The Writings of Carl Schurz/From Horace Greeley, July 8th, 1872
FROM HORACE GREELEY
Yours of the 26th ult. only reached me three days ago. I respond as promptly as I may.
I pass over the allusion to my political associates, barely remarking that an imputation so vague can never be specifically repelled. Charity is a virtue rarely exemplified in politics, and most men live and die in the undoubting conviction that their political opponents are the greatest scoundrels unhung. I trust that my age and your experience have lifted us above such prejudices, enabling us to realize that the many sincerely desire the greatest public good, even when mistaken in their choice of means. I know who my friends are better than my traducers do, and fear no scrutiny as to the integrity or patriotism of any to whom I give my confidence. And, should any such ever seek to swerve me from the path of rectitude, they would cease to be regarded by me as friends.
The problem of civil service reform is rendered difficult by a misalliance between the Executive and the Legislative branches of our Federal Government. Those Members of Congress who favor the Administration habitually claim and are awarded a virtual monopoly of the Federal offices in their respective States or districts, dictating appointments and removals as interest or caprice may suggest. The President appoints at their bidding; they legislate in subservience to his will, often in opposition to their own convictions. Unless all history is unmeaning, this confusion of Executive with Legislative responsibilities and functions could not fail to distemper and corrupt the body-politic.
I hold the eligibility of our Presidents to reëlection the main source of this corruption. A President should be above the hope of future favor, the fear of alienating powerful, ambitious partisans. He should be the official chief, not of a party, but of the Republic. He should dread nothing but the accusing voice of history and the inexorable judgment of God. He should fully realize that Congress in its own sphere is paramount and nowise amenable to his supervision, and that the heartiest good-will to his Administration is perfectly compatible with the most pointed dissent from his inculcations on the very gravest questions in finance or political economy.
“It is the first step that costs.” Let it be settled that a President is not to be reëlected while in office, and civil service reform is no longer difficult. He will need no organs, no subsidized defenders. He will naturally select his chief counselors from the ablest and wisest of his eminent fellow-citizens, regardless alike of the “shrieks of locality” and the suggestions of a selfish policy. He will have no interest to conciliate, no chief of a powerful clan to attach to his personal fortunes. He will be impelled to appoint, as none will deny that he should appoint, men of ripe experience in business and eminent mercantile capacity to collect, keep and disburse the revenue, instead of dexterous manipulators of primary meetings and skillful traffickers in delegates to nominating conventions. No longer an aspirant to place, the President will naturally aim to merit and secure the approbation of the entire people, but especially of the eminently wise and good.
As to the machinery of boards of examiners, etc., whereby the details of civil service reform are to be matured and perfected, I defer to the judgment of a Congress unperverted by the adulterous commerce in legislation and appointments, which I have already exposed and reprehended. Up to this time our experience of the doings of boards in this direction has not been encouraging; and this, I am confident, is not the fault of the gentlemen who have tried to serve the public as commissioners. In so far as they may have failed, the causes of their ill-success must be extrinsic. Had they been accorded a fairer field, I am sure they would have wrought to better purpose. A thinker has observed that the spirit in which we work is the chief matter; and we can never achieve civil service reform until the interests which demand shall be more potent in our public counsels than those which resist even while seeming to favor it. That this consummation is not distant, I fervently trust; meantime I thank you for your earnest and effective labors to this end.