about it, who assured me that the Commission had ample machinery for it and the measure could be immediately executed without the slightest difficulty. If it had been done at the beginning of the Administration it would already have obviated a good deal of criticism and I am sure the sooner it is done now the better it will be for the service and the more it will relieve you of trouble. It will not in the least interfere with the necessary cleaning out of the Departments, for the power of removal will remain intact. But it will put the reason for which removals are made, above suspicion. Besides, the adoption of the measure would silence much of the criticism now heard.
In connection with this I would suggest that it would be very desirable to have the Civil Service Commission put in permanent working order. I know you have been too much overrun to get to it, but it would probably not consume much of your time if you took it up. From all I can learn, General [Joseph E.] Johnston is really a mere obstruction to good work in the Commission, not much better than the late Edgerton. He seems to be at present studying how to prevent a further extension of the rules, and how to secure to the postmasters, whose offices have recently been put under the rules, an opportunity for making a clean sweep of their subordinates before the rules go actually into force. This would be like the scandal caused by the ravaging of the railway mail service at the beginning of the Harrison Administration, and ought certainly to be prevented.
Will you pardon me for confessing that something you said to me last Wednesday after dinner has really alarmed me? It was that I would be one of the first to blame you if you failed to get the necessary financial legislation through Congress by the “want of a little tact.” I have thought of it since a good deal and I cannot refrain from expressing again my conviction that the employment of
