Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/474

440 contains. The truth is that the public press serves just now as the mouthpiece of discontent in all its forms—from the growl of the disappointed officeseeker to the venomous assault of the defeated jobber. If the public interests are to be advanced, the petty rivulets of individual profits must be closed up, and the latter process is painful, the former duty generally thankless.

If I may speak of that portion of public affairs which pass under my own hand and eye, I could give you a score of private interests which have been interfered with by my presence in the State Department, the vexation of each of which would account for all the published expressions of desire to have some other person in my place.

If I wanted to describe the position and objects of the President, I should say that he cares less to please anybody than to render true and permanent public service. I believe it pains him when those who supported him in the canvass from independent and personally disinterested motives express a want of faith in his steadfastness in that line of administration which he promised he would follow. Standing where he does, viewing the field of battle in every direction, he comprehends practical difficulties and deficiencies of means to overcome them, that others cannot see or comprehend. In the first place the imperfect nature of party success in 1884, which transferred the Executive control to a Democratic President but left the Senate in the hands of a well-drilled Republican majority, which in turn was compelled to conciliate a faction especially profligate and opposed to all reform in the “Readjusting” element of Mahone and Riddleberger.

Of the House of Representatives I can only say that it consisted of “solid” delegations from the Southern States, whose only bond of political unity was safety from negro and carpet-bag domination, and a party name. As to all questions of administration—fiscal policies and foreign policies—quot homines tot sententiæ. To put an end to jobbery in its many phases was a logical duty, and as you know it consists more in negation than in affirmation. I really believe all men who really love honesty