Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/281

Rh shower of letters and dispatches. Whether you can support me or not you will treat this as confidential, and, I hope, let me hear from you further. 



&emsp; Your kind letter of June 27th has been forwarded to me. I can only thank you for the confidential frankness with which you speak to me and may assure you that this confidence is not misplaced. I am exceedingly glad to know that your views on civil service reform agree so well with those I ventured to submit, and that you desire to make that reform “the issue of the canvass.” In compliance with the desire you expressed at our interview last Saturday, I submit the following draft of a paragraph for your letter of acceptance:

“I have long been convinced of the necessity of a thorough and permanent reform of the civil service. Dishonest officers will have to expect from me only the most rigorous execution of the law and the strictest enforcement of personal accountability. But the reform must not confine itself to mere changes of persons, it requires a change of system. The Constitutional relations of the Executive and the Legislative branches of the Government with regard to appointments to office, as correctly defined in the Republican platform, shall be inflexibly observed. The principles acted upon by the wise founders of this Government must be our rules of conduct. They did not mean the civil service to become a system of political rewards, spoils, patronage and favoritism. They regarded not party services, but ability, honesty and fidelity as the only true qualifications for appointment and promotion. They meant that the officer should be secure in his tenure as long as his per-