Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/166

142 a view to its final overthrow, but without proclaiming myself its enemy, the things contained in the President's order of May 29th, together with the reasons given to justify them, would suggest themselves to me as among the most effective shifts to bring about that end.

In saying this I candidly disclaim the intention of insinuating that such was the purpose of the President, or that of his official defender in this case, the Secretary of the Treasury. On the contrary, I honestly believe that they would gladly have carried out the pledge of the Republican platform “honestly and thoroughly to enforce the civil service law and to extend it wherever practicable,” could they have done so without encountering the fierce antagonism of the so-called “practical politicians” within their own party. I further believe that in trying to appease that antagonism they would have liked to abstain from anything that might seriously injure the merit system, but that they relied upon subordinates to get suitable amendments to the civil service rules and were misled by the advice of those subordinates farther than they had originally intended to go; and that finally when the thing was done, and met with very severe criticism, not only on the part of this League but of public sentiment generally, they tried to justify their step, as men who suddenly find themselves in a false position often do, by giving all sorts of reasons for their act—reasons probably also suggested by their ingenious subordinates—which made the effects of their act and their own situation even much worse than they otherwise would have been.

This is my candid belief; and that belief is not in the slightest degree shaken by the statement made by the Secretary of the Treasury in his public defense, that several of the exemptions were never demanded of him by any politicians. No wonder, for the politicians knew