Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/167

Rh give. But it has been my inflexible rule not to sign any applications for office and no recommendations, unless I am asked by the Administration in a given case. I find it important that in my position I should adhere to this rule. I am in correspondence with President Cleveland on the subject in a general way and make every possible effort to dissuade him from making, or authorizing the Post-Office Department to make, removals, or, which amounts to the same thing, refuse to make reappointments after the expiration of the four-year term, for other than business reasons. I think it advisable to confine my correspondence with him to the discussion of the general principle without going into individual cases. I am persuaded upon consideration of the whole matter, you will agree with me in this respect.

I hope, however, you will leave no stone unturned in the Norwich [Conn.] case and wish you the best success.—Cordially yours. 



When I was honored with the request to deliver this annual address, I accepted the charge with very serious misgivings. For I remembered that many successive years, on occasions like this, you have been wont to listen to a voice the exquisite charm of which still lingers in our ears and will never cease to echo in our hearts. No man can succeed George William Curtis here without being oppressed by the consciousness of inability to fill his place. It would be a vain attempt to rival his annual addresses in their abundance of knowledge and illustration, their ripeness of thought, their strength of reasoning,