Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/451

Rh it happened, would be able to retrieve his moral standing before the people by doing all in his power to redress the wrongs which the violation of his pledge had brought with it. Those wrongs are of a very grave character. Evidently, whenever the rule has been proclaimed that no officer shall be removed except for cause, a removal will mean much more than it otherwise would. It will reflect seriously upon the character or business ability of the person removed. Any officer, therefore, removed without good cause, has been most unjustly injured in his character and reputation, and thus grossly wronged. It will scarcely do to say that under present circumstances removals are not so interpreted; for that would be equivalent to saying that President Cleveland's pledge not to remove any officer except for cause, including offensive partisanship, was a sham and entitled to no more credit than the shallow pretenses of any ordinary politician. Now, if the President in some cases, in which he had convinced himself that, in violation of his pledge, gross wrong had been done, would use his power to redress that wrong by reappointing the person wronged, his moral prestige would be retrieved and the dignity of a Presidential pledge saved, in spite of all that had happened.

But another wrong done to the President himself calls for equal attention. No man can do anything more injurious to the President, nay, more insulting to him, than to induce him either by false information or misleading advice to dishonor an important public promise given to the people, and thus to make him responsible for a thing which he would never have thought of doing of his own motion. The President, I think, would do justice to himself and to his high trust, only by holding to the severest account any officer under him guilty of such scandalous disloyalty. And now the reasons for removals