Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/150

126 civil service reform cause. I am convinced, as Mr. Hoar is, that you now occupy a position in which you can deal a blow to the spoils system from which it will never recover; that by doing so you will render the country a service no less great, if not greater, than even by the reform of the tariff, and that in performing this task you can hardly find a more faithful, courageous and effective aid than Mr. Roosevelt.

Since you in our last conversation confidentially mentioned to me your difficulties in the construction of your Cabinet, you will perhaps not think it presumptuous if I add to what I then said, this further remark:

The observance of certain general principles in making appointments being a matter of detail, and the President not being able to watch every case in person, it seems important that he should have at least in the great patronage Departments, the General Post-Office, the Treasury and the Interior Departments, Secretaries upon whose sympathy and coöperation with him as to the observance of those principles he can safely depend. This appears especially necessary with regard to the General Post-Office, which owing to the multitude of the places at its disposal has usually attracted the greatest attention and caused the most scandal. The laying down of certain definite rules for the government of its operations and for the resistance to be offered to the pressure which is unavoidable, would seem to be especially called for.

Concerning the question whether the chiefs of division in the Departments should be brought under the civil service rules which was touched upon in our last conversation, I might say in addition to what I said, that it would perhaps be harmless to leave the appointment of the chiefs of division to the discretion of the chiefs of the bureaus subject to the approval of the heads of the Departments, were the chiefs of the bureaus permitted to