveland, dated Albany, August 19,
1884, accepting the nomination for the Presidency of the United
States. He says:
The people pay the wages of the public employés, and they are entitled to the fair
and honest work which the money thus paid should command. It is the duty of
those intrusted with the management of their affairs to see that such public service
is forthcoming. The selection and retention of subordinates in Government
employment should depend upon their ascertained fitness and the value of their
work, and they should be neither expected nor allowed to do questionable party
service.
There is another utterance in this document to which I might
properly allude further on, but which appears to me to be so
significant that I will read it now. It has a singular fitness in
connection with this subject that we have been discussing. Speaking
of honest administration, he says,
 I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land are prepared to
support the party which gives the best promise of administering the Government
in the honest, simple, and plain manner which is consistent with its character and
purposes.
And now:
They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of their
affairs cover tricks and betrayal.
Yes, they have learned that mystery in the administration of the
patronage of the Government, by the concealment from the people of
the documents and papers that bear upon the character and conduct
of officials suspended and those that are appointed, cover tricks and
betrayal. “I thank thee for that word.” A “Daniel” has “come to
judgment.” No more pertinent and pungent commentary upon the
facts of the present situation could be formulated than that which
Grover Cleveland uttered before his foot was upon the threshold, that
mystery and concealment in the management of the affairs of the
people covered tricks and betrayal. There are tricks and somebody
has been betrayed.
Again, on the 20th day of December, 1884, after the election, some
of the contingent of Republican deserters who elected Mr. Cleveland
to the Presidency, becoming apprehensive that there might be
trouble about their thirty pieces of silver, formulated their
uneasiness in words and addressed him a letter calling his attention
to the professions upon which he had been elected and demanding
further guarantee. To that letter, on the 25th day of December, 1884,
Mr. Cleveland replied, and from that reply I select certain
paragraphs, not being willing to tax the patience of the Senate or
waste my own strength in reading what is not strictly material.
I regard myself pledged to this—
That is, to this practical reform in the civil service, this refusal to
turn out competent and qualified officials and put in Democrats—
because my conception of true Democratic faith and public duty requires that
this and all other statutes should be in good faith and without evasion enforced,
and because, in many utterances made prior to my election as President, approved
by the party to which I belong and which I have no disposition to disclaim, I have
in effect promised the people that this should be done.
Not his party, but the people, Republican as well as Democrats.
Then he proceeds to castigate the Democratic party:
 I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer that many of our citizens fear
that the recent party change in the national Executive may demonstrate that the
abuses which have grown up in the civil service are ineradicable. I know that they
are deeply rooted, and that the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately
related to success in the maintenance of party organization, and I am not sure that
all those who profess to be the friends of this reform will stand firmly among its
advocates when they find it obstructing their way to patronage and place.
He goes on thus, and this is a most significant promise and pledge:
There is a class of Government positions which are not within the letter of the
civil-service statute but which are so disconnected with the policy of an
administration that the removal therefrom of present incumbents, in my opinion,
should not be made during the terms for which they were appointed solely on
partisan grounds, and for the purpose of putting in their places those who are in
political accord with the appointing power—
And then follows that celebrated definition which lifted the lid
from the box of Pandora—
but many men holding such positions have forfeited all just claim to retention
because they have used their places for party purposes in disregard of their duty to
the people, and because, instead of being decent public servants, they have proved
themselves offensive partisans and unscrupulous manipulators of local party
management.
The letter closes with this somewhat frigid assurance of
consolation to the Democratic party.
If I were addressing none but party friends, I should deem it entirely proper to
remind them—
That is, party friends—
that though the coming administration is to be Democratic—
Strictly Democratic—
a due regard for the people’s interest does not permit faithful party work to be
always rewarded by appointment to office, and to say to them that while
Democrats may expect a proper consideration, selections for office not embraced
within the civil-service rules will be based upon sufficient inquiry as to fitness,
instituted by those charged with that duty, rather than upon persistent importunity
or self-solicited recommendations on behalf of candidates for appointment.
“Here endeth the first lesson!” This was in the year 1884. I now
come to the declaration of 1885. Just as the Democratic State
convention which nominated the present governor of New York for
the position that he now holds, was about to assemble at Saratoga on
the 24th, I think, of September, the President gave out for
publication the letter of resignation of Dorman B. Eaton, a civil-
service commissioner, which was dated July 28, 1885, and
accompanied it with a letter of his own accepting that resignation
which was dated September 11, 1885. It was alleged in Democratic
newspapers that the President held back these letters in order to give
publicity to his reply at that time for effect upon the convention, and
it was remarked that it had caused a panic among the Democracy.
His letter is dated, as I said, September 11, 1885, and I will read a few
paragraphs showing his opinion of the Democratic party and the
course that they had pursued in attempting to force him off the civil-
service reform platform. After some rather glittering platitudes in
regard to the work accomplished by Mr. Eaton, he proceeds:
A reasonable toleration for old prejudices, a graceful recognition of every aid, a
sensible utilization of every instrumentality that promises assistance and a
constant effort to demonstrate the advantages of the new order of things, are the
means by which this reform movement will in the future be further advanced, the
opposition.
Now, this is an epithet to which I desire to call particular attention
—
The opposition of incorrigible spoilsmen rendered ineffectual and the cause
placed upon a sure foundation.
But not content with applying his scourge to the “incorrigible
spoilsmen” of the Democratic party, the President took occasion to
express his opinion in rather picturesque language of another class of
politicians that had somewhat afflicted him, and to whom he was
under bonds:
It is a source of congratulation that there are so many friends of civil-service
reform marshaled on the practical side of the question; and that the number is not
greater of those who profess friendliness for the cause, and yet, mischievously and
with supercilious self-righteousness, discredit every effort not in exact accord with
their attenuated ideas, decry with carping criticism the labor of those actually in
the field of reform, and ignoring the conditions which bound and qualify every
struggle for a radical improvement in the affairs of government, demand complete
and immediate perfection.
“Supercilious self-righteousness, attenuated ideas, and carping
criticism,” can not be regarded as complimentary phrases when
applied to the apostles of this new evangel of political reformation.
He continues—
I believe in civil-service reform and its application in the most practicable form
attainable, among other reasons, because it opens the door for the rich and the
poor alike to a participation in public place-holding. And I hope the time is at hand
when all our people will see the advantage of a reliance for such an opportunity
upon merit and fitness, instead of a dependence upon the caprice or selfish interest
of those who impudently—
To whom does he refer?—
who impudently stand between the people and the machinery of the
Government.
You will agree with me, I think, that the support which has been given to the
present administration in its efforts to preserve and advance this reform by a party
restored to power after an exclusion for many years from participation in the
places attached to the public service, confronted with a new system precluding the
redistribution of such places in its interest, called upon to surrender advantages
which a perverted partisanship had taught the American people belonged to
success, and perturbed with the suspicion, always raised in such an emergency,
that their rights in the conduct of this reform had not been scrupulously regarded,
should receive due acknowledgment and should confirm our belief that there is a
sentiment among the people better than a desire to hold office, and a patriotic
impulse upon which may safely rest the integrity of our institutions and the
strength and perpetuity of our Government.
The first official utterances of President Cleveland upon the 4th of
March, 1885, renewed the assurance that had been given. He
declared:
The people demand reform in the administration of the Government and the
application of business principles to business affairs. As a means to this end civil-
service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our citizens have the right to
protection from the incompetency of public employés who hold their places solely
as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influences of those who
promise and the vicious who expect such rewards. And those who worthily seek
public employment have the right to insist that merit and competency shall be
recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of honest political belief.
How this system, thus inaugurated, this amphibious plan of
distributing the patronage of the country among his own partisans
and at the same time insisting upon the enforcement of civil-service
reform doctrines practically resulted finds its first illustration in the
celebrated circular of the Postmaster-General that was issued on the
29th of April, 1885. I do not propose to defile my observations by
reading that document. I allude to it for the purpose of saying that a
more thoroughly degraded, loathsome, execrable and detestable
utterance never was made by any public official of any political
persuasion in any country, or in any age. It was an invitation to every
libeller, every anonymous slanderer, every scurrilous defamer, to
sluice the feculent sewage of communities through the Post-Office
Department, with the assurance that, without any intimation or
information to the person aspersed, incumbents should be removed
and Democratic partisans appointed. I offered a resolution on the
4th of this month calling on the Postmaster-General for information
as to the number of removals of fourth-class postmasters, not
requiring confirmation by the Senate, between the 4th day of March,
1885, and that date. It was a simple proposition. It required nothing
but an inspection of the official register and a computation of
numbers. No names were required and no dates. There was a simple
question of arithmetic to ascertain the number of removals of fourth-
class postmasters not included in the list sent to the Senate by the
President, the salary being less than $1,000. Eighteen days elapsed.
There seemed to be some reluctance on the part of the Department
to comply with that request, and I thereupon offered a supplemental
resolution, which was adopted by the Senate, asking the Postmaster-
General to advise us whether that first resolution had been received,
and, if so, why it was not answered, and when a reply might be
expected.
On the second day following an answer came down. It does not
include the number of places that were filled where there had been
resignations. It does not include the list of those appointed where
there had been vacancies from death or any other cause; but simply
those who had been removed without cause and without hearing in
the space of the first twelve months of this administration pledged to
non-partisanship and civil-service reform. The number foots up
8,635. Eighty-six hundred and thirty-five removals of fourth-class
postmasters under an administration pledged by repeated utterances
not to remove except for cause, making an average, counting three
hundred and thirteen working days in that year, of twenty-eight
every day; and, counting seven hours as a day’s work, four removals
every hour, or at the rate of one for every fifteen minutes of time
from the 4th day of March, 1885, until the 4th of March, 1886. And
that is civil-service reform! That is non-partisanship in the
administration of this Government! That is exercising public office as
a public trust!
Mr. Cockrell. How many of these fourth-class postmasters are
there?
 Mr. Ingalls. I do not know.
Mr. Cockrell. About fifty-one thousand, are there not?
Mr. Ingalls. It makes no difference how many; they did the best
they could, and angels could do more. I see that the Senator from
Missouri is impatient; he is anxious that the axe should fall more
rapidly.
The President pro tempore. The Senator from Kansas will pause
a moment. It is the duty of the Chair to inform the occupants of the
galleries that the rules of the Senate forbid any expression of
approbation or disapprobation. It will be the painful duty of the
Chair to enforce that rule, if it is insisted upon.
Mr. Ingalls. I hope the Senator from Missouri will curb his
impatience and restrain his impetuosity. The Postmaster-General
will get through if you only give him time.
Mr. Cockrell. He will get through in four years at this rate.
Mr. Ingalls. One every fifteen minutes!
Mr. Cockrell. Fifty-one thousand is the number of fourth-class
postmasters, I believe, and only eight thousand in a year have been
removed.
Mr. Ingalls. Only one every fifteen minutes! How often do you
expect them to be removed? He has done the best he could. And this
does not include the number of those who resigned; this does not
include any except those who have been removed. To the Senator
from Missouri rising in his seat, impatient at the dilatory
procrastination of the Post-Office Department in not casting out
more Republican postmasters, I say this does not include all.
Undoubtedly many more than eighty-six hundred and thirty-five
have fallen beneath the axe of the Department or have been filled by
partisans of the party in power as a reward for efficient and faithful
party service in consequence of the retirement of thousands of
patriotic Republicans: and when the Senator from Missouri attempts
to convey the impression here that out of fifty-one thousand fourth-
class postmasters only eighty-six hundred and thirty-five have been
changed during this past year he is entirely outside the record. It is to
be observed that this is but a single Department. How many have
gone out of the State department, how many have gone out of the
Interior department, how many out of the Army and Navy
departments, and out of that illuminated Department of Justice, and
out of the Treasury, of course is entirely unknown, and probably will
always remain unknown till the secrets of earth are revealed at the
last day. They are carefully concealed; there are no lists furnished to
the press for publication. Therefore I trust that the friends of the
administration will be consoled, that the complaints which have been
so frequent hitherto of the want of activity on the part of the
administration in finding places for their friends will be tempered by
the consideration that they have done the best they could in the time
at their disposal.
Mr. President, the list of official utterances is not yet complete. On
the first day of this session President Cleveland again repeated his
declaration that the civil service was to be divorced from
partisanship, and he took occasion to inflict some more castigation
upon those who were endeavoring to force him off the civil-service
platform which he had declared he intended to occupy. This was his
language:
Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers
with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment,
and filling the air with the tumult of their discontent.
Rather florid, rather oriental phrase, but in its exactness
mathematical; a demonstration in geometry could not be more
explicit and satisfactory than that description by President Cleveland
of the occupation and the lamentations of the Democratic party. It
will bear repetition.
Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers
with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment,
and filling the air with the tumult of their discontent.
A besieging, importunate, contagious, tumultuous, discontented
organization.
There is more to the same effect in this document that I should like
to read, but time does not serve, nor is it material, because there are
other independent utterances to which I must pass; and I do this for
the purpose of showing the consistent and persistent adhesion of the
President of the United States to the declarations with which he
started out when he commenced to administer the Government.
On the 30th day of January, 1886, the ordinary avenues of
communication with the public being inaccessible, President
Cleveland availed himself of the interviewer, and in the Boston
Herald was printed a long letter detailing in quotations a
conversation with President Cleveland, the many points of which will
be found below. This was after this controversy, if you call it so,
between the President and Senate, had begun to develop and there
were some indications of approaching misunderstanding or
disagreement:
He next spoke of his position toward the Senate in the matter of confirmations to
office. He said it gave him some anxiety, for the Senate had been a good while in
disclosing what it meant to do. “They seem”—
He says plaintively—
“to distrust me,” said he, “if I am to accept what I hear from others. But I hear
nothing from them. They have not called upon me for information or for
documents.”
That complaint no longer exists.
“I have tried”—
He says—
“to deal honorably and favorably by them. My purpose was announced at the
beginning of my administration. I meant then to adhere to it. I have never changed
it. I do not mean to change it in the future. It seems to me unjust and ungenerous
in them”—
That is, in the Senate—
“unjust and ungenerous in them to suspect that I do. If I had not meant to
adhere to my policy it would have been foolish in me to begin it. I should have
escaped much in refusing to begin it. It is not at all pleasant for me to disappoint,
and I fear sometimes to offend, my party friends. Nothing but a sense of duty has
brought me to this step. Why run all this risk and incur this hard feeling only in the
end to retreat? It seems to me it would have been as impolitic as it is wrong. No; I
have tried to be true to my own pledges and the pledges of my party. We both
promised to divorce the offices of the country from being used for party service. I
have held to my promise, and I mean to hold to it.”
Then there was an answer to a question propounded by the
interviewer, in which he defines his relation toward offensive
partisanship in the Democratic party:
“I did not propose to hold party service in the past in the Democratic ranks as
against a man. On the contrary, it gave him a strong, equitable claim to office. He
had been excluded for twenty-four years because he was a Democrat. He should be
remembered for the same reason when a Democratic administration came into
power, provided he was a competent man for the position to be filled. What I
understand by civil-service reform, as I am carrying it out, is that the office-holders
shall be divorced from politics while they fill their positions under this
government. That rule I have meant to stand by.” I asked him if he was aware of
any deviation from it among his appointees. “If there has been any,” said he, “it has
not been called to my attention.” I suggested that some such charge had been made
in New York. He said he did not believe that there was any foundation for it, and
that it was well known there that his wishes were that the office-holders should
attend to the duties of their positions, and interfere neither with candidates nor
election contests.
And here comes in the significant statement bearing upon the duty
of Republicans in connection with these suspensions and removals
from office:
“My removals from office, such as are made,” said he, “are made for cause. It
would be absurd for me to undertake to give the country my reasons in all cases,
because it would be impracticable. When I have removed a Republican for political
reasons or for any other reasons, I would apply the same rule to my own party. I
think the Republican Senators should be just enough to believe this of me. They
ought to appreciate that I am trying to do my duty. Why they should continue to
distrust me I do not see. They do not come to me either personally or by committee
to get an understanding of my attitude, or to obtain explanations on points of
action to which they object. They stand off and question the sincerity of my
purposes.”
The eight thousand six hundred and thirty-five fourth-class
postmasters and the six hundred and forty-three suspensions before
the Senate and the thousands of changes in other departments “are
made for cause,” not for political reasons merely; but to give those
who have been so removed the opportunity to explain or defend
themselves would be “absurd” and “impracticable.”
But this is not all. Later in the winter the Civil Service Commission
was reorganized, and in a newspaper printed in this city appeared a
statement alleged to be “personal” and included in quotation marks,
and which it is commonly reported was in the handwriting of the
President.
I cannot rid myself—
He said, after speaking about the personnel of the Civil Service
Commission—
I cannot rid myself of the idea that this civil-service reform is something
intended to do practical good and not a mere sentiment invented for the purpose of
affording opportunity to ventilate high-sounding notions and fine phrases.
He alludes to the action of the Civil-Service Commission about a
weigher in the city of Brooklyn, and says:
 When the Civil Service Commission consulted with me as to the status of Mr.
Sterling and the true construction of the rule bearing upon that subject, I agreed
with them in their second opinion that the position of weigher was subject to an
examination, and that it should be filled by one who by means of a proper
examination under the law proved himself competent and eligible. But it seemed to
me that the good of the service required that the person to be appointed should be
possessed of certain traits and qualifications which no theoretical examination
would develop. One having in charge two or three hundred men of the class with
which a weigher has to deal should possess personal courage, energy, decision and
firmness of character. It is entirely certain that the possession of such
qualifications could not in the least be determined by the result of an examination
organized for the purpose of testing an applicant’s knowledge and education.
And he closes:
No cause can gain by injustice or by a twisting of its purposes to suit particular
tastes. And when a result is fairly reached through the proper operation of methods
adopted to further a reform, it should be accepted—especially by the friends of the
movement. They should not permit those of whom they require submission to say,
with any semblance of truth, that they themselves submit only when the result
accords with their views.
This closes the public declarations of the President of the United
States upon the views which he entertains as to the method and
plans and system upon which the public service is to be conducted
under his administration. There are some interesting details as to the
practical effects and results of the effort of the administration to
purify the public service, which I would be glad if I had time to refer
to, but I believe I will forbear. I can only say that it seems from an
inspection of the record as if the cry “put the rascals out” had been
changed in effect to “put the rascals in.” Of course Mr. President, no
party is exempt from accidents, no organization has a monopoly
either of good men or of bad men, and in calling attention to the
results of civil-service reform as applied to this administration, I
should be insincere if I were to assume that such results had followed
from any predetermined purpose to put bad men into office.
We heard a great deal during the campaign about the corruptions,
profligacy, misdeeds, and maladministration of Republican officials.
I can only say that in view of what has occurred under this
administration, if I were inclined to be uncharitable I could with
entire propriety say that while the Republican party was in power it
endeavored whenever it detected crime anywhere to punish it; but
one of the practical results of Democratic administration has been
the reverse, and that is to place in office a very large number of
admitted and convicted felons. I have before me a selection from
which I will, I believe, in support of this view of the case, give a law
extract, stating in advance that these compilations are made from
Democratic newspapers which, of course, is a mitigation of the
slander, though it does not necessarily destroy its credibility.
Mr. ——, of Baltimore, who was made an Indian inspector in 1885,
had been involved in notorious election frauds and was condemned
by the civil-service reform Independents of Maryland as a
companion of Higgins, as a ballot-box stuffer, and a professional
gambler.
The postmaster at Sioux City, Iowa, was convicted and sentenced
in Dakota for violation of the pension laws. The man who was
removed to make a place for this eminent civil-service reformer had
eight months yet to serve, and there was no complaint against him
even to the extent that he was an offensive partisan.
Mr. Holmes, a postmaster in Mississippi, had been involved in
notorious election-fraud scandals.
Mr. Shannon, appointed postmaster at Meriden, Miss., was the
editor of the Mercury newspaper, which after President Grant’s
death contained a rabid editorial attacking the General’s character;
and he had been indicted in the United States court for “unlawfully
and criminally conspiring with many others for the evasion of the
civil rights law.”
In Rhode Island a Democratic postmaster was appointed who had
been in the preceding three months arrested nine times for violation
of the liquor law.
In Pennsylvania a man was appointed in the Philadelphia Mint
who openly confessed to writing a forged letter from Neal Dow to be
used in influencing the German vote in the State of Ohio the
preceding year.
There have been some strange things done in Maine. I almost
hesitate to quote this, but if I am wrong the Senators from that State
will undoubtedly correct me. It is alleged that the postmaster in the
town of Lincolnville was at the time of his appointment actually in
the Portland jail, where he was serving a term for a misdemeanor.
 An agent by the name of Judd, who was appointed in the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, was, upon inquiry as to the fact whether he had
been a horse-thief and served in the penitentiary, suspended from
office. The writer states that the only ground for supposing that he
was not a horse thief arose from the fact that they do not put men in
the penitentiary for stealing horses out West: that if he was alive it
was a reasonable, natural conclusion that he had not stolen any
horses. Nobody denied the penitentiary.
A gentleman named Richard Board, of Kentucky, was appointed in
July, on the recommendation of Comptroller Durham, clerk in the
railway mail service and assigned to duty in New Mexico. This is
under the Postmaster-General, who found leisure between removing
postmasters every fifteen minutes to appoint this man in another
branch of the service where he incautiously mentioned to his friends
something about his previous history, and it appeared that he had
been three times arrested in Cincinnati for obtaining money under
false pretenses, that he had been twice arrested for stealing in
Kentucky, and once in Texas—a variegated and diversified career.
“No pent up Utica” contracted his powers. He had stolen in three
states. His father was a very wealthy man in high standing who had
spent a great deal of money to protect his son, and through him he
secured the endorsement of Comptroller Durham, and after he had
been in service for a few weeks he committed a number of robberies,
stole $163 from the money order service, and at the date of this
communication was lying in jail at Santa Fé awaiting trial.
The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees] yesterday took
occasion to advert with somewhat of animated hilarity to the
suggestion of the Senator from Iowa about the evolutionary
condition of the Democratic party, and dwelt with considerable
unction upon a term that the Senator from Iowa had applied to the
Democracy in his very able and interesting speech: “a protoplasmic”
cell, and the Senator then proceeded to give us the definition of the
term as it appears in the dictionaries, and suggested that if those
facts had been known at the time when the canvass was pending Mr.
Cleveland would undoubtedly have been counted out in New York.
The Senator from Iowa might have gone further in his application
of the doctrine of evolution with much propriety. Geology teaches us
that in the process of being upward from the protoplasmic cell,
through one form of existence to another there are intermediary and
connecting stages, in which the creature bears some resemblance to
the state from which it has emerged and some to the state to which it
is proceeding. History is stratified politics; every stratum is
fossiliferous; and I am inclined to think that the political geologist of
the future in his antiquarian researches between the triassic series of
1880 and the cretaceous series of 1888 as he inspects the jurassic
Democratic strata of 1884 will find some curious illustrations of the
doctrine of political evolution.
In the transition from the fish to the bird there is an anomalous
animal, long since extinct, named by the geologists the pterodactyl,
or the winged reptile, a lizard with feathers upon its paws and
plumes upon its tail. A political system which illustrates in its
practical operations the appointment by the same administration of
Eugene Higgins and Dorman B. Eaton can properly be regarded as in
the transition epoch and characterized as the pterodactyl of politics.
It is, like that animal, equally adapted to waddling and dabbling in
the slime and mud of partisan politics and soaring aloft with
discordant cries into the glittering and opalescent empyrean of civil-
service reform.
The President closes his recent message to the Senate in this
language:
The pledges I have made were made to the people, and to them I am responsible
for the manner in which they have been redeemed. I am not responsible to the
Senate and I am unwilling to submit my actions and official conduct to them for
judgment.
There are no grounds for an allegation that the fear of being found false to my
professions influences me in declining to submit to the demands of the Senate. I
have not constantly refused to suspend officials, and thus incurred the displeasure
of political friends, and yet willfully broken faith with the people for the sake of
being false to them.
Neither the discontent of party friends nor the allurements constantly offered of
confirmation of appointees conditioned upon the avowal that suspensions have
been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolution now
before the Senate that no confirmations will be made unless the demands of that
body be complied with, are sufficient to discourage or deter me from following in
the way which I am convinced leads to better government for the people.
He is not responsible to the Senate, nor is the Senate responsible
to him; both are alike responsible to the people. But in the cases at
bar we are compelled to inquire, in justice to the people, whether
those pledges have been redeemed, or whether they have been
broken, violated, and disregarded. Had the patronage of the
Government, within proper limits, been turned over for its exercise
to the party intrusted with power by a majority of the people there
could have been no complaint, but upon the assurances that I have
read, the declaration was made that in every case where an
incumbent was competent and qualified he should remain in office
till the expiration of his term.
When, therefore, some were suspended and others were left, what
is the irresistible inference, after the declarations of the President,
except that these persons were suspended for cause either affecting
their personal integrity or their official administration? Upon the
ground, then, of personal justice, if no other, we are entitled to know
whether wrong has been done by the accusations that have been filed
in the Departments, so that we may protect those who are unable to
defend themselves from injustice and defamation.
But there is another reason, and to me a still more convincing
reason, why we should be advised in the case of these suspensions
what are the papers, the official documents, and the reports on the
files of the departments affecting the administration of these offices,
and that is this: under the tenure-of-office act, every official
suspended is reinstated by the provisions of section 1768 of the
Revised Statutes, if the Senate adjourns without confirming the
designated person, and continues to exercise and discharge the
duties of that office, until he is again suspended by the President.
Therefore, in acting upon these cases we have a double duty to
perform; in the first place, to decide whether the person suspended
was properly suspended, and in the next place, whether he is a
competent person to be restored to office under and by virtue of the
operation of the statute under which he was suspended. If he is not a
competent person then he ought not to be restored, and we cannot
determine whether he is competent and qualified and fit to discharge
the duties of that office until we have the official declarations and
statements upon which the action of the President was based.
Since this debate began, there are indications that the President
has become convinced that his position is untenable, and that he has
concluded to yield to the reasonable requests of the Senate and
relieve suspended officials from the otherwise inevitable imputations
upon their conduct and character. I find the following
correspondence in one of the metropolitan journals, which if
authentic relieves the relation between the President and the Senate
of the principal restraint:
Committee on Finance, United States Senate, March 17, 1886.

Dear Sir: Will you please advise the Committee on Finance whether or not there
are any papers or charges on file reflecting against the official or moral character of
——, late collector of internal revenue for the first district of ——, suspended?
If there are any such papers or charges will you please communicate their nature
and character to the committee?

Very truly, yours,

JUSTIN S. MORRILL.

Hon. Daniel Manning,

Secretary of the Treasury.

March 19, 1886.

Sir: Your communication on behalf of the Finance Committee of the Senate,

dated March 17, 1886, asking whether or not there are any papers or charges on file
reflecting against the official or moral character of ——, late collector of internal
revenue for the first district of ——, suspended, is received.
In reply thereto I have the honor to state that, so far as this inquiry relates to a
suspension from office, I feel bound by the rules laid down in the President’s recent
message to the Senate upon the general subject of such suspensions.
But in order that I may surely act within the requirements of the statute relating
to the furnishing by this Department of information to the Senate, I beg leave to
remind the committee that the office referred to has no fixed term attached to it,
and to further state that the President is satisfied that a change in the incumbency
of said office will result in an improvement of the public service, and that the policy
of the present administration will be better carried out by such change.
Except as the same may be involved in these considerations, no papers
containing charges reflecting upon the official or moral character of the suspended
officer mentioned in your communication are in the custody of this Department.

Respectfully, yours,
D. MANNING, Secretary.

Hon. Justin S. Morrill,

Chairm’n of the Senate Com. on Finance.
 But whether this be true or not, this is not the forum in which this
controversy is to be ultimately decided. The Executive is not on trial
before the Senate; the Senate is not on trial before the Executive; but
both, as to the sincerity of their professions and the consistency of
their actions, are on trial before that greater, wiser, and more
powerful tribunal—the enlightened conscience of the people, from
whose verdict there is neither exculpation nor appeal.
 THE GREAT TARIFF CAMPAIGN OF 1888.

The views which point to the tendency of the Democratic party in

the direction of Free Trade, at least to their antagonism to the theory
of Protection for protection’s sake, are well given in the special
message of President Cleveland, given elsewhere in this work. A wing
of the Democratic party, headed by Samuel J. Randall, of
Pennsylvania, dissented from this view, and opposed both the
Morrison and the Mills bills. For the purpose of illustrating the views
of this class of Democrats, as well as because of the distinction of the
speaker, we append