It provides that immediately upon the appointment and qualification of the chief, the terms of the present commissioners shall cease and determine, and that the terms of office of all the other officers, firemen, and employees shall also cease and determine ten days thereafter. Great care is exercised to provide that the chiefs and all the firemen and employees, appointed under the new scheme, shall be discharged only for cause, and after due hearing and an opportunity for defense; but to those now in the service, numbering about two hundred drilled and experienced men, no such privileges are accorded.
The purpose of the bill is too apparent to be mistaken. A tried, economical, and efficient administration of an important department in a large city is to be destroyed, upon partisan grounds or to satisfy personal animosities, in order that the places and patronage attached thereto may be used for party advancement.
I believe in an open and sturdy partisanship, which secures the legitimate advantages of party supremacy; but parties were made for the people, and I am unwilling, knowingly, to give my assent to measures purely partisan, which will sacrifice or endanger their interests.
VI.
Of the Texas Seed Bill.
Washington, February 16, 1887.
To the House of Representatives:
I return without my approval House bill number ten thousand two hundred and three, entitled "An Act to enable the Commissioner of Agriculture to make a special distribution of seeds in drought-stricken counties of Texas, and making an appropriation therefor."
It is represented that a long-continued and extensive drought
