Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/458

424 over, this is a case for him to decide whose moral standing with the people is most important and most at stake.

I am so firmly convinced of the wholesomeness of the practice of regularly recording the reasons for removals, that at the last meeting of the Civil Service Association here, I introduced a resolution recommending its introduction either by law or Executive regulation, and it is probable that something to that effect will be adopted at the meeting of the executive committee of the National Civil Service Reform League which will meet on February 16th, the same body to which you addressed your letter containing the pledge concerning removals. Would it not be a happy circumstance if before that time an Executive order like the one here suggested were already issued, so that we might pass a resolution of congratulation instead of one recommending such a step to be taken?

Pardon me for cautioning you against a class of persons whom I know from my own experience,—persons trying to ingratiate themselves with men in power by telling them that those who find fault are a set of mere malevolents and that everything is “all right” with the people. In this respect the atmosphere of Washington is peculiarly deceitful. It is not “all right with the people” in the present instance. There is much criticism of the removals outside of the circle of hostile partisan Senators. I regret to say that I have in my possession a considerable number of letters from Maryland, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and even from New England, letters from men who supported you, and many of whom write to me because they followed my leadership in 1884, that, judging from the removals and appointments they witness in their vicinity, it is “after all pretty much the old thing over again.” This, of course, is extremely unjust, for they overlook the great good that you have really accomplished. But it is a kind of injustice to which all those