The Writings of Carl Schurz/To Grover Cleveland, November 15th, 1884
TO GROVER CLEVELAND
My dear Sir: I put off my congratulations until all uncertainty was over, but I need scarcely assure you that they are none the less sincere and cordial. I congratulate you not only on your personal success, but on the great opportunities before you to render the country services of inestimable value. You will have it largely in your power to relieve the people of the morbid apprehensions that the passage of the Government from one party to another involves all the perilous chances of a great revolution. You can lift party politics up to a higher plane by striking the decisive blow at the spoils system. You can extend and perpetuate the reform of the civil service. You can thus bring about a state of things in which public questions can once more be discussed on their own merits. By all this you can inspire the American people with greater confidence in their institutions and in their future than they have felt for a long time. And it cannot but be flattering to you to know that there are a great many people who believe not only that you can, but that you will do these things.
In order to accomplish them you will no doubt have to go through very hard struggles with that element whose first impulse after a victory is to reach for the spoils. I know how hard such a struggle is, for I have witnessed some of it myself. The onset on you will probably be fiercer than any we have seen in our generation. The character, and consequently the fate, of your Administration is not unlikely to be determined at the start, within the first three months, perhaps in the first thirty days after your inauguration. The crucial test will not be the tariff question; for that, I am confident, will settle itself more easily than many people now suppose. But, it is the civil service question which will present itself for decision at once, and unless decided rightly, will continue to harass you without ceasing. If you decide it rightly and firmly stick to the decision, it will stay decided, and your Administration will mark one of the most important turning-points in our political development,—so important indeed, and so salutary in its significance that to stand in history identified with it might satisfy the ambition of any man. A failure would of course be all the more deplorable as opportunities so great occur but rarely.
Will you pardon me for speaking thus freely in a letter of congratulation? Having the fullest confidence in your high purposes I thought you would not take it amiss. You can easily understand that I should feel a very deep interest in your success, and I need scarcely say that I most heartily wish your Administration may become the greatest possible honor to yourself and the greatest possible blessing to our country. If I can serve you in any way as a private citizen I shall be glad to do so. From this time on you will be approached by few men who can candidly say that they do not want from you something or other for themselves or their friends. As one of these few I might sometimes find occasion to speak to you perhaps more frankly than others differently interested, and to venture now and then upon a suggestion or the communication of some piece of experience not likely to come from those usually pressing around men in power. I would do this, of course, only if agreeable to you and without any inclination to intrude. And I wish to assure you also that whatever may come from me in this way may be received under all circumstances without the least sense of obligation on your part.
Again offering to you my cordial good wishes, I remain
Governor Grover Cleveland.