Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/159

Rh  I will give it to the Senator.

I am quite certain there were many collectors of whom that could not be true.

Here is the testimony taken by the Committee on Retrenchment, of Mr. Samuel J. Bridge.

What is the date?

September 1, 1869.

What page in the book?

Page 133. He says:

In San Francisco we have had seven collectors, and five of them have gone out in default. The office now is well conducted. I do not know of any abuses that exist in it. It was shocking at the close of Buchanan's Administration. It be came very corrupt and continued so at the beginning of Lincoln's; the new appointees fell into the old track.

I think there must be some mistake about that. I think I know of at least three collectors of whom that could not be true. And if Mr. Bridge's testimony is correct, it embraces a period of eight or ten years, during which the party of which the Senator is so honored a member had the control there.

I will certainly accept the explanation of the Senator from California, and let it be recorded that three collectors in San Francisco have gone out of office who were not defaulters.

I said, of my personal knowledge, previous to the incoming of the Republican party.

Mr. President, I was saying that, far from having that great work accomplished, after all this frantic bustle immediately consequent upon the accession of a new Administration, it continues through four years. For instance, the political machinery in New York does not work well, and a new collector has to be appointed. Then the whole structure of the civil service in the