Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/500

466 impartiality in the proceeding a flood of ridicule, which is even more hurtful than serious criticism.

The evil consequences of that act go far beyond the abandonment of that one position. It was like a flash of lightning showing many other things in a new aspect. It gave a new and a strange significance to the fact that the “offensive partisan” and “pernicious activity” business, however originally intended, had, in point of practical application, served only to cloak the removal of Republican officeholders, while Democratic officeholders were permitted to do partisan work very much as they pleased. It brought to mind the other fact, that while in Republican States many good things were done, in States which had Democratic Senators or other strong and exacting Democratic leaders, the spoils system flourished again as of old. It severely staggered the old belief that where no explanation was given of a questionable act, a creditable explanation must at least be possible. In one word, this one step has greatly diminished the number of those who were always confident that whatever you did, if not always well done, was at least always well meant.

There is a condition of public confidence under which all a man does is construed favorably, and there is another under which all is construed unfavorably. You have had all the advantages of the first. If I am not mistaken, you are now standing on the dividing line between the two. If you should drift into the second, other weak points of your Administration, which so far have plagued you comparatively little, would then rise to uncomfortable importance, in a manner sometimes quite unjust to you. Such is the Pan-Electric affair, and the retention of the Attorney-General [Garland] in the Cabinet, the generous motives for which I perfectly appreciate. Such is the