Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/404

380 righteous impulses were so strong that he could hardly find language emphatic enough to express them—that he would, when in places of authority, never think of countenancing those mean and dangerous creatures, and that he would use his whole power to crush their influence for mischief; that when governor of New York he would leave no rightful means untried to uproot the iniquitous and demoralizing bossdom of Platt in his State; that he would lose no proper opportunity to discountenance Boss Quay of Pennsylvania, who stood for everything that was iniquitous, demoralizing and tyrannical in politics; that he would be anxious to demonstrate his utter disgust with such a creature as Addicks, who has openly invaded a State with his corruption fund to buy a seat in the Senate; that he would at least keep his Cabinet clear of men of questionable political character, and so on.

This might confidently have been expected; but what did we see? As governor of New York Mr. Roosevelt indeed promised a good civil service law and made many good appointments, but he consulted Boss Platt about public matters with a regularity which amounted to a recognition of bossdom as a legitimate institution. Whatever he may have granted or denied to the boss, nothing can be more certain than the fact that when Mr. Roosevelt ceased to be governor of his State, the power of the boss was not shaken in the least, but rather strengthened by Mr. Roosevelt's implied recognition. And this continued while he was President. And there was Quay, the most unscrupulous and despotic boss of them all—called by President Roosevelt his “stanch and loyal friend,” but who was also his influential friend, for if Quay did not wholly control under President Roosevelt the whole federal patronage in Pennsylvania, he controlled enough to maintain his absolute boss rule over that State entirely