Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/506

472 To my suggestion that at least some conspicuous reappointments might be made of Republican postmasters he seemed to incline favorably, and when I said that these appointments might be made to advantage outside of Massachusetts, he replied “that that too should be considered.” We then had a general conversation in which among other things the President said that he had often refused to make appointments that Senator Gorman desired, telling him plainly that it could not be done. He claimed that the collector and district attorney at Baltimore were good appointments and that Rasin the Naval Officer (whatever his antecedents) did his work well. Of Indiana he spoke as if he were disgusted and discouraged at the behavior of his party friends in that State. He recognized Mr. Swift's honesty of intention and said nothing disparaging about him. And then he said, when we got onto the inter-state commerce bill and other matters, “I can't grasp this whole thing,” meaning the whole range of Presidential responsibility—as I understood him. I have given you the points of the conversation as I recall them. Of course I have omitted many things, such as some local matters in Massachusetts. The President mentioned your letters and said that they sometimes irritated him, though he acknowledged your entire disinterestedness. The impression made upon me was that he thought you did not allow for the difficulties of his position in the immense variety of questions and subjects to which he is obliged to give attention.

Let me sum up my general impression:—If I saw the President oftener I should have an opportunity to judge better; and, even as far as it goes, I may be quite wrong in my observation. With my present light, it appears to me that the President inclines too much to look at the details of his functions and imagines that by working these out correctly he will be best able to achieve results. It is in a certain sense with him, “Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.” He has not the scientific way of going to work, of laying down his propositions and then carrying them out in a general way. He wants to make a good appointment in every case and thinks less perhaps of the prin-