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The Spoils System.

trict? True, he ought never to have recommended this man for office, but can he now afford to make enemies of him and his clan? True, the integrity of the service and the public interest are entitled to consideration; but can he afford that consideration when one of his appointees is concerned and he himself has so much at stake? Well, he seeks to have the removal recalled. He does not find a willing ear. He begs, he protests, he blusters, he threatens, he entreats, he implores the Administration to do a thing which he knows it cannot do without being false to its public duty.

But still other complications come to plague him. The Administration follows some policy which he feels himself in conscience bound to oppose; or vicious practices are discovered in some Government Department which his sense of duty commands him to denounce. His first impulse is to obey that command. But—has he not appeared before the President and before the Department chiefs as a petitioner for favors in the shape of offices for his friends? Will he not have to solicit similar favors again, and if he criticises and opposes the Administration, will it not have the power not only to refuse further favors needed by him, but even to remove the persons appointed upon his recommendation? Nay, may not those very persons, his political retainers, the members of his home machine, if he opposes the Administration, turn against him and denounce him as a mugwump and a renegade, for the purpose of winning the favor of the Administration and of thus saving