Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/484

 air that comes, even to the naturally wise, only after years of important political experience, they significantly nodded their heads and deigned to remark: “O, yes, we understand politics and human nature. This efficiency-and-competitive-examination business is well enough to talk about,—to clerks and to the simple country people. We know Carl Schurz [which they variously pronounced shers or shirts, but never correctly, shoorts]; we've seen him advocatin' reform after reform, includin' that ludicrous fiasco, Horus Greeley. Since then Shers has grown less youthful and hasn't tried to climb so many rainbows. At last he has returned like the prodigal son; now he knows, or'll soon learn, how to respect Republican ways, or he'll be out of office mighty quick. He'll not long get on without our influence!” To make sure of it, that “influence” at once manifested itself by a deluge of demands upon the Secretary for office—demands oral and demands epistolary; some pleading, others threatening; some for recognition of political service in the past, others for compensation in advance for proffered service in the future. All applicants were alike in their confident persistency. And even they and the Secretary were also alike in that they were equally persistent and had many very weary months—he in reiterating, and they in hearing, his unchanging and unchangeable rule,—as lucid in expression as it was unwelcome in its import,—that clerkships were obtainable only through competitive examinations.

And even yet the thought had not dawned in the minds of the pestering politicians, that if a reformer is both sincere and intelligent, he does not forget that the only time he can ever put his ideas and himself to a test is when he obtains responsible official position. Schurz was ambitious for distinction; his whole nature craved it as a woman's does affection.