Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/449

Rh to affirm that you “have never voted any other than the straight party ticket.” The sad confusion of moral principle betrayed by the stand you thus have taken is put in a still stronger light by the glaringly untruthful statements concerning the administration of the civil service law which you have made to your constituents in your public correspondence with Mr. McAneny. I refer to this because it is characteristic of the utterly unscrupulous methods by which the war against the civil service law is being carried on. Of those statements I will recall only a few specimens to your memory.

You charged that “President Cleveland's last order, which swept into the classified service almost 50,000 employés, bears date of November 2, 1896,” and that “there is every reason to believe that the order dated November 2d was actually not written until after the result of the election of November 3d was known to the country.” By this charge you evidently intended to make your constituents believe that President Cleveland had slyly waited until the Government was certain to pass into Republican hands, and that then he had extended the operation of the civil service law to protect Democratic appointees. The truth is, and so it was shown to you, that the Executive order extending the civil service law was issued by President Cleveland on May 6, 1896, six months before the election and several weeks before either of the great political parties held its National Convention. It was also shown to you that the number of employés brought into the classified service by that order was not 50,000, but 31,372, and that at least 12,000 of these had been already subject to the examination system under separate departmental orders. Neither is it true, as you charge, that the classification of any of these employés by President Cleveland's order protected them against