The Writings of Carl Schurz/To William Potts, June 11th, 1886
TO WILLIAM POTTS[1]
I am glad to learn that you will go to Washington so soon. As you know so well what our cause needs, I have but little to suggest. When you see the President it will be important, it seems to me, to make him well understand, that even if we could honestly overlook the mistakes made by the Administration, the just demand of our constituency that we should tell the truth, would not permit us to do so. We must tell the truth if we want to hold our forces together and preserve our influence on public opinion.
Secondly, the President ought to be assured that the inquiry resolved upon by the [Civil Service Reform] League is a movement entirely friendly to him. While it is not to whitewash anything, it is to set things in the right light, which no doubt will be favorable to him personally. At the same time, if the inquiry discovers things which he does not know, they will be laid before him before the report to the League is made, thus giving him an opportunity to right wrongs which may have escaped his attention.
I should not wonder if the President had the impression that I entertained very extreme views with regard to this business, and desired the adoption of extreme measures. The fact is that I deem it of the highest importance—and it is my principal anxiety—that the popular belief in the President's good faith be sustained, and therefore I think his pledges with regard to the removals, etc., should be carried out to the letter; these [pledges] should be conspicuous in case of any violation of them, and those exercising authority under the President should be held to respect them with the utmost strictness. It is not only the President's honor I have at heart, but the establishment of the fact that a public man's word can be kept and ought to count for something—a matter of the highest consequence to the reform cause. Furthermore, my experience convinces me that the President will not gain anything by making concessions. He will not conciliate the spoilsmen unless he gives them all, and he will lose in the opinion of the country in the same measure as he tries to conciliate the spoilsmen. Every such attempt will only create new demands and new embarrassments. He will find that the politicians most pampered with patronage are his most insidious opponents.
As to the methods followed by the Administration in making appointments and removals, it might be well to get the President's own views.
On the whole he ought to feel that, in us, he has [to] do with men who are willing to fight for him again—which they probably will have to do—and want to be enabled to do so with effect.
- ↑ Secretary of the National Civil Service Reform League.