Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/160

136 have given and than you can give without disgrace. The character of the political school to which he belongs is warrant for this.

You are far stronger than all these politicians combined—and they know it—so long as you can overawe them with the confidence the people repose in your fearless rectitude. Any favor you grant them at the expense of your standing in the popular confidence will weaken your power over them and strengthen them against you.

I beg leave also to invite your attention to the enclosed article of the Evening Post on “The Postal Scramble.” I do not know who wrote it, but every editorial writer on the Post is your warm friend. I agree with every word he says. When the papers announced that the “executioner in the General Post-Office was busy,” I must confess that I read it with a feeling of shame as to the present and of alarm as to the future. If you, in your exceptionally strong position, with your principles and your professions of purpose and your courage, cannot stop this National scandal and disgrace, who is ever to do it? Will you not have it arrested now, direct the post-office to confine itself for the present to the filling of existing vacancies, of which there are said to be several thousand, and to cases in which removals are distinctly necessary in the interest of the service, and then slowly and gradually to divide the post-offices equally between the two parties as a basis for a permanent regulation of things? I assure you, as the work of decapitation goes on, there is much shaking of heads among your friends, and we have to meet many a derisive grin on the faces of your and our opponents.

I write this not wholly as a private individual. I am now at the head of the National Civil Service Reform League, and have to deliver the annual address on April 25th, and review the close of Mr. Harrison's and the